Maybe I could use this one day.
Hello! It's been 3 weeks since my last blog which is fairly pitiful, and for that I'm very sorry. Over the past few weeks I have started a few different posts, but I never finished any of them and nothing got posted. With mental health awareness week last week, I started a blog that was meant to discuss openly about some issues and ended up pouring a whole lot of stuff that no-one wants to read on to a page. Even though that post is pretty much useless to everyone else, it did me some good to just put my feelings on to paper (or screen) and recognise them. For this blog, I've given myself 30 minutes to just whack it out, so let's see what happens.
Recently I've been feeling very lonely up in sunny Scotland, and that has impacted my mood and therefore my efforts with plastic-free living. I started off my time in Scotland being super strict with myself about plastic; I was fresh off the mark and was feeling good. At the end of the week, I was not feeling good. I had lost a lot of weight (which is fine), and was noticing some unpleasant effects of the rapid diet change on my health. As time goes on, I'm learning more tricks to get back to a healthier way of life, while being plastic free, but that has taken a while. As I got more lonely and low, I started to slip up and make allowances for myself so that I could get treats to lift my mood occasionally. This causes me conflict as I don't really want to compromise my mental health, but I don't condone damaging our wildlife to do so. After all, when I am at my lowest, being with nature and wildlife always lifts my mood, and is just so beautiful and calming that it helps you centre yourself.
My mental health and living "ethically" have always been linked, especially as I'm someone who has OCD. Having obsessive compulsive disorder means that I can worry about the smallest decision that I make, whether it was an active choice or not, up to the point where I question "COULD THIS KILL SOMEONE?". Essentially, I think through all the potential outcomes that could come from this decision. When you put making decisions about throwing stuff away into the equation, suddenly you have someone who is well on their way to being a hoarder. People with OCD are not necessarily tidy, in fact my university friends used to refer to my room as the "hoarder's paradise". To be fair, this is partly because I'm super messy, but I also get highly attached to everything, even pieces of string that "maybe I could use one day...". When it comes down to throwing things away such as clothing tags or broken coat-hangers, the panic that the plastic will be there for so many years blocks me from throwing them away, and soon enough I'm surrounded by boxes of useless items, each with their own reason for keeping.
This past year, after starting therapy and having some major improvements with my mental health, I've been getting rid of a whole lot of stuff. This didn't come without it's guilt, I picture all of the things that I threw away stacking up in landfill and it made me feel terrible. However, I learned that I can take something from it; rather than becoming okay with throwing things away, I need to learn not to buy all the crap in the first place. This guilty conscience led to me to the decision to stop using single-use plastic, and I'm grateful for that. But I've also got to stick to the advice I give everyone; I can only do what I am capable of, and for that I have to consider my mental health. I've only got two minutes left to wrap this up, so if you take anything away from this: please value both the health of the planet and your mental health. Hopefully, caring for the first will help you care for the second, but if it doesn't, give yourself time and build up to it; you've got this.
Thanks for reading,
Liv
P.S. I'm here for anyone who wants to chat about anything mental health related, please seek help if you know you need it.
Recently I've been feeling very lonely up in sunny Scotland, and that has impacted my mood and therefore my efforts with plastic-free living. I started off my time in Scotland being super strict with myself about plastic; I was fresh off the mark and was feeling good. At the end of the week, I was not feeling good. I had lost a lot of weight (which is fine), and was noticing some unpleasant effects of the rapid diet change on my health. As time goes on, I'm learning more tricks to get back to a healthier way of life, while being plastic free, but that has taken a while. As I got more lonely and low, I started to slip up and make allowances for myself so that I could get treats to lift my mood occasionally. This causes me conflict as I don't really want to compromise my mental health, but I don't condone damaging our wildlife to do so. After all, when I am at my lowest, being with nature and wildlife always lifts my mood, and is just so beautiful and calming that it helps you centre yourself.
My mental health and living "ethically" have always been linked, especially as I'm someone who has OCD. Having obsessive compulsive disorder means that I can worry about the smallest decision that I make, whether it was an active choice or not, up to the point where I question "COULD THIS KILL SOMEONE?". Essentially, I think through all the potential outcomes that could come from this decision. When you put making decisions about throwing stuff away into the equation, suddenly you have someone who is well on their way to being a hoarder. People with OCD are not necessarily tidy, in fact my university friends used to refer to my room as the "hoarder's paradise". To be fair, this is partly because I'm super messy, but I also get highly attached to everything, even pieces of string that "maybe I could use one day...". When it comes down to throwing things away such as clothing tags or broken coat-hangers, the panic that the plastic will be there for so many years blocks me from throwing them away, and soon enough I'm surrounded by boxes of useless items, each with their own reason for keeping.
This past year, after starting therapy and having some major improvements with my mental health, I've been getting rid of a whole lot of stuff. This didn't come without it's guilt, I picture all of the things that I threw away stacking up in landfill and it made me feel terrible. However, I learned that I can take something from it; rather than becoming okay with throwing things away, I need to learn not to buy all the crap in the first place. This guilty conscience led to me to the decision to stop using single-use plastic, and I'm grateful for that. But I've also got to stick to the advice I give everyone; I can only do what I am capable of, and for that I have to consider my mental health. I've only got two minutes left to wrap this up, so if you take anything away from this: please value both the health of the planet and your mental health. Hopefully, caring for the first will help you care for the second, but if it doesn't, give yourself time and build up to it; you've got this.
Thanks for reading,
Liv
P.S. I'm here for anyone who wants to chat about anything mental health related, please seek help if you know you need it.
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