I knit so I don't unravel. part 1

I've been musing on how to share this part of my life for quite awhile now. Talking about Mental Health is always pretty loaded. But there's a lot of work being done in the world to reduce the stigma around mental health and more and more people are talking about it, openly. 

We don't shy away from talking about how a broken bone or a physical illness affects our lives, but we often do when it's a mental illness. 

It's very, very, very scary for me to type this story. But it's also time. Time for me to share the healing and support I've found as I dance with Depression and Anxiety. 

Time, because I'm in a strong and healthy place (currently). Time, because the sun is shining today and I feel good. Maybe that will change tomorrow, but by then it will be to late - this will be published and out in the world. 

People often tease me a little because I knit A LOT. I don't mind, but I do want you to know why I do. 

I learned to knit on the advice of my therapist. 

Yup, therapist.

I've been seeing this particular therapist for the past 2 years. I've been in various styles of therapy over the course of my life. Different people at different times have walked with me as I walk with depression,  anxiety and a fun new friend - OCD.

Accckkkkk! I just said two super scary loaded words out loud. (We'll not 'out loud' out loud, but you know what I mean).

Depression and anxiety have been dance partners pretty much my whole life.

OCD - that's new.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder comes in a variety of colours and flavors. We're pretty familiar with the ones that are flashy and make for good character traits in movies - washing hands 100s of times a day, flicking light switches on and off a certain number of times, doing the same with door locks.

But then there's the quieter OCD cousins ICD - Impulse Control Disorder - they carry a lot more stigma and have very long complicated names:

Trichotillomania
Dermatillomania

Fancy and scary words for pulling out your hair and picking at your skin.

Not just a sort of idle, occasional yanking out a hair on you head, or worrying a scab.

This is compulsive, done often with out realizing your doing it and impossible to stop once you start.

Even when you know it's creating problems for yourself. And add to that a peculiar sense of relief, satisfaction and comfort  that results from the action which makes it intensely relaxing. 

Ya, I know, weird right? How can something than often hurts be both intense and relaxing. How can I logically explain this? I can't. Logic doesn't play a role. 

Spock has left the star ship and Kirk is running amuck. 

and I pick.

I pick at the skin on my arms and will keep at it until I am bleeding and covered in scabs. It doesn't help that I can a skin condition:  Keratosis Pilaris, which creates the perfect little bumps for me to pick at. 

At its worst I once had more than 100 scabs on each arm.

It was in winter. I wore long sleeves for weeks.

So how in the hell does this relate to knitting?

Knitting in repetitive. Knitting in Repetitive. Knitting is repetitive. 

And you know what those little OCD voices in someones head like best - repeating things, over and over and over and over. 

Seriously, just typing that was oddly pleasing. 

When my therapist saw my arms - she looked at me and in her very dead pan way of speaking said, "you need to learn how to knit." 

She gave me other suggestions too to help control the picking and encouraged me to look at ways of lessening the skin condition, so there was less to pick at. 

But mostly she said - Knit. 

"Give your hands something to do that isn't destructive."

Cuz that's the thing, isn't it? The more I try to keep my hands still, the more I try to quash whatever anxiety I'm feeling that's making me want to scratch or pick the more control I lose and the more I pick and scratch. 

The more out of control I feel, the more anxious I become and the more I want to pick and scratch. 

My therapist helped me to take control. Control of both my anxiety and the resulting behaviors. 

So I knit. I knit a lot. It give my hands something to do and it give my head the opportunity to think creatively. 

All of the excess energy my brain creates in over thinking things, in being anxious about things I re channel into creativity, expression and art. Something my depression has taken from me in the past. 

Recently a new book about Van Gogh's Mental Illness was been published - it takes a new look at what Vogh suffered during his short life. I haven't read it yet, but we have learned so much about Mental Health in the last few years alone, that reexamining the life of such a troubled artist is worth while. 

I understand the strange tangle that is is creative expression, anxiety, depression, hope and anguish, but I struggle to put those feelings into words. 

So I'm left with the dance, the songs stuck on repeat and my yarn. I knit, so I don't unravel.