Inside talk

I think most of us expect progress to come in huge, sweeping waves. And sometimes it does. 

But in most cases, for most things, those waves are more like ripples on the surface. Small. Subtle. But there. 

So it is with mental health. 

When you've been stressed and anxious for a long time, and the main stressor is removed, you might expect to feel an instant release. A euphoric blast of anti-stress! 

I haven't found that. But what I have found is that the signs of mental health progress are there. You just need to know what you're looking for. For me, that improvement is far less about how I feel than what I do. 

Stress leads to a lot of symptoms. Among them tiredness, anxiety, bloating, sore muscles, lack of enthusiasm - and so on. It is a fallacy that those things could ever just up sticks and disappear overnight. You can feel those things for a long time after the cause, that main stressor, is gone. 

But what you do, that's different. 

A small example. I was very stressed and then one day, the stressor was gone. Rehomed, to be precise. The physical symptoms of that stress hadn't gone anywhere. They hadn't had the time! But amidst myriad quotidian activities I did a few novel things. 

I looked at my car and saw the pile of recyclable goods I'd chucked in there days - or was it a week? - before. The boxes, fabrics, plastic packaging. I had nothing on, so hopped in the car and ran them up to the recycling centre. I was home within 20 minutes. 

That was a ripple. 

I remembered about cold water swimming and the group that meets at my local beach; I requested to join the local FB group. Another ripple. 

These are ripples precisely because they're things that I wasn't doing, wasn't capable of doing or even considering, when I was more stressed. But proactively dealing with mess and proactively seeking out a fun activity, for me, are signs of good mental health. 

Or maybe not being proactive is a sign of poor health. 

Either way, how I felt on that day was really not different to the previous weeks or months. But what I was doing, the small awareness and decision making, was like a beacon of light. Of positivity. And it gave me a huge boost that, even if I was still tired and feeling stressed, my actual stress, or anxiety, was going down. 

I have no clarity when I'm more stressed. I have what feels like uncapped clarity when I'm less stressed. 

For me, progress means little shafts of clarity breaking through. It means doing good things, and observing myself doing good things (typically with mild surprise) that I wouldn't, couldn't, didn't do before.  

Now excuse me, I'm off to play guitar and do my calf raises - because I sure as shit wasn't doing that a few weeks ago.