Grounding Myself

I like walking for so many different reasons.  One night last week I found a new one, a "Sensory Grounding" walk.  The past two weeks have been getting a little bit more difficult with some of my symptoms.  I've had a couple hallucinations, my senses are on full alert, which can drive me bonkers, not to mention make my anxiety shoot way up and fuel my emotions and feelings of frustration or anger or discontent.  My paranoia has been getting a bit concerning as well, not to the point of scary, but to the point of me saying, "um, yeah, I've got to call my psychiatrist before this could become something.". I am at an advantage in that I have been through this enough and had therapy and done a ton of work on my own, so that I can recognize it and make a conscious choice right now.  This is one of the reasons medication is so, so important, and I was neglectful and lazy about it which helped trigger what I'm starting to go through now.  Medication takes the edge off enough so that you can be clear enough to think and do the work necessary to move through it.

I hallucinated my curtains bursting into green flames and the wicked witch form Wizard of Oz cackling in silhouette.  I also hallucinated white moths flying out of my refrigerator.  And today I watched a car drive by that appeared as if I was watching an old silent movie or something pixelated, it's like jumpy and missing frames and slow motion.  It's weird when this happens, like a glitch in my brain.  I don't know if this is a part of my hallucinations or more a part of my dissociating, which is another topic I'll have to delve into discussing in another post. Needless to say, this week I've had lots of twinges of feeling like I would crawl out of my skin, but I was working every day, so one night I took a grounding walk.  This is something I made up I guess, just by doing it, although it probably is a thing, but roughly based off of the grounding technique where you name and notice things relating to your senses that are real at this moment.  So like, things you can hear, see, taste, smell, touch.  I actually didn't intentionally do this at first.  I went on a walk and just noticed two snails on the sidewalk as it was right after a rainstorm, and I halted to watch them slowly move for a minute, which slowed my breathing, and started getting me to notice little things along my walk.  I always notice a lot when I walk, but this was a lot more focused and got me in to smaller details.  It was an interesting way to take a walk.  It reminded me of taking my son Cody for walks when he was four years old.  He had a fascination with sprinklers and walks took forever as he would stoop down at each sprinkler head at every lawn along the sidewalk to examine them.

Tonight I took notice in contrasts between colors, patterns, textures, light and dark, coolness and warmth, wet and dry, synthetic smells vs. natural scents, the way things appeared closeup vs. at a distance, the difference between how I felt listening to certain songs and quietness or sounds in the environment.  When was the last time you took the time to walk in such a way?  I highly recommended trying it out and seeing if it improves or balances your thoughts or mood or gives you a sense of stillness or gratitude, or eases any built up tension or anxiety.

I noticed different types, shapes, and colors of leaves, seedpods, stems.

         

I saw morning glory that was "sleeping" against tall blades of grasses.  

I saw how interesting it was that this one tree had purple leaves except for random branches that grew green leaves just right at the end then turned to purple further down the branch.  

I observed the "hinges" on a roly-poly as it moved.  

I found strawberries growing along a sidewalk. 

I was awed by the patterns of light and color on the clouds as the sun sank lower on the horizon.                            

       

I felt the coolness of droplets of water spray on my legs.  

                                           I marveled at the intricacies of color striations in rocks.  

I smelled the natural scent of dampened bark.  

I thought how there is even beauty in the head of a clover.  

I stopped at the neighborhood little library stand, which I have only ever left books in, but I found a book, I as a mapper, found intriguing, "A Map of the World." 

 

I was listening to songs that inspire me, but at one point I took of my headphones to just listen to the environment around me.  I stooped down and rubbed my hand across different rough textures which really helped calm down some of my sensory overstimulation.

I rock, sway and pace, and stim a lot with my fingers and hands and toes and pick at my skin.  This is something you may have heard is common with those on the autism spectrum, but it is also true for those with any type of psychotic or mood disorder.  There are some crossovers between the autism spectrum and psychotic spectrum disorders, which makes sense as these are both really brain disorders caused by miss-firings or over-firing of neurons and imbalances in neurotransmitters and brain chemistry.  Which is no different than any other physical ailment in the body.  I don't get why that is so hard for people to understand, when someone has psychological symptoms, it is a physical condition in the brain, not something I chose or can control.

My sensory walk was so insightful and I felt calm and at peace when I got home.

                                                                               

The next night I took another walk, this time I mostly was just enjoying the sensations of the breeze.  I then had a startling moment as I lifted my hand to push my hair out of my eyes.  I had a moment of hallucinating my hand covered in dried blood.  I knew it was not real.  But I kind of put my head in my hands and sighed because it felt a little defeating.  It didn't stop me up but I admit I hesitated for just a moment, remembering how this is my daily life, like it or not.  

Now I realized today that I had a couple more hallucinations over the weekend.  I saw people and cars that were not there.  I heard one of the cars honk at me and someone inside waved and said "hello."  I waved back.  My husband, nor our girls hear it.  I saw someone with a dog turn around when we approached them on an evening walk together and Matt walked ahead.  I watched the person walking behind Matt and looking back at me at the park.  Matt said there was no one there.  I watched them the whole time we were there lying in the grass talking.  I wasn't scared.  But sometimes it is terrifying and you get completely pulled in to it and nothing anyone else says can convince you that what all your senses are telling you is not reality.  I didn't have a clue it was not real until the next day, when I started questioning and asking Matt if he saw and heard any of it.  It appears completely rational and normal to me when that happens.  Except it's not.  And I am very fortunate I was able to figure it out this time.  When I have long stretches of stability I use that time to fortify myself and my mind to fight when the time comes to fight.  I can rely on my rational times to back me up so I can tell myself over and over what is real and is not, no matter what my head wants to tell me, I have to choose to fight like hell, because all of my senses will deceive me.  I'm proud of me, for choosing to keep fighting.  Sometimes my every inclination is not to, but I won't be broken.

More often than not it leaves me feeling isolated, misunderstood, judged, mischaracterized, minimized, unheard, unnoticed, unneeded, unwanted, and unaccepted.  This blog is just one little way for me to express, so if you have taken the time to read anything I have written, I hope something I say can help you see things with a little different perspective and that it can maybe affect how you might treat or view someone else in their journey.

*Disclaimer:  I am NOT a graphic artist and have no skill at blogging or layout.  So please, cut me some slack.  I know it isn't pretty.  Inserting the pictures of my walk was important to me, but the struggle is real.  😂