Mental Health Matters | Mental tornadoes

Coffee image for Film Stories' regular mental health column
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In our regular spot where we chat about mental health, a few words on the days when the brain just isnā€™t going to play ball.


This week, I would like to talk about being introverted. Actually, no – let’s discuss procrastination. Then again, it could be helpful to start acknowledging the end of Spooky Season and the run up to The Festive Season. Although, insomnia is also begging to be discussed.

But what I actually want to say is… I don’t know what I want to say.

Truth is, I don’t know what I am thinking or feeling, right now. Life has become a little overwhelming, and all the many stresses and strains of life have joined forces with my chronic health conditions and the changing seasons. Throw a little financial worry on top, a pinch of self-loathing, and a couple of drops of pain, and we have all the ingredients we need to create the perfect mental tornado.

There is so much happening in my mind that I am unable to find a single coherent thought. My emotions, which are tenuous at best, are fading into numbness. Not a shred of motivation or inspiration can be found. I don’t have the energy to do anything. Worst of all, it seems my bulimic behaviours are returning with a frequency I had hoped was gone for good.

It’s a nightmare.

People often describe having nightmares like horror films; terrible events, tragic, painful, scary…etc. They are the clowns chasing people down the street with weapons, but you’ve lost the ability to run. They are the seeking of a loved one whom you can hear is in danger, but you can’t seem to locate, no matter how hard you try. They are the Freddy Krueger monsters in the maze-like corridors of a place you normally know so well.

But not for me. My nightmares are different.

It is a standard dream; most recently it was that I was in a supermarket, and I was comparing bags of rice. Boring, right? I can hear the music being played on the in-house radio station, other shoppers, children begging for treats, and tills beeping. I can see the shelves upon shelves of perfectly stocked food. And I am aware of the trolley beside me, waiting for me to hurry up.

But over the course of the dream, everything starts to get louder, faster, bigger, taller, and it starts to spin, slowly at first but speeding up all the time. Eventually my nightmare is me holding a bag of rice while being trapped in a dome of spinning, growing, screaming, speeding terror, unable to recognise even one thing, until I can’t take anymore… and I wake up.

It is the loss of control and the lack of understanding that scares me, along with the fact that everything can just be so ordinary one minute and so intense the next. Too intense. Scares the rude words right out of me.

And that is what is currently happening, nonstop, in my head. It is a constant nightmare. There is so much happening all at once that I can’t find a single thing to pull out of this whirling, shrieking mess to deal with.

So, I guess the point is that there is no real point. Sometimes we just have to struggle through, as uninspiring as that sounds. We just have to let the clock tick on while we wait for the storm to pass. Only then can we begin to sift through the debris and get back on track. We’re only human and we can’t have it together all the time.

If you need me I’ll be in my bunker, wrapped in a duvet. Feel free to get your own duvet, and weā€™ll do this together.

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