Have you ever felt that the world is spinning far too fast?

Me too. Today I find myself lying in bed praying for snow so that when I wake, the world will have ground to a halt and nature’s blanket will have hushed the noise.

Beechams, hot water bottles, strepsils and woollen socks, all trending at the supermarket to get us through this time of year. I have phoned in sick today but will be reaching for none of those things. Though I do need my pyjamas, my remedies are for the mind. When I have found myself in this place before, good friends have reflected that what helps me most is finding the right people to process difficult thoughts and emotions with. I reach for my phone and send a message to someone I rarely speak with but who gets me, who does not offer advice but listens well and is curious about the way my brain works, and happens to specialise professionally in areas of the mind. I let her know that she may receive some long monologgy voice notes from me today whilst I do some processing, that I do not require a response particularly, I just need to release my thoughts into the world. Similarly, I pick up my husband’s iPad and retrieve WordPress from the cloud and begin to write. I have no other plans today apart from the inkling that I may need to watch The Sound of Music, which never fails to soothe my soul. I know every word and warbling along will stimulate my vagus nerve.

I arm myself with water. It’s cleansing transparency washes me internally and certainly helps this frazzled, wrinkled, spinning brain of mine. I am ready to go.

I do see a therapist as part of my job and she has taught me a lot about myself. (I have been in this job for six years and have been seeing her for five. Can you believe I have had a job for six years! The longest I have had a job prior to this is the three years I was a Door Supervisor, and I was on mat leave for one of those. Ha.) Anyway, back to the therapist. My next appointment is in 12 days time. I could ask to bring it forward but actually I try not to. I think it is important to give myself space and time to utilise the tools I have obtained over the years and to reach out to the rest of my HR department, and by that I am referring to my friends and fam. It takes a village to maintain a brain, a therapist can be great but they are only part of the village. And I am responsible for my own brain and need to learn to look after it better.

When I am reflecting on my brain’s behaviour over the years, I often think that perhaps I have just been rather foolish in not listening to my body sooner. When many people get tired, they rest. When something alarms them, they retreat. Perhaps if I had allowed myself to respond in that way I would not have developed these unhelpful patterns of behaviour I now need to dismantle and rebuild. During an internship when I was 20 years old, we were regularly told ‘you don’t call in sick, you crawl in sick.’ Sick days were not tolerated. I should have realised that was nonsense and rebelled against it then but I was foolishly led down that path and showed no resistance. When crisis strikes, is it Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn? For me, I just do a freaky dance off against myself and hope for the best.

When I trained in Open Dialogue I learned that psychosis is a psychological resource of the mind. Having experienced psychosis, this fascinated me, and I have thought about this a lot over the years. My anti-psychotic meds make life much more stable for myself and those around me, and enable me to function, but whenever I become unwell I get the feeling there is a buried boil beneath the surface of my brain that needs to burst in order to heal properly. With this in mind, I pause and ask myself, what may be the buried boil today? Perhaps that’s something I will figure out, or perhaps I just need some time to rest to process all the stress of the past few months.

Enough for now. I am off to climb every mountain, ford every stream. And all whilst wearing my pyjamas.

By Stacey Marriott, Night Light Cafe Manager

The Night Light Café offers a safe space and a listening ear for whenever life feels difficult. If you need to chat or want some company, the Night Light Café is open every night of the week in Lincoln and various evenings around the county. For our full timetable visit How Are You Lincolnshire | Night Light Cafés