My Wellbeing Course Journey.

[Banjoman]

Hello Everyone,

Some of you may know I have been struggling, with no luck,
to find a bulk billing psychologist in my area. The other week some helpful
members from this very forum suggest I try getting in contact with the MindSopt
Clinic -- a free service for Australian adults who are experiencing difficulties
with anxiety, stress, depression and low mood.

After completing an online test on the MindSpot website I
received a phone call from a psychologist who talked about my results, asked me
further questions, and offered me a place in an online course for people with
depression, low mood, and anxiety.

This week I enrolled and started The Wellbeing Course online.
The course aims to provide information and teach skills for managing symptoms
and keeping our emotional well-being within the healthy range. I would like to
share my journey through this week by week course, mainly regarding what I am
learning. I hope that some of the information I share may be helpful, interesting,
to some of you or even inspire a conversation. Sharing will also, I believe,
help me install the lessons I am learning.

Feel free to ask me any questions and I will try my best to answer.

[Guest_554]

Hi all.

I am now into week 2 of the well being course through 'Mind spot'. These 2 weeks have some more reading and some DIY tasks about challenging thoughts, I am looking forward to printing them off and getting into it.

My therapist contacted me again to congratulate me on finishing the first week and to wish me well for the next step. It is a great course and highly recommend people who are interested to check it out. 🙂

[highlysensitivepersonhsp]

Hello Busybee and Banjoman.

I have been inspired and motivated to take the questionnaire at Mind Spot.

Once I answered the questions I chose my experience with trauma as my priority.

I am waiting for the report and a phone call to discuss treatment options.

I was traumatised back in 1999/2000 and have had no one to speak to about it.

If anyone is wanting to help, I would appreciate a listening ear.

Sandra

[Guest_128]

Hi Sandra,

I am not that good at writing properly but I would like to hear your story.

Have you posted it somewhere or are you going to make a new thread??

let me know ?

Later

[Banjoman]

Hello Everyone,
Before I go over Lesson 2 I would like to recap on the previous lesson regarding Symptom Cycles with my notes.
Notes:
There are three main types of symptoms, which are in a cycle, of poor emotional wellbeing that we need to acknowledge in order to help ourselves.

• Unhelpful Thoughts – what we think (e.g. I am always going to be a loser)

• Physical Symptoms – what we feel in our bodies (e.g. stress, night sweats, and fatigue)

• Unhelpful Behaviours – things that we do or don’t do (e.g. lying in bed, avoiding house work)

And it is import to remember that these cycles of symptoms that can go in any direction.

The first part of lesson 2 is looking at unhelpful thoughts and their role in the Cycle of Symptoms. The second part of the lesson looks at the importance of challenging thoughts using a 3 step process - Recognise, Examining and Doing Something.

Personally, I have heard of Thought Challenging before doing this lesson, trying it in my early years of depression and anxiety. I have always believed that Thought Challenging was about me negotiating, or even pleading, with my anxiety to let me do things like having a good night sleep or just to have a normal day productive day. So with this belief I had already put on my sceptacles (my metaphoric term for seeing things through sceptically view) before reading the lesson.

But, I can honestly say, after now working through this lesson, I have a new understanding of what it means to challenge a thought, and it that it takes time, tears and bravery to make it work for you.

Let’s look at unhelpful thoughts.

Thoughts are the things we say to ourselves in our heads and the beliefs we have. Our thoughts often change when we experience symptoms of anxiety and low mood. We all know that anxiety and depression put us at greater risk of having lots of unhelpful and negative thoughts. Unhelpful thoughts are important to acknowledge because they have a big impact on our emotional wellbeing and keep the Cycle of Symptoms going. This is often because they lead us to do things that are unhelpful and they can stop us from doing things that are helpful.

Some of you, like myself with anxiety, know how negative thoughts can be debilitating and scary, so we often don’t question them and instead assume they are correct or helping us.

Continues Next Post Bellow

[Banjoman]

The lesson explains that experiencing stress, anxiety, low mood and depression can affect our brain and how we think over all. Specifically, this can automatically bias our thinking so we are at greater risk of having unhelpful, negative and unrealistic thoughts. In other words, our stressed brains make us overgeneralises, jump to conclusions, catastrophises and or give up on anything we think of that matters to us or to others. It is good to note that the brain dose this automatically to protect us from dangerous situations. But the biases to our thinking are not always triggered at the right time and they are not always helpful.

Thought Challenging

Doing this part of the lesson was difficult for me to comprehend or even believe it would work at first. But Therapists at Mind Spot stated, with backed research, that challenging ones thoughts is the most effective to deal with unhelpful and negative thoughts.

Half way through the lesson I stopped to take a break, still in my negative sceptical mood, I went to off to do other things...watch TV. The subject of thought challenging was still fresh in my mind along with the doubt about it the whole idea. Just then, stupefying as it was, it hit me. Why don’t I just challenge the thought of my scepticism towards the Mind Spot Thought Challenging method? What is the worst that could happen? I learn something new? So form then on I dedicated my time to learn with an open mind. This in itself was personal and metal triumph I am proud to state.

There 3 steps of Thought Challenging.

1. Recognise the Thought – check what you’re thinking when you notice a drop in mood or an increase in anxiety. Note: It is okay if you cannot identify the exact thought. You can guess what you might be thinking.

2. Examine the Thought – Is this a helpful or unhelpful thought? Is this thought helping me to feel better or do what I want to do? Is it a fair thought? Is the thought accurate?

3. Do Something Helpful - This is the most important step. If the thought is unrealistic, then think of something more helpful you could say to yourself instead. Do something helpful to help yourself feel better and to cope with whatever you’re struggling with, even if it small.

I will give you one my own examples going through the thought challenging steps with my own negative thoughts on the next post bellow.

[Banjoman]

Recognise the Thought
‘Another day, I know going to be lazy and useless again’.

Examine the Thought
What is this thought doing for me? Nothing and it is certainly not helping me do what I need to do today. This thought makes me feel terrible.

Do Something Helpful
I told myself that I know I have been productive before and I can be again. I got out of bed and put some headphones on with my favourite music. Within 8 minutes, I made my bed, folded my laundry, straightened the room opened the windows to the sun.

I right way I noticed my mood change and that negative thought had little power left. I have been using the 3 step Thought Challenging method for a week now. Sometimes things get too overwhelming to process but sometimes the steps help.

I feel the key is persistence here.I am looking forward to the next lesson.

Thank you for reading.

Feel free to ask me any questions and I will try my best to answer.

Banjoman,

[Croix]

Dear Banjoman~

I hope you do not mind me popping in here to thank you for the story about the fish and chips shop in

Forums / Staying well / Store Your Happy Memories Here

A gentle memory. I'm very pleased you enjoy that thread too, it's designed to lift the sad times one can find here in the Forum and create a feeling of well-being, much like the aim of your course,

Croix

[highlysensitivepersonhsp]

Thank you Banjoman for the time and effort you put into those posts. I need to read them through several times before I can learn to apply them.

I have identified that my barrier to change and hence my trigger for low mood is my pride, which is also wrapped up in shame. I was traumatised many years ago by people who never disclosed their motives for their behaviour. So I could not make sense of what they were doing to me.

I took a massive hit to my self esteem, my confidence and my self worth. The effects crippled me mentally and made me very sick. But I have worked hard to overcome the illness. Because the doctors will not acknowledge my ability and accomplishment, I feel shame about my experience.

But I realise that this is a dependent attitude upon people who are the perpetrators of my trauma. I am trying to cultivate self pride and self recognition in myself without the need for relationship to others. But it's hard. I have a habitual response to want such things from others rather than just me. It is a habit I am determined to break. So I can be free of them once and for all.

i am resourceful. I have mental strength and good skills for finding solutions. I am lucky that way. Have you struggled with such feelings? Wanting to be independent but feeling a desire for something from others that they are not willing to give? I have thoughts like I deserve more from them. That it is not right or fair. It shakes my faith in people and the world.

i come back to my core three principles. To live consciously. To live responsibly. To live independently. My trauma has tested all three. I hope to win this last battle over dependency. I see it as part of being a fully formed adult.

Let me know what you think.

Sandra.

[highlysensitivepersonhsp]

Thanks Later. I have written a little about my struggles with dependence in the post previous to this one. Feel free to comment or ask questions.

My trauma is about being cut off from the world and forced into retreat to work on my mind. I have made much progress, but the process of isolation is hard to take sometimes. I get no help from anyone. How about you? Have you found any guidance and support? If so, where?

Thanks. Sandra

[Banjoman]

Hello Sandra,

I am glad to see your getting something out of my posts. I hope your course journey is helping you too.

I am sorry to hear about your struggles with independence, and people causing trauma to you.

I have read, somewhere, that appreciation and recognition from is a fundamental human need. If you ever learn to do that independently, I applaud you. I struggle with getting approve from others, more so in the past. I try to be self approving these days. Years ago I was in a relationship where I was consistently afraid of losing respect from my partner for myriad of reasons, including the way I said things, to the time I lost another job. I also had some close friends who used me mentally and financially for years. I let them because I was scared of losing their approval. This made me feel personal worthless.

Know that I think about it now, I wish they would warned you in school about unhealthy ways of obtaining appreciation and recognition from others.

And as far as world views. Well I have stopped giving a hoot. You see, I use to be so opinionated on everything that happened in the news and world, which naturally progressed me to be opinionated on everything in life too. Then one day I caught myself saying something stupid, almost borderline racist in topic. It was as if I stepped out of my body and saw my self for the first time as a human. It is fair to say, I didn't like that image of a pointless man I had become. From then on I stopped reading and watching the news. It wasn't easy, news is everywhere, but coming close to 5 years now with my head in the sand and I love it. I fill the news void with reading books, watching movies and listening to podcasts. Honestly I am happier in life now more than ever. Though I still struggle with anxiety and depression, I and others have noticed that my cynicism has gone away and my attitude to life is better.

Banjoman,