It's my turn to drive!

I'm taking control, and taking the wheel on my recovery journey!

Photo by averie woodard on Unsplash

Hello friends,

Spring is in full flow now in the UK isn’t it? I’m thoroughly enjoying my daily walks, spending time paying close attention to the trees and other plants growing around me, and the birds flying overhead.

I’m certain I saw a pair of buzzards above my street a couple of days ago, which gave me a huge burst of joy, as I only normally notice birds of prey when I go further into green spaces. But I often forget just how much green space there is around me. It's funny how we get so used to the everyday isn’t it?

The view from my front door, and yet I’m only just realising just how much nature is all around!

Since depression took away my love of music, putting a stop to me walking with headphones everywhere I go, I have become so much more aware of nature and particularly bird song, that I’m sometimes almost grateful for the loss of music. Not entirely though. I missed two Ferocious Dog gigs at the weekend that I had been very excited about when I bought the tickets, but didn’t want to go when the time came. I miss being excited about music, but I am grateful that it has brought nature so much more into my life.

This is just one example of how my mental health has been driving my life, both during this latest depressive episode, and in general, and just how much it has driven my sense of who I am. I’ve spent years refusing to define myself as an alcoholic, because ‘I am not that person anymore, so why would I define my present self by who I used to be and how I used to manage life?’

And yet, I am only now starting to realise just how much I have been defining myself by diagnoses I have been given, or suspect I should be given, relating to my mental health. 

After telling my brother during a recent heart to heart that I ‘feel broken and don’t know if I will ever feel unbroken again’, I knew that I needed to do something and break myself out of the rut I was getting stuck in.

Listening to Sarah Fay’s wonderful memoir, Cured, serialised here on Humanness with Sarah Fay helped me to look at the stories I was telling myself, how I was allowing my diagnosed conditions, and the challenges they bring, to run the show, and surrendering to helplessness in the face of them. Most importantly, she allowed me to see that I am so much more than a collection of depression and ADHD symptoms, and I don’t need to allow them to run my life.

In her gorgeous book ‘Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear’, Elizabeth Gilbert writes about her relationship with the fear that gets in the way of her creativity, and how she learned to live with it, to respect it, and to give it space in her life, rather than fighting it and letting her defeat her.

There’s plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us, so make yourself at home, but understand this: Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. I recognize and respect that you are part of this family, and so I will never exclude you from our activities, but still—your suggestions will never be followed. You’re allowed to have a seat, and you’re allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote.

I love the idea of honouring that part of you that seems the most unhelpful in this way.

So why has it taken me till now to realise that I have let those parts of me drive my car for so long?

For years, I’ve driven the car of my life with a number of less than welcome companions. For a very long time, I didn’t even realise they were there. Depression, addiction and ADHD weren’t terms I related to. I ‘liked a drink’ and frequently drank far more than was wise, often when I really shouldn’t be drinking at all, and made some truly terrible decisions as a result of it, messing my life up in a variety of creative ways.

I managed to convince myself that my drinking was ‘normal’ for years, carefully cultivating a social life so centred on alcohol that I could always find an excuse to drink.

Depression was just ‘mood swings’, laziness and a general sense of being a bit useless a lot of the time.

And ADHD meant that I thought I was unreliable, erratic, messy, and generally a pretty ridiculous excuse for a human being.

Together, these fellow travellers led to decades of low self esteem, hopelessness, missed opportunities, broken relationships, and a nagging sense that I was a failure at most things.

Yes, there are very real challenges that ADHD and depression bring into my life. I do experience executive function difficulties, mood problems, and much more. I do find life challenging, and I need to work with what I’ve got, rather than wish things could be different.

My brain isn’t going to ever rewire itself to not be ADHD. And there’s every chance that, without being able to access good therapy to deal with some major life stuff, depressive slumps are just a part of my life. So I can’t defeat these things into submission. I need to welcome them into my car, but keep them well away from the steering wheel and sat nav! 

But recovery is possible. I know this from my almost 10 years of recovery from addiction. I know this from everything I learned about recovery coaching. I know this from all the incredible people I have met in the past few years who are on their own recovery journey. I don’t have to let my mental health and neurodivergent challenges define me. I don’t have to let them rule my life. I can learn to drive with them in the car, but I don’t have to let them drive.

Being in nature, spending time with good friends and close family, making sure I rest, eat properly, and exercise my body, checking in with my capabilities when I feel the urge to dive into something new (this might be both the most important and the hardest to do) and generally being gentler with myself than I’m used to is the key.

Is there a better way to chill out than lying in a hammock in the woods?

What do you need to make your journey through life easier and happier? How can you honour the parts of yourself that are more challenging and challenged, and find peace in the life you have?

If you enjoyed reading this article, please consider sharing it so that others can read it as well, thanks in advance!