Sanctuary

Anyone who treats someone suffering with depression and anxiety will tell them that the bulk of their recovery and management of the illnesses are lifestyle.  Medications do their part and are often the most critical part of getting control of the illness early on.  I've said it before that they gave me the head space I needed in order to confront some demons, and to build the coping skills I'd need to manage the illness long term.  Let's face it, once you have it, you always have it.  It's not a virus that just outstays it's welcome a while or leaves in a few weeks.  Mental illness has some serious staying power.  It's really a dark horse you seem to have to ride forever and ever.  Kinda like the Ghost Rider.  You're never really rid of it, even when you try to use it for good.

So for me, I think I've said it before.  I try, the best I can to reward myself often (probably too often), and I try to make sure that I make moments where I'm able to laugh at least once each day.  I try to do something fun with my kid every single day, and I sometimes fail miserably at all of it, but trying is 50% of the battle.

Because I work from home, I have the added challenge of doing all this while staying within the same four walls just about 22-23 hours of every single day.  I don't get out a lot, if it's not to run errands or drop and collect the child from preschool.  That's a lot of time to stay couped up.  Sure, it's awesome.  I don't have to fight traffic during a commute.  I add about 2 hours a day when I can hang out with my kid instead of worry all the way home about what I'm going to make for dinner, and generally speaking on slow days, during my work breaks, I can do my laundry, clean my dishes or dust something.  All this I couldn't trade for the world.  But nothing comes with out a price, and the price I pay is not having much of a social life, not getting much interaction with people who aren't collecting money at the end of a grocery store checkout, and frankly all that means that the four walls I see every day, better create an environment that brings me peace, air and tranquility.

So we've been working hard at getting that in place.  The people who owned our house prior to us had some strong paint preferences, and did a piss poor job of loading up every single space on the walls with photos/prints or some other kind of chachke, and they used everything from cement anchors to screws, to all out 2 inch nails to hang some of this crap.  And most of the rooms were colour blocked - as in 2 completely opposite colours in the same room.  Seriously.  We're not talking feature walls...we're talking colour blocking.

And so the effort we've undertaken so far is to lighten the place up, and balance it out.  Every room in the house doesn't have to be the same colour, but they should at least make sense, be neutral and calming.  We're almost done, and then furnishing and art and decor will take this all home.  It's already been 10 months of slogging through the hardest parts.  We have literally 2 rooms left to paint, and my house will be a sanctuary that will support my mental wellness the way it should.  I have a winter planned already of heavy duty sewing that will replace most of our window coverings, and am dreaming up plans for landscaping and artwork in the spring.  Come this time next year, I'll be able to focus my spare moments to making halloween decorations, and doing crafts with my child.  I'm so looking forward to that!