Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice

Its the end of September and the basic white girls are already emerging dressed in their leggings with their pumpkin spice lattes in hand.

I'll be honest and say that I like to divulge in the pumpkin spice trend at least once or twice as the weather starts to cool down; it brings me back to the good ole days of childhood autumn memories.

This morning, I actually put some of my mom's pumpkin pie spice creamer in my very fancy instant coffee, and maybe that is what has motivated me to sit down and open my blogger tab on my computer.  

If you were to ask me what writing I have done over the last six months or so, I would tell you that it has consisted mostly of what us nurses like to call 'charting.'

In other words, I have essentially done no writing in quite a while. 

For a creative mind like mine, writing is an outlet, a passion. You would think that sitting down and writing, or blogging, is an easy task; yet, lately I have lacked the motivation to do even the things I am most passionate about, in this specific case, writing.

But here I am, trudging through the murky waters of un-motivation, dressed in my jogger sweats and my pumpkin spice creamed instant coffee in hand, trying to ignore my constantly ringing phone because my spontaneous soul decided to sign up for a travel nurse website that gives you cell phone number out to everyone under the sun. 

A lot has changed since I last wrote. In April, I was about one month deep into working my day shift position at the hospital I have been at since I passed my boards. Day shift, circadian rhythm speaking, has saved my psycho-social health, partially. I mean, when you work in a critical care area, your psycho-social health will never be fully saved. 

However, putting myself on a rather normal-person's circadian rhythm, the depressive feelings and thoughts that swarmed my brain have decreased drastically. 

Then, there is the anxiety.  

Every normal person has some level of anxiety; the kind that makes you plan for the days and weeks ahead of you.  It is self awareness, it is goal setting.

However, there are people, like me, who take anxiety to another level, in which it then becomes a mental health problem. More people struggle with anxiety than you would think.

My current job has been the source of, I dare say, most to all of my anxiety. I tried therapy, which, if I am honest, I should probably continue. Over the past two months, I wanted to try something new, experiment, if you will.

I changed two things that have helped tremendously with my anxiety.

(1) I deactivated my Facebook. Within my Facebook account there is a group that includes everyone from my workplace who has a Facebook.  It might sound crazy but this seemingly little thing gave me great anxiety. When is the schedule going to come out; what new mandatory meetings do we have on top of out already very stressful schedule; who needs to switch days? On top of the already over-active chatter swarming around in my head, this only adds to the chaos, and as an imperfect human, I can only calm the storm for a limited amount of time.  

It was time for me to help calm the chatter, and the storm, within me. And you know what, I'm not really missing out on anything anyways.

(2) I turn my phone on airplane mode every night. I started doing this in mid-August when I went on vacation with my family, and then I continued the habit and it has brought my soul more peace than you might think it would. I have talked with individuals who do something similar, they turn their phone on the "Do Not Disturb" setting.  However, I have a history of bad habits and will sometimes check my phone in the middle of the night; when this would happen and I would have a missed call or text from someone related to my work, my anxiety levels would raise so high that I either would not get any sleep for the rest of the night, or have to figure out what they needed and still not get any more sleep for the rest of the night. 

I started realizing that missing much needed sleep and having panic attacks just aren't worth it; my mental health is not worth jeopardizing. These two little changes have gone a long way and have helped me cope with the anxiety my place of employment brings.

So, I'd like to raise my pumpkin spice-flavored instant coffee in the air and toast to a season full of colder weather and warmer feelings towards my surroundings.

Life is really 20% of what happens around you and 80% how you react to it. Sometimes it can be hard for someone who struggles with depression and anxiety to react well to the swarming chaos that is not only going on around them but also inside of them. 

Sometimes a little bit of silence can help calm the storm, and turn the reactions into something better.