Melanie Campbell

I’m doing recovery work, very imperfectly.

So today was a cautiously better day. I got up and after a long coffee wake-up time I got ready to do stuff. Some of the stuff was with my folks. So I was mindful of how I was communicating, making the effort to stay curious and friendly. When I’m like this, I do better in my brain, and the situations are influenced by my energy. There’s a harmony that’s lovely for all of us. And we got a lot accomplished.

What I’m noticing now, is that my brain is starting to slip into a deeper, more familiar, way of being. There’s no particular trigger. I’m done my tasks, including choosing and acting my mindset. I’m fed. I’m at loose ends. I’m touching my phone a LOT. I’m starting to choose alone. I’m obsessively playing Tetris. I’ve had a little wine and a little cannabis. There’s absolutely nothing terrible in my environment.

And I’m having this feeling, this slip. Because my brain has a deep groove in it – major depressive disorder. My brain is really used to being there, in that mindset, with the behaviours that come with it.

Recovery work is a practice, and it has to be agile. It’s a skill set that helps create a new groove in your brain – a new belief, mindset, and behaviour. I think about how this practice has changed my life, and the biggest change is that the time I spend suffering is so much shorter. I’m faster at feeling the slip, and I’m way more skilled at finding my footing.

Here’s the secret:

Kindness

Acceptance

Comfort

Communication

Movement

Choosing

I’m kind when I recognize the slip, and consider what behaviours are contributing. I accept that the slip is happening, instead of panicking. I find comfort remembering that I have a 100% recovery rate to date. I speak into the feeling, and reason with it the way I would talk to a kid. I get up from wherever I am and I decide to do something towards the mindset I want.

So for me right now, because I want to continue my better day, I am going to put down my phone. I’m going to have a shower and put on fresh jammies. I’m going to watch one of the movies in my queue. I’m going to pat my kitties and then I’m going to bed. 

Think about it for a minute. We create, as best we can, kind and rich environments for plants, for pets, for children. We create environments where they can experiment and thrive. With comfort, with enough stimulation and nutrition and care, so that they are free to grow and learn and become.

And I am the product of an imperfect environment. What I mean is, despite my parents doing the best they could, I got some programming in my brain that isn’t helping me thrive. Beliefs that came to me young, beliefs that logic refutes but brain executes, have created behavioural patterns that cause suffering.

Suffering is not virtuous. It’s not a badge of honour. Despair is not motivating. Shame and fear are not motivating.

Kindness IS motivating. Comfort fosters creativity. Change is the direct effect.

Our brains are both incredibly brilliant and incredibly stupid. And our brains are able to change, to learn new things and to execute new behaviour patterns.

I have learned how to change things I thought were unchangeable. The patterns are deeply ingrained in my brain – that’s what I mean by deep work – and I have learned through a lot of trial and error that the fastest way to sustainable change is the practice of moving towards kindness.

It’s so bad that my night guard is made of space plastic – otherwise I break it. And if I don’t wear my night guard, I break my teeth.

It’s so bad that I’m always managing jaw/neck/shoulder pain. It’s like having a low-grade migraine all the time.

It has changed my eating – I avoid foods that require robust chewing, and I don’t chew gum EVER.

It’s changed my sex life.

So my dentist and I tried a bunch of different treatments. We did intra-oral massage. We did micro-TENS. And then we tried Botox, in a modified migraine injection series.

Botox temporarily paralyzes the muscles from being able to clench as hard. It’s effective for about 3 months. It’s very expensive – the drug and administration is about $2000 each time.

This is my second full treatment. My jaw pain is almost gone. All of the muscle systems that attach to the treated areas are still sore, but it’s a huge improvement.

However.

This time we did a much bigger dose. And now my smile is lopsided, even though the same amount was injected on each side. I’m noticing that I’m not smiling much because I’m self-conscious.

Add that to the heavy feeling from the injections in my forehead. It’s an effort to frown or raise my eyebrows, so my face is a lot less animated. And I’m not smiling much.

It is the same physical feeling as when I’m very depressed. When I’m depressed my face feels heavy and doesn’t move much. I rarely smile when I’m depressed.

Unsurprisingly, I am currently experiencing more depression symptoms. It’s like a chicken vs egg thing – in this case, the physicality is prompting my brain to match up depressive mindset with the lack of facial mobility.

So recovery work is necessary. Looking for thought errors, finding another possible thought, finding evidence for the new thought to be true. Being kind and gentle while doing that work. Asking for help. Remembering that this is temporary – the Botox, the crooked smile, the depressed brain. Rinse and repeat.

My work is very human. I look for thought patterns that are not useful, not beneficial, and then I practice a different thought pattern, which changes what I do, and I experience a different outcome, and see if it’s better.

It’s not gaslighting or brainwashing. It’s really conscious, there’s no coercion, and there’s always a way to say that’s enough for now. It’s kind, and also very active. It’s deciding to try on a decision to see how it feels. When people talk about “the work”, this process fits. It’s being very honest about what you want, and very open about how to get there.

Let me give you an example.

A few days ago, I woke up at the crack of 1pm. I pee’d, threw my hair up, shrugged on my robe, and shuffled downstairs to get coffee.

A new person was chatting with my folks at the dining room table. I couldn’t figure out if I should know him, or if this was a neighbour, or even a professional visit. I was introduced – he’s my dad’s first year roommate. And I immediately started to feel embarrassed. I started to tell myself a story about how it was shameful to be getting up at 1pm. I even made a joke, kinda apologized for it but made it funny. He was pleasant, but I saw him check his watch and I started to feel worse. My brain was gathering evidence to support the story I was telling myself, about his judgement and my shame.

So I took myself out to the garage where I could smoke and drink coffee in privacy. I thought through the story again, including all the evidence my brain had gathered. And then I felt the feelings that came up. I just felt them. Like when you’re in the ocean, not fighting the waves, just floating with them.

And when the story was done and the feelings had ebbed, I started making a different story, with evidence to support it. I remembered that I don’t owe anyone an explanation for my sleep schedule, especially in my own home. I remembered that this visit was a total surprise, not something I had slept through. I remembered that this person’s judgement of me is not my concern whatsoever. I remembered that I’m an excellent host. I remembered that my folks hadn’t had visitors in quite some time, and I decided to claim the hosting duties for our visitor.

Then I checked how I felt with the new story. And I’m telling you, it felt so much better. Instead of going through a shame spiral, I could WITH EVIDENCE feel useful, confident, competent,, and DO things that demonstrated that those feelings are based in fact – that I AM those things. Plus I’m hella fun when I embrace those things, those ways of acting. Me feeling good helps the world feel good.

Then I decided that any future thoughts related to shame would be dismissed as a brain glitch. I was pretty sure they would pop up, because the first story was really compelling and had supporting evidence. But I was making a decision to use my new take on things, so I also decided to reject the first story.

And it worked. The experience was lovely, our guest was well looked after, everyone had a good time, and I felt proud of how I showed up.

I practice this the way a keener music student practices the clarinet. I’m getting faster at recovery now – it’s way kinder and I have so much more time to do stuff I want to do.