Mental Health Awareness Week - how have you been feeling?

[Halcyon]

It's coming to the end of Mental Health Awareness Week. How has your week been? Take a look at this free printable feeling wheel and let us know how you've been feeling. Perhaps you've felt a lot of things or maybe just a few, and if you can't pinpoint how you're feeling, tell us which zone of colour you're in.

I've found this feeling wheel really helpful in the past, and if you're currently in therapy and need a way to describe your feelings to your therapist, perhaps you could print this off and pick a colour zone or two to help you start exploring your emotions.

https://www.gottman.com/blog/printable-feeling-wheel/

You may have seen this post on our social media sites, but I'd thought I'd share it here as well.

[Rivière]

A really thoughtful way to end MHA week, thanks Haley!

My week has been ok. Nothing special. In terms of how I feel... a mixture of tiredness, worry, and concern. I'm into my 3rd week of a new set of goals for myself. I've been working on my sleeping schedule which has now been a lot better. I would end up sleeping in and refusing to get up until 12-12:30 in the afternoon. Now I get up at 9:30 AM or some time before that. It means I get a lot more hours in my day to do things, and I go to bed earlier too, rather than being awake until 3 in the morning.

I feel concerned about my exercise. I haven't been doing any apart from trying to do weekly walks to keep up with some kind of moving around. I feel like I'm wasting away a bit, and I've had to push myself to restrict my diet a bit because like a lot of people, I'll just eat because I'm bored or for something to do, and that's not good.

I feel worried about this final course. I worry that I won't do well and pass the exam. The course ends in June and I feel like I'm doing so badly at the content. It's the hardest of the 3 courses I've taken and my test scores are pretty bad. Sometimes I get 7/10, but today I got 4.something on today's module test and it just made me feel like I'm going to fail.

Some days are better than others. Today, I just feel tired.

It's been a bit of a rough week, not going to lie. I feel anxious. All the time. I've been trying to get myself to complete tasks, even simple tasks, and they feel insurmountable. I am having trouble distinguishing if it's due to anxiety or depression but I think it's mostly just anxiety. I am not having usual depression symptoms, except for sleeping excessively and lack of motivation (which can also be symptoms of anxiety, re: avoidance). I completed some tasks yesterday, like dishes and cooking, but instead of making me feel better I still felt very drained. Kind of makes me wonder the point in doing things if I'm not going to get relief for actually doing them.

I have also been dealing with some intense anger. I don't know how else to explain it. I haven't acted on it but I have wanted to scream and shout and punch things in response to very mild prompting events, like not being able to find a bag of vegetables in the fridge. It had me worried about myself. I don't like anger because of the household I grew up in and I don't want to feel it excessively.

I do have one thing to note, though, which is that I haven't self-harmed in almost two weeks now. I am proud of myself for that. Amongst all the anxiety and uncertainty that's an accomplishment I cling to.

[Celyn]

Thanks for this! I love the feelings wheel as I often struggle to identify quite what I'm feeling so this helpful!

I've been a mixture of apathetic and anxious. I haven't done the things I wanted to do and I'm dreading finding out my grades and then starting to work on my dissertation.

That said, I'm hoping my mood will pick up soon. I've started exercising again and I've done a bit of cleaning. I wanted to do more things but I'm just trying to be gentle on myself right now and at least I've done something recently and it has helped a little so fingers crossed!

[Odyne]

This is amazing

I've not been feeling good lately - I hear voices so loud and my anxiety is really bad too. But I'm fighting, and never giving up!

[Ennui.]

My mental health has been pretty good lately but it's starting to dip. We'll just have to see what happens.

Thanks for this!

[hocus pocus]

I know I'm a little late but I like the color wheel. Helps put words to feelings when they are hard to describe sometime. I'd say mine is all over the place, from numb to tired and afraid, and a little bit of irritation in there. Pieces of everything!

[Arabesque- golfing girl.]

I wasn't sure what to say, thank you so much for this. It is nice to look at and see what your going through. Hugs

[Dawn.]

I've been feeling a whole range of different emotions from anger to irritated to frustration to peaceful to desperate to thankful to confident to proud.

On the color wheel, I feel sad-mad with a little bit of scared.

I'm angry with everything that's going on in this country.
I'm sad that things might not go back to normal for a long time.
I'm a bit scared because I don't like not knowing the future.

What will be in store for this country? For my community? For me? So many questions and unknowns.