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How Perfectionism affects my mental health

20/5/2019

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I am a recovering perfectionist. A perfectionist is someone who puts unrealistically high standards on themselves with overly critical self-evaluations. Some may project that onto others as well.

I got triggered by my own perfectionism while painting a bird - my second attempt at painting a bird (below). I'd invited constructive feedback by other hobby artists during the process but then I felt my normally low blood pressure rise, I felt angry inside and I felt 'done'. My frustrations came out in scribbling paint over the background and overdoing the highlights as per suggestions. I knew I had to stop. 
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Abundant by Xanthe Wyse

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Express to Process trauma

11/5/2019

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Over the past few years, I have been on a journey of processing trauma. Finally, I am seeing a trauma psychologist, and she agrees that I have been finding ways to process trauma on my own. 

I am a very sensitive person and I can feel very intense emotions. So intense that I would 'shut down' all the emotion and the trauma would be locked inside, still there - frozen and stuck. It has been a process like in waves, to get unstuck. Sometimes there would be intense waves of intense emotion, like I expressed in the scribble below today. Scribbling messy words helped discharge intense emotions like anger.
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Let that Shit Go!

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What is Bipolar Mania with trauma Like?

10/5/2019

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Today I burned 15 journals I'd filled during a bipolar mania episode nearly two years ago. I flicked through them and condensed the essence of the journals into one page of some of what mania with trauma was like. I have been diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and they amplify each other. I was back on medications but it took MONTHS to try to get the mania under control. I've summarised some of what it was like below, based on skim-reading the journals before I burned them:
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Crashing by Xanthe Wyse

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Burning journals as a healing process

10/5/2019

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Today I burnt 15 journals. Journals I had written during months of a mania episode after going back on medications for bipolar 1 disorder two years ago. I was encouraged by my psychiatrist to journal rather than blurt out all my disjointed thoughts on Facebook. So I filled over 20 books, mostly school exercise books and scrapbooks with colourful scribblings, often in felt tip pen rather than biro.

​I had felt an extreme need to express myself at the time. I understood what I wrote, but it would have been complete nonsense to anyone else. Trauma was a recurring theme in amongst all the mind-maps, associations and symbolism. I was trying to process my trauma and calm my racing brain. Often my brain was racing too fast and was too disorganised to write, so I painted brightly coloured abstracts instead.
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Burning dozens of pages from manic journals

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    Xanthe Wyse

    I am no longer blogging or vlogging as a mental health and disability advocate. The politics of it is too toxic for me.

    I will blog occasionally about some of my interests (art, writing etc) beyond advocacy on my other blog at Soar Purpose. 

    See you there!

    No. 1 bad-ass.
    After all, my medical records say 'BAD1' for bipolar affective disorder type 1.

    Also diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

    Clinically significant autism spectrum features since childhood (PDD-NOS diagnosis).

    Creative. Like to paint and write. Self-published a few books based on personal experiences.
    ​
    Comments are welcome but no personal attacks nor attacks on others.

    Opinions and personal experiences are no substitute for independent professional advice.

    Image is fan art from when I was a bipolar warrior and a renegade fighter.

    Most viewed blog post: 'How to spot a fake autistic.'

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