Clothes and Emotions: How What I Wear Impacts My Mood

I've just finished reading an article called "Therapeutic Dressing"  by Erin Mayer which you can read here.

It made me think about my own attitude toward clothing and dressing up or down makes me feel.

I remember when I was severely depressed a few years ago, getting dressed was a big deal. I usually didn't have anywhere that I needed to be, so I could get away with staying in pajamas all day. By the end of the day I would simply change into new pajamas. If I did end up needing to go out I'd throw a sweat shirt on over my pajama shirt and instead of pajama pants I'd just throw on pair of yoga pants. Comfortable, easy, clothing that didn't feel constricting.

There's one sweatshirt in particular that I liked to wear especially when I wasn't feeling well, that I practically lived in. It was extremely soft, and was almost like a security blanket I could wrap around me, making me feel like things were going to be okay. With depression, sometimes it feels like there aren't very many things you can control. But I could control what I wore. I think I needed that sweatshirt to make myself feel like it was okay to not feel good.

Maybe if I had forced myself to get dressed everyday when I was depressed it would have helped me feel better faster. But sometimes I think slowly easing yourself into feeling better is key, rather than forcing yourself to feel better before you're ready.

I have noticed the change in clothing habits now that I haven't been severely depressed for awhile. Now, I feel like I'm being lazy if it's been more than an hour and I haven't showered and gotten dressed yet. I find myself enjoying picking out a cute outfit to wear, or even just wearing a favorite shirt. I would definitely say that clothing can affect your mood.

Although I still lean towards comfortable clothing, such as leggings, I still try to wear actual tops as opposed to ratty old t-shirts.

How does different clothing impact your mood?

Off Days: What To Do With Them

Today was definitely an "off day" for me.

The kind of day you don't want to admit that something is wrong and it's not just that you don't want to go to work.

I've written a lot about working in this blog, because that's something that stresses me out and I'm still getting used to it.

Lately it seems Wednesdays are the hardest days for me to get up and go to work. Tuesdays are usually fine, because I don't normally work on Mondays, but the past two weeks I have worked Monday. Last week I was lucky and only had to stay at work on Wednesday for half of a day. The week before, it just didn't happen.

Today, I woke up after pushing the snooze button on my alarm three times to where I was going to be at least fifteen minutes late. It didn't help that the day before I had a really frustrating day and I didn't want to have to put myself back in that environment. To make things worse I'd felt weepy all day, and then found out before I went to bed that one of my favorite professors had died.

To say the least, I didn't wake up feeling motivated to do anything let alone go to work.

Then the guilt sets in. I start piling it all on thinking about how I should have just gone to work because I need to make the money. And how I'm lazy and a bad person because I didn't go. I start worrying about what is my boss going to think of me and is she going to be angry?

Most of these thoughts are not even realistic. Of course I need to make the money, but that can be solved by working an extra day or even two half days if I really need to split them up. I'm lucky that my boss is understanding. Of course I don't want to take advantage of this, but then again I don't want to compromise my health either.

I'm not going to lie and say I haven't spent some of today feeling guilty and bad about myself. But sometimes you have to let yourself feel these things. So I told myself I'd let myself feel bad for some of today but then I'm going to do something that will make me feel better, even if I feel like I don't deserve it. So I'm going to hang out with my friend and that's that. I'm done feeling bad about myself for today.

Tomorrow is going to be better and work is going to be fine.

What do you do when you have off days?

Blank Page: A Poem

Blank Page

I stare at this blank page with the cursor blinking back at me

begging me to write something, anything

does it matter

is it important

maybe not.

But maybe it’ll mean something someday

when I reread the words I wrote on this day

Maybe the words will relay the frustration I felt

over that incident

over what happened

or what didn’t.

I might not even remember

years from now

what happened today

but it was important

so I wrote these words

that were spilling out of me.