When Recovery Gets Boring
"I'm bored." That's what I told my therapist.
"What's boring?" she replied.
"Recovery. Recovery is boring."
And it's true. When I was in the throws of my illness, I was enveloped with insanity. My mind was a battleground. And there's nothing boring about a war zone. There's always something going on. A bullet to dodge, a grenade to outrun, a bomb to disarm. There's always something to do. Your mind and body are busy trying to keep you alive in a dangerous environment. There's nothing boring about that.
But now...I mean...I know I'm not out of the woods yet. The world is a treacherous place. But compared to life in the war zone? This is boring.
I'm not going to the hospital every evening for treatment. They're not playing with my meds every week. I'm not going to bed every night hoping I won't wake up in the morning. I'm fine. Good, even.
And it's weird. This whole good thing. I'm not used to it. I don't know what to do with it. It's foreign to me. How do I exist in a world that's ok? That doesn't require daily damage control? How do I thrive in boredom?
I know it may sound twisted. I'm not romanticizing my illness. Believe me. I know that it wasn't a good kind of exciting. War never is. It nearly killed me. More than once. So I have to find something else that's exciting. Something not quite so dangerous.
Here is what I'm doing to fight the boredom and find something exciting in recovery:
I write. Obviously. It's just what I do. Journal, blog, scribble. It doesn't even matter what I'm writing about. As long as I'm writing. Writing keeps my mind from racing. It makes me slow down. Focus. Find perspective and purpose. It makes me feel productive. It passes the time and I have something to show for it at the end of the day. It satisfies me.
I learn something new. That's why I enrolled in school this semester. I figured it was time to get back out there. I always feel better when I'm exercising my brain. It makes me feel less stagnant. It gives me a sense of growth. Of movement. That's the kind of thing that fights boredom. You have to use your mind. And that doesn't have to mean you enroll in a college course. It means you find something that interests you and you learn about it. Home improvement? Crafts? Cooking? Watch a YouTube video. Check out a book at the library. Just look for ways to nurture your inner curiosity and learn something new.
I use my creativity. This can look like a lot of different things. It can mean painting, drawing, sewing, knitting, weaving, collaging, taking pictures, singing, playing an instrument...the list goes on an on. Doing something creative means thinking outside the box. It means looking at the world through a different lens. And you get to pick whatever kind of lens you want to use. So pick an interesting one!
I go outside. It sounds simple, but it's harder than you think. It's difficult for me to make this one a priority, but it helps to have a dog. She practically begs me to go for a walk when I get home from work. With those big puppy eyes. It's hard to say no to that. But getting outside means going on an adventure. Even if it's just around your neighborhood. And even if it's a cloudy day, the fresh air wakes you up. It catapults you out of zombie land and into the world. It awakens you to the possibility of the day.
I daydream. I know, I know. I just talked about fresh air waking you up and now I'm telling you to dream. But I think it helps. It helps to dream about the future and all its possibilities. It inspires me to take action in the present to help those dreams become a reality. And that usually means doing something exciting. Something out the ordinary. Something outside my comfort zone. Something that defies boredom.
And you know what? I couldn't do any of those things when I was in my illness. I constantly had writers block, I couldn't focus for school, I had no desire to engage my creative side, I hid from the sunlight, and I feared the future. Sure, I was living life on the edge, but was I really living? It was more like I was fighting death.
Recovery doesn't have to be boring. It's just different. You have to find excitement in other things. Like nature. Art supplies. A classroom. The future.
The future. Recovery has given me a future. My illness chained me to my past and caused me to do nothing but survive the day-to-day struggle of the present. Recovery gives me permission to be ok.
Ok might sound boring at first. Especially when you're used to the excitement of a war zone. But recovery can have its own type of excitement. Because you know what these 5 things help you do? They help you find yourself. The illness strips you of your identity. You have to go out there and find it again. And what could be more exciting than that?
