It will come as no surprise that managing mental health is often something we need to tend to as much as every other basic need each day.  It is what gathers us all together! What helps us? Routine really helps, monitoring helps, good nutrition helps, good sleep helps – all the tools help but it is still a challenge sometimes. No matter how many years of depression I have chalked up (35) it continues to morph and blend, marble and water-colour itself into every background of each week. So, like tradesmen tackling our trade, we select the tool best suited to each moment. 

Lately my own critical internal voice has had me wanting to put a sock in it. So back at the drawing board some days I am. 

The online library has been my little candle here. Like a far away lighthouse, glowing from across a firth, it says “I’m here”. Long having given up on any serious reading due to lack of concentration, I found myself in a new world of audio. 

Audio can be a field I tiptoe through (the pitch and speed of certain voices can be torturous to me) but, for the most part, I am in love! I can get lost as I work, with company. It allows me to focus and not become distracted with my internal bore. Provided the task is not something involving deep thought, I have found I can marry an audiobook with so many parts of the day. This has not only allowed me to enjoy a heap of books, but it has sat beautifully on top of my internal voice, squashing it like a large bottom on a flimsy deckchair. 

Relief. When the voice is blah blahing at me, its bottom squashing time. 

Long may we have libraries. Long live bottom squashing modulated tones.

Love from

The room above the garage 

A Moodscope member.