By Erica Crompton
Yeah. So, self-compassion was really important to me during that time. I mean, I remember when I was isolating myself, I’d kind of been out and bought a yoga DVD a few months before and I was kind of doing yoga in my bedroom at home just to stay active and to kind of distract myself. I guess distraction techniques are really helpful when you’ve got psychosis and I think for other mental illnesses too. But self-compassion was really good. And even if it’s something as simple as a face mask and kind of having a home spa and just sitting in the bath and treating myself quite nicely, I think starved-off the attempt by quite a few days. And I still practice those as much as I can now to kind of aid my recovery.
Spirituality, I had this really nice dream when I was poorly and what it was, it was a dream where I was flying. I could actually fly in the dream and it felt so real. But I was flying through the sky, hammering clouds out of the sky with a glittery hammer. And I kind of saw that as a metaphor for what my career would be going forward, sort of challenging stigma and knocking those clouds of stigma out of the sky. And I’ve never forgot that dream and something quite nice that happened to me during that suicidal thinking time. It was like a fresh air, fresh breeze. It was really nice. So that was important too.
And then I think the real thing that helped me a lot was on the day that I did make the attempt, the sun started shining through the curtains and it was so nice. It kind of reminded me that I was still only 29 at the time. It reminded me that wherever you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter who you’ve seen, no matter where you’ve been, we all see the same sunshine. And it was very important to me. I think that was what prompted me when I could feel the sun shining on my face. It was kind of what prompted me to call A&E and sort of open my eyes a little bit that maybe the suicide attempt was far too drastic and really not necessary. And I was still deluded. I still thought I was a criminal, but I thought maybe there would be help for even a wanted criminal like me. And that was quite nice as well. The sunshine was really important to me.
