Scotland Boosts Teenage Mental Health with Free Bus Passes

Scotland has a new policy that residents under twenty two can ride buses in Scotland for free! As a family without a car we are incredibly excited about this opportunity. This will naturally benefit all our children, but I am especially grateful that our teenagers will be able to experience more independence and have breaks from the home without the danger of driving their own car. They can more easily have time to themselves, get a job, or meet friends. Conservatives often have larger families so this is a great blessing for them and gives them some defences and a bit of cred regarding accusations of environmental damage.

I also am thinking of those who are in physically or emotionally abusive homes who are not otherwise able to get away. I hope this will help them.

Here is more information on the subject: https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19471272.22s-scotland-receive-free-bus-travel-january/

Christian Art

There is a remarkable Catholic project that I stumbled upon: Christian.art. It has been curated by a former auctioneer at Sotheby’s and features a Christian artwork every day with a corresponding Gospel and reflection on it. The meditations are short and simple and help one with more immersive prayer as well as being educational. The artworks are extremely varied regarding era and medium. Today’s reflection on loneliness features a sculpture by Alessandro Algardi:

Self-care is Unfair

Mental health gurus often emphasise the importance of self-care and talk about being “selfish” sometimes. Conservatives, and especially those of the old guard, understandably roll their eyes at the seeming self-centeredness of these well-meaning folks who have really failed to come up with a decent justification of self-care to Christians.

I’ve wondered about this quite a bit myself. With an extreme mental illness it is getting easier to take care of myself – because it is a necessity – but what about the steps along the way? Surely, we don’t think that people should only care for themselves at a crisis point. So, when is it ok to put ourselves first?

I don’t have any grand philosophical answers to this, but I would like to change the perspective on this issue in order to show how I’ve come to terms with it. At one point when I was trying to get through some pretty serious trauma I stumbled across a meme (yes, a meme! Intellectual, I know) that said that you are responsible for your own healing. It seems obvious, but I think a lot of human pain continues because the universe deals us a blow and we therefore expect the universe to fix it. Even though schizophrenia wasn’t my fault, I had to figure out a way to heal myself. I could accept help – but not expect it. This isn’t fair, but it is essential.

Taking care of yourself actually means not burdening another with your pain.

Maybe you say that you can take care of people while going through a lot and not needing to take care of yourself. Sometimes that is true. Prudence should decide if it is. However, ask yourself honestly, are you often taking out your frustration on others passive aggressively? Do you hold resentful feelings frequently? Do you people please and expect a return? All of these I do. I vent way too much and expect to get better.

This is why self-care isn’t selfish. Some pain in life is an obvious effect of sins we’ve committed and sometimes we endure difficulties with no answer. A lot of things are not directly our fault, but we still have to fix them. No one owes you healing. Self-care is unfair.

Mental Limbo: Languishing

Real Simple has an interesting piece on what is called languishing. A place where one isn’t very sad, but also not really experiencing joy. It is probably possible to exist in this state reasonably functioning for a long time. I’m sure a lot of people are experiencing this state during this pandemic especially.

It takes effort, but finding joy in anything (not sinful, ha!) generally grows into finding joy in other areas. Read the article here.

I have recently found that audio books bring me joy. I just listened to an abridged version of Out of Africa by Isak Dinesin. I used to read quite a lot, but I now find audio books gentler on my mind. The book has beautiful imagery and was mentally restful. We got audible temporarily, to be honest. I’m not sure if we’ll keep it, but librivox.org has some good audio books for free.

I think it is important to be open-minded about discovering joy. I used to find harp music dull and bird songs annoying. They have since brought me comfort during difficult times. Some things that you previously scorned when well might make you happy when troubled.

Another thing I’ve done when feeling traumatised is watching videos of ocean life on YouTube. The kids like to watch it too, so it is a good way to bring calm into your life while keeping the children entertained.

Please comment with the things that bring you joy while you are well or “languishing.”