Well y'all, I hope everything is going smoothly and staying chill for you at the moment, because things are pretty chaotic on my end. Truly, everything just feels SO up in the air right now. With the Writers Guild strike still going strong and the Screen Actors Guild about to strike, having a job in the film industry right now is...super rare, to say the least. Of course, I completely support the strikes and everyone on strike. Especially as someone who wants to be part of WGA one day, I'm definitely interested in the intricacies of what the writers are fighting for and, again, I fully support all of it.
Nevertheless, the strike has thrown me - and many, many others - out of a consistent job. For specifics - I was on a project in April, and the week that it ended I was supposed to start on another project, one that would have lasted me through the summer and most of the fall. We found out the day before we were supposed to start that it was postponed by 2.5 months, due to the strike. Now, 2.5 months later, we were supposed to start this week, but we just found out that it was pushed a few more weeks, and there's a big possibility it could get pushed again. That's simply the reality of working in film at the moment, for everyone, regardless of whether you're the cinematographer or an additional production assistant. Everybody is affected, and everybody is essentially gasping for air.
In addition to my career being a sudden unknown in the midst of a post-pandemic economy when the lack of a steady income is quite detrimental, my boyfriend and I are also moving over the next month, which adds another level of chaos. Our apartment is currently filled with piles of things that have not yet found boxes, making our small one-bedroom feel even smaller, and my full-to-the-brim anxiety brain even more cramped with thoughts.
I have never been someone who thrives in chaos, especially when it comes to getting work done. In fact, I'm the opposite. In terms of productivity, I thrive on routine and calmness. (I was always one of those people in college who had to go to a specified "quiet floor" of the library or lock myself in my room if I really wanted to focus on getting work done quickly.) The unfortunate side of thriving on routine is that without the steady consistency of going to work everyday, I tend to lose my sense of normalcy in every other area of my life, too. I find doing small tasks, like daily self-care or laundry, way harder to maintain when I don't have to schedule them around work. Once one thing falls apart, everything else starts to follow suit. It's very "all-or-nothing" of me (and yes, I have unpacked that with my therapist). When it feels like I have all the time in the world to do something, I tend to just end up not doing it. Logically, it seems like it would be the opposite, but I stopped thinking about how logic relates to my mental health a long time ago, as that always just sends me down a bad path, so I've accepted that this is just the way I'm built.
The longer I go without consistency and a sense of routine, the more I start to spiral. It's been about three weeks since I stopped working. Although the last film project I was on ended at the end of April, my "backup job" is substitute teaching (because yes, as a relatively-fresh-out-of-undergrad creative trying to "make it" in the film industry, I do have a backup job), so I was able to do that until mid-June, when the school year ended. These past three weeks, however, I've been out of both my regular job and my backup job.
My car needs a full clean, but I can't bring myself to get up and do it. We need groceries, but I haven't been able to commit to simply going shopping. It's so nice out (because summer), so with the sudden lack of work, all I want to do is lounge and go swimming at the pool; and unfortunately those things, while fun and good for the soul, are not the type of productive I need to be right now.
This stuff can be embarrassing to talk about - no one wants to admit when they've waited too long to clean their car that it's become overwhelming. But that's the reality of the chaos for me. Being unemployed for 2.5 months due to a writers-strike-that-isn't-resolved-because-the-billionaire-studio-executives-won't-agree-to-the-most-reasonable-requests (which could be a full blog post of its own) was simply not on my 2023 bingo card. I didn't have any time to prep a routine that would keep me mentally stable throughout the unemployment or to look for other jobs to do in the meantime.
So all that rambling to say...I've arrived at a place that I've been before. I've experienced countless times in the past where my mental health is starting to go downhill, and it's only a matter of time before I'm in a full-on depressive episode. Let's just say...the spiral is spiraling. And it's not fun.
This time, however, there is a small but very important difference. This time I'm able to recognize what's happening. I have been in therapy for four years, and I've done a LOT of work on myself during that time. Honestly, I don't think I actually realize quite how much work on myself I've put in until I end up in the place I am now, because that's when it all really starts to come to light. I'm able to recognize so many of my behaviors now that I never would've recognized before, whether they're related to my depression, anxiety, OCD or ED - surprise! I have lots of fun (they're not fun) little issues (serious mental health illnesses) that I'm dealing with. In my opinion, there are both pros and cons to being very self-aware, but in this current situation, it's definitely been a pro.
I've taken a step back, realized the trajectory I'm currently on, and I've made the active decision to flip it on it's head. That's what recovery is - it's actively deciding to get better every day. It's definitely hard, because sometimes I can't help but think how nice it would be if I didn't have to convince myself to make healthy decisions, and I just did it instinctively. But the "what ifs" are endless and, more often than not, unhelpful. When I start by just accepting that this is how my brain works, and offer myself care and patience instead of anger and frustration, all the so-called "problems" become easier to solve.
I've come up with several activities and intentions that are proven to help bring my mental health out of a rut (by my own past experience of sticking-to-said-activities-and-intentions), and I've formed them into a loose weekly schedule. Even with all the unknowns of my job at the moment, having this schedule gives me the feeling that I'm following a routine. That feeling, in turn, makes being productive with the less-fun parts of my day - like applying to part-time jobs, grocery shopping, and cleaning my car - infinitely easier.
On the off-chance that some of you want to add little forms of care to your own daily/weekly routines but don't know where to start, or you don't have a lot of free time to plan on your own, these are some constants I'm implementing into my weekly routine to find moments of calm among all the chaos:
Nighttime reading.
I used to be a big reader (and by "used to be" I mean middle/elementary school me). I read every single night before bed. Come high school, however, school work and reading started to pile up and get tougher every year. I spent so much time reading for school that by the time I was done with my work, I couldn't bring myself to read anymore. The joy had been sucked out of the activity. (Let me just say, I didn't hate all the books I had to read for school - actually, I liked a lot of them. There was just always the feeling of "someone's making me read this" hanging over me, as opposed to "I'm reading this of my own volition," and as a classic teenager, I did not like being told what to read.) This continued through college, as I had to do lots of reading for my major and my creative writing classes. I'm a slow reader (which is okay!!), so I often have to re-read passages multiple times to comprehend the point fully, and a lot of what I read in college felt quite hard for me, which also made reading much less fun. Now, however, I'm just over a year out of a undergrad, and I made my own decision to start reading again this past fall. It's been a very gradual return to the activity, trust me, but especially as a writer, I definitely feel like I should be reading consistently. Taking it slow has made the pleasure of reading come back bit by bit (I've read three books since January!). Since the beginning of June, my routine of daily reading has faltered, so I'm adding in a chapter every night before bed to bring back the consistency of it. It allows me to unplug from my phone after a long day, escape to another world, and it always makes falling asleep easier. Right now I'm reading the second Percy Jackson book, "The Sea of Monsters." (Yes, it's a series for middle schoolers, but I've never read them before, and you don't always have to force yourself to read the hardest books out there. Especially if you're just getting back into reading, just find books that are fun for you. I feel SO lucky to be reading the Percy Jackson books for the first time as an adult because ohemgee they are making my inner child so happy!!!)
Park time!
Touch some grass (or whatever the phrase is). Look, maybe you spend a lot of time outside organically, but I'm not naturally someone who gravitates towards being outdoors. My hobbies have always been "inside activities," so I really have to consciously choose to go outside and get some sun. Ofer and I have decided to spend around an hour-and-a-half every Saturday at the park nearby us - throwing around a frisbee, kicking around a soccer ball, playing some tennis, whatever. Am I good at sports? Absolutely not. Never have been, probably never will be. But I've ALWAYS found them fun, and there's literally no better way to unwind at the end of the week then by spending some time running around in the grass and getting some Vitamin D. Also, my days on set/in the office as a production assistant are very long (twelve hours at minimum, excluding commute time), so once work does start up again (eventually...) it usually becomes harder for Ofer and I to spend quality time together during the week. Adding this into our weekly routine now helps prepare me to maintain it as a regular activity once I'm back on production, and guarantees we'll always have time to spend together! And again, I'm really just loving any chance to unplug nowadays, because it's just such a rare occurrence. I'm looking forward to our upcoming park days, and if you have any fun park activities that you recommend, please shoot me a message with them on my contact page because I'd love to know! :)
Dedicating time to my favorite things.
Wednesdays are for improv, Saturdays are for singing lessons (and park time), and Sundays are for writing - in a nutshell. It's not rigid, of course. I tend to write a little bit everyday, and I always sing to myself (my friends from home can attest to this, as numerous walks to high school were always accompanied by my subconscious singing...), but setting aside weekly time to dedicate to my hobbies is also so important to me. Each of these activities simultaneously boost my serotonin and ground me. I feel the most myself when I'm improvising, singing and writing, and if I don't commit a little time every week just for those hobbies, two things can happen. One, they might just slip through the cracks. I'll get to the end of the week and feel so weird and bottled up, and then I'll realize it's because I didn't just take fifteen minutes on any given day to write about my feelings, or something came up and I had to miss improv class, so I didn't get my weekly giggles. Or two, I'll get so caught up with writing that sometimes I'm sitting there typing for three hours straight, and I won't realize that I blew straight through the time I had set aside for doing laundry or working out (for example) until it's too late. Designating time for each of my favorite activities over the course of the week helps me stay balanced, recharged, and, simply, the happiest version of me.
Daily podcast episode while doing self-care.
I didn't "get" podcasts for a while, until I found the right one. Lately, I've been obsessed (and I mean OBSESSED) with Binchtopia. It's these two girls who do deep dives into different topics every week, and their humor is just so utterly feminist and gen-z that I can't help but be addicted to it, and I also feel like I learn something new every time I listen to them. Every Wednesday when they release a new episode, I'm like a moth to a flame. Combining Binchtopia with self-care?? Game OVER. It's such a perfect way to unwind. There are so many forms of self-care, and my personal favorite is skin-care. I got into it my first year of college, and it's the main form of self-care that has stuck around for me (of the many I've tried). That's really all you need - one form of self-care that works best for YOU. I don't use expensive products at all (everything I use is from CVS or Target), but that doesn't matter in the least. The physical action of putting on skin-care helps me slow-down and come back to myself. It's the best representation in my day-to-day life of me literally putting in the time to take care of myself, and it reminds me to be gentler with myself in general. I don't do my full skin-care routine everyday (that's an unrealistic expectation to set for oneself), but if I can commit to doing my full routine one day a week - the day the new Binchtopia episode releases - that creates a little moment of relaxation in the middle of the week that I can look forward to and use to refresh before the rest of the week. If you struggle with self-care, I recommend trying this sooo highly. It's so relaxing (unless maybe if you listen to true-crime podcasts. I don't know if it would be as relaxing then).
Dedicating time for friends.
When I'm stuck in a depressive episode, I become a hermit. I'm naturally a homebody - I think I would fall into the category of "introverted extroverts." I love socializing and hanging out, but I need lots of time to recharge, and I will happily spend a whole day alone. The issue is when I start spending every day alone. I don't even realize I'm doing it, because it doesn't start to bother me until I've isolated myself for a full week, or even two. So, I'm making active effort to schedule times to see my friends in the coming weeks, to prevent isolation before I even begin to do it. My friends Sophie and Enya (who are roomies) and I started watching The Bachelor in the fall (I'd never watched a full season of it before, but I started watching reality tv in college, heavily influenced by my friend Richie, and figured why not give it a try), and now it's a girls' night tradition. We do a bracket, make our little pink cocktails (because of course??), have snacks, the whole nine yards. We're catching up on the first couple episodes of The Bachelorette tonight, so Mondays are back to being our dedicated hang, and I'm really glad we have scheduled time to see each other. No isolation or hermit-ing for me this time around, and I'm very okay with that.
A Monday reset.
This last one is mainly for my fellow, unemployed friends. I feel like the concept of a "Sunday reset" is pretty common, whether you actually call it that or not. It's usually ends up being the day when you grocery shop for the week, do your laundry, neaten up the apartment, etc, etc, so that you can start the week feeling fresh. But, at the moment, my days are really starting to blend together...so what about a Monday reset? It gives me something to do on the first day of every week, shows me I can still be productive and start the week on the right foot while applying to jobs, and then the day ends with girls' night Bachelorette, which feels like a little reward for putting in the work. Essentially, resetting on a Monday helps me begin the week with a productive mindset, and that sets me up for success for the rest of the week from the get-go. There isn't much more to this one, except that I recommend listening to a podcast (Binchtopia...) or a playlist while you reset, because everything goes by soo much faster, and it makes the process more enjoyable!
I've got to go to Sophie and Enya's now to watch The Bachelorette, so I'm going to leave it there today. It was Speak Now (Taylor's Version) release weekend, so naturally my music rec is on par with that: I Can See You (Taylor's Version) (From The Vault). I won't go into all the lore of it right now (not to brag but trust me, I could), but it's got some funk to it that I haven't heard in many Taylor songs, and it's literally just SO good. It's been on repeat for me since it came out, and I'm fully obsessed. I hope you love it and, if you're not a Swiftie already, that maybe it turns you to the dark side.
Till next time:)
Cheech <3
PS: Sorry for the lack of pictures in this one. I felt like I included soo many in my camp entry that I would take a little break this week, but don't worry, the visuals will be back soon.
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