Jump off the world for a minute

I spent my dinner break the other day lying on the bathroom floor. I don't tell many people, but it's not an unusual or particularly negative place for me to be.

I try not to spend my whole break there too often as it's usually more beneficial to walk to the nearby gardens and lie on my bench under the trees in a few minutes of sensory mindfulness.

Occasionally I don't make it that far, and Thursday was one of those days. I just about made it to the bathroom before it all imploded and my body found the way it needed to calm itself. This time it was lying flat on my stomach on the floor with my face in a fleece, still as can be until the motion-controlled lights time out (3 minutes) and then the fan (5, I think).

By this time the crying has calmed somewhat, and the dark and the quiet help me to calm further. It's not a full-on shutdown. The sounds of the school day going by outside bring me back to my current location, and as I become able to open my eyes I observe the light reaching under the door from that other world of the corridor.

I am removed yet connected. Close, yet apart and unseen. I am safe.

What's in the Box?

Trigger warning: mild self harm reference

An excellent question! The Box, of course, is my "self-soothe box" in the language of mental health services, and my sensory box in every day conversation. I don't discuss it with that many people, but for the lucky few ( ;) ) this is familiar language as they already move in circles of sensory difference.

After my previous post, a curious reader enquired as to the contents of my box. I am very happy to share!

The great thing about the items in this box is that they can be used not only in a crisis or tricky moment, but whenever I  have a spare minute (I keep my box in my car so it's with me wherever I go) to keep regulated throughout the day as a preventative. I'm not as proactive about this as I could be as I am very busy and often in a rush, but it does make a noticeable difference when I take time out to invest in staying well regulated.

In my box:

A small jar of cinnamon. I find this smell so comforting, and it's cheap and easy to replace if it loses its effect. The reused miniature jam jar doubles up as physical/auditory input as the button can be clicked too! (Or "depressed" as some jars say. Always seems so cruel to intentionally depress a button...)

A tiny tin of coffee beans. These are great and multi-sensory too: not only do I love the smell despite hating the taste of coffee, but it sounds and feels pleasing to shake the tin back and forth. The hard cold of the metal is soothing if I hold it tightly in the palm of my hand, and the beans can be poured out and tipped from hand to hand.

A tube of bubbles. A wonderfully pleasing visual with the added benefit of controlling the breath.

A small tub of glue and spreader. This one is particularly good if I know I'm going to stay anxious for a while and need distraction within a situation where I can't access my tools. Once the glue has dried on a small area of my skin (an interesting cool, wet sensation), it can be peeled off. This is also an especially good one when I feel like hurting myself. It's a bit less "calming" than the others and can channel that urge in a less destructive manner. Please note, I don't advocate painting glue on your skin. It's probably not very good for it, but I'm just sharing something that I discovered works for me.

I had a small glitter jar, but it needs replacing and I'm not very good at making them! A great visual, with slow movement and sparkling light, and with a glass jar, there is the added weight in the hand and cool of the glass.

Putty or slime. Mr Peggy gave me mine and it has glitter in! I love it! Great for squeezing and using my hand muscles when the anxiety has an edge of frustration, or I just need some more forceful physical input. It smells good too.


mp3 player and headphones. This is loaded with music I find calming or expressive, including tracks from my JABADAO! training, which have an instant calming effect on me either because of some intrinsic value or their associations for me (or both).

A small soft toy. Comforting to hold in the hand or against my face.

Fabric soaked with bleach in a smell-tight container. This is associated with swimming for me, which I love. The movement for my body and the sensations of the water make it a great positive activity, and the smell evokes a positive feeling in me.

Fabric soaked with Tresemme hairspray. This reminds me of dance shows and exams; again an instant whiff of "good".

Elastic that I can pull if I need more intense or resistant physical input. This is just some I had in the house and I have to double it up two or three times to get the resistance I need, or I sometimes pinch a Theraband out of my dance bag, which does the trick! (see also, spiky massage balls, foam rollers, physio/yoga balls...)

Quotes. I have four or five of these: phrases people have said to me that really resonate with my mental health. I find most inspirational quotes sickening, so these are usually things people have said in passing, but have somehow hit me in a meaningful way (often it is quite like a physical hit when it happens, causing me to pause in whatever I am doing or thinking!) and managed to actually inspire me towards getting better.

A small colouring book, with pens, pencils and sharpener. I don't usually have time to use this, but it can be helpful when I do.





A notebook and pen. To remove excess thoughts from my Brain!

Recent additions: Ziploc bag of sawdust. I have recently given a home to two scrummy guinea pigs (what a wellbeing boost they are just by being there) after a ten year gap since the hamsters of my youth. Opening the woodshavings to prepare their hutch was an almost overpowering sensory memory moment and completely unexpected. Couldn't miss an opportunity to harness that: the calm of years of pet-induced wellbeing recreated by bagging some sawdust! Discovered it's not only great to smell and put the hands in, but it's pleasing to lay the bag flat and feel it squashing under the fingers too!


My Toroidz spiral. I have great friends who buy me sensory toys for my birthday! I could lose myself for hours playing with this! Mine is UV so you can use it in a dark space with a UV torch for extra amazing-ness. The combination of physical sensation - the light touch and movement with the cool metal - and visual is entrancing, and there is potential for infinite exploration of how I can affect the quality of these sensations.

And of course, a blanket! I'm becoming quite famous for my love of blankets as I learn to be more open about myself. People are beginning to get used to seeing me around with one. Wrapping myself tightly makes me feel safer, providing an even firm pressure all around my body, containing me. If I'm less anxious holding it in my hands, on my knee or against my face is a good boost to my regulation.

Bonus item! A firm favourite of mine for sensory regulation is my fleece bodywarmer. I can wear it all day at work if I need to and it helps me feel OK. It's tight enough to give me pressure round my middle, which I find very safe and calming, and it can be done up right up to my chin, so I can have a cosy safe feeling round my neck and face which really helps too. It's squashy, soft, cosy and lovely to touch, and just an ordinary everyday item of clothing that nobody would think twice about. Winner!

The elephant in the room

Most people who know me will by now have some sort of idea that my mental health has been taking a bit of a battering recently. It's not great, my natural coping mechanisms are not healthy, and my work has been impacted, which is a line that I have always considered unacceptable to cross.

It's funny really, because I spend a reasonable amount of time promoting awareness of mental health issues and encouraging openness and conversation about mental health, yet I am still so very guarded about my own experiences. Perhaps I am not as stigma-free as I would like to think, or perhaps I just believe that I am somehow exempt from the compassion that I want others to experience!

BUT I am taking baby steps in learning how to live a better way.

I am learning to listen to myself, to act on the gut feelings I have about which situations I can manage when, and what I need to do in my unstructured time (or "down time" as those who don't frequent my work environment would say!). 

This isn't always fun or glamorous. It means letting people down (again unacceptable by my "rules"), letting myself down (cue even more Bad Brain Stuff), missing out, being boring, looking lazy or unreliable (another of my greatest fears).

As yet, admitting that I should avoid a situation doesn't even mean enjoying some quiet time to myself: it tends to mean a long battle with guilt, feeling worthless and useless, like a drain and a waste of time and space.

It is also risky: others may not agree with or understand my decision or preference. Those who know me well know that if I indicate a slight preference or wish for something to happen that is a sign that it is so enormously important to me that I have taken the risk to express it, no matter in how tiny or inconspicuous a manner. Those who don't will easily walk over the herculean effort I have made, completely invalidating it and making it even worse the next time I consider trying.

When I do succeed in listening to myself, articulating my discoveries and following through on them, and am stuck in that thought/feeling battle, I am learning to employ some "self-soothe" tools to help me to regulate and stay or become calmer. This is an approach introduced to me by my mental health team and is often used with people who experience high anxiety or distress. It may sound a bit whacky or irrelevant, but because of my awareness of the power of sensory experiences I had a fairly easy time embracing the idea (having said that, I thought I was doing it for about 9 months until I had one of those moments of revelation where suddenly something makes even more sense!). It still feels very wrong to care for myself when I feel that I have done something wrong, but I am learning that it is necessary and beneficial. It works really well as a calming toolbox for me, and with calmness comes the possibility of movement (both figuratively and literally!).

I am VERY SLOWLY learning to try and share with other people a tiny sliver of what is going on. I hate it. Every fibre of my physical being screams not to do it: it is like a complete block - a near impossibility. It is not safe at all in my mind, and fraught with risks and fears: I won't be able express what's inside, they won't understand what I am expressing, I will cause them discomfort (eg. fear, sadness, guilt), I will waste their time, they will be annoyed with me (even if they don't show it) or disregard the importance of what I am expressing, that they will think they understand, but not actually grasp it, and on and on and on. People trying to find out what is going on can make it even harder for me to share.

Occasionally by some miracle I manage to include somebody in what is happening in me (poor longsuffering Mr. Peggy and Ma Peggy and a couple of invaluable Work Peggies!). Sometimes it helps in some way. I'm hoping that through learning to talk about things with my psychologist it will gradually become more possible with other people. 

The "mental health" (or "mental illness") road is one that I am inclined to share even less than the autism road, but I think it is important to acknowledge it, even if not to go further in sharing it. Perhaps one day it will become as "OK" for me to talk about as my autism is now becoming, or perhaps not, but for now I will keep taking the little steps that appear before me which seem to be right to take.