Alumna Isabel Biggs (English BA, 2019) created the blog post ‘The Post-It Plot: Micro-Journaling During Lockdown’, to help those suffering with mental ill health during lockdown. Isabel has kindly consented to us sharing her blog post in full.
In her own words, Isabel created the blog post “during a period of personal mental ill-health that occurred before and during the coronavirus pandemic. I have a passion for writing and desired to express myself in this condition by writing little journals on post-it notes until I had accrued a pile of ‘life’, both dark and light. In a period of mental ill-health my thoughts are disordered and fractured, so I felt that the most effective way to depict this was a visual one.
It was both therapeutic and explanatory. I hoped everybody could find something in it while our world is in a state of uncertainty, particularly those suffering from mental health issues like my own. My design was about providing an image of life during this time to promote understanding and ultimately, unity with our fellow human beings.”
The sun has graced us with its presence today. The clouds resemble impressionist paintings in all of their elaborately blurred glory. My dog, Claude, is clearly dying for a walk as he flies up and down the stairs, stealing our socks and flinging them around as his frustration mounts. It is another day in lockdown, and I am in the precarious situation of feeling peaceful yet delicately teetering on the cusp of all-encompassing reflection.
Living with physical and mental health issues during months of lockdown has created a constant emotional flurry in my mind. Before the whole of the UK went into quarantine I had been on a personal lockdown since January due to daily and nightly dissociative seizures derived from my latest diagnosis of Complex PTSD, in addition to my pre-existing conditions. Over the past several weeks I decided to document some of this and have been writing ‘micro journals’, little snippets of life, on post-it notes.
After I collected a hefty pile of post-it notes I rearranged them by adhering them to random spots all over two of my bookcases so they formed both horizontal and vertical lines. I have now transcribed these lines and created a series of ‘streams of consciousness’ which are written here, and are designed to represent my state of mind over this time.
The randomness of the order and sudden flitting from one thought or emotion to another, often completely unrelated, from happiness to sadness and all in between, is an image of these thought processes. Excuse the uneven tone, but that is what it has been like existing in this state throughout several months of extremely insular living. Here they are; I hope these examples of the ‘flurry’, the relentless whirlpool, are illuminating. And so 2020 goes on.
Why all the internal rhymes
All the vowels that reside inside
…I have a problem and need help
And a life!
*Face palm*
Writing more letters
Sent my film off to get developed
Happy high
Manageable flashbacks exist!
My order from Pen Heaven is coming tomorrow!!!
I will never go on a cruise,
my escape instincts would be
thoroughly thwarted
The boat could be thunderstruck
Everything would be theatricalised
Thematical thingamabobs littered throughout
…
I need more therapy
Something storms my head
and then REFUSES TO LEAVE
For days on end
it invades the screen
Etched on my eyes
Blinking does nothing
Inexhaustible stalks of thought
Flowering
I kept being told I had changed
A decade migration
I am not sure if it’s the complex PTSD
Analysis has kept me dwelling
When I want to think of so many other things unrelated to me
I am a different person
H says I’m more ‘pensive’ and ‘tough’ and this makes sense
So much too much
Now get. out. of. my. head.
It went dark today
Moody, broody English day
More boredom
but the backdrop is dramatic
Like a reckoning is about to come
But it will most likely only drizzle
The sky is mocking me
Its defiant insipidity
(oxymoron)
(emphasis on moron)
These post-its keep falling off the shelf
Not sticky enough
My desk faces three sets of windows and I can see everything that happens in the street
A big tree
Lots of Amazon deliveries
Poodle crosses
Leisurely conversations
Shopping bags that clink
I am Jimmy Stewart without a broken leg or a secret plot to observe
Who needs one when I can gaslight myself?
Ruminating about ruminating
the cycle
THE CYCLE
The curse of introspection
The merciless reflection
A perpetual detention
I am not using mindfulness apps they give me panic attacks
Counter-productive
How much do self-help voice actors make?
Maybe I’ve missed my calling
Not enough prescriptions in the world, I’m panicking a lot lately
Anxiety in the chest and can’t bear people
Don’t get me wrong, it was also fun
Past things could be tough
But even those corners were dulled
By certain laughs/loves
Went on the tube, and it is the same as before
Except for the masks
And all the signs
And the small detail that there is almost no one on it
I am not worried I will dissociate!
Life without daytime dissociation is a new, brighter dimension
Forest glades
All the rest… sweetened away
Church on YouTube in an hour
*hour has passed*
Pastor talked about Psalm 8 and God’s majesty
Very uplifting very inspiring
Brain unfreeze
You’re not the only one with a vocabulary, Boris
Getting a haircut in two weeks!
I will no longer look like something out of Macbeth
Watching one of my favourite Youtube channels where one guy makes videos about all of Tolkien’s works, from The Silmarillion to Lord of the Rings, even to The Unfinished Tales
They’re extremely detailed and I’m learning so much about where the elves came from and all of their shenanigans with Morgoth (and his orcs) and the dwarves and the humans and the Valar and the Silmarils and EACH OTHER. They’re beautiful but truly, the drama
Eating it up, of course
Lorelai is a jerk
and Dean
and Rory
and yes you sound jealous
Just heard about the grief of
somebody I used to know
It has been several years but I am crushed for them
I can’t think about anything else, it’s fused to the fibres of my mind
I get fixated
All day, all the time
Why am I so self-centred
I only ever wanted the best for your life
My prayers are for you tonight
I have 10 tote bags in a pile and 5 are from Daunt Books
Another is a sturdy navy one with ‘emotional baggage’ written on it
And yes, it is my favourite!
It’s not too late
I am looking for the best Japanese/Korean sunscreen
Being sick has made my consumption more specific
Blah blah blah self-care blah
When I was a kid my favourite book of the Bible was Proverbs
Now I read Psalms over and over
It’s the full spectrum of emotion
I like writing mediocre poetry
Not good, not bad
But very cathartic
I need to stop looking at Twitter in my sleep
Clumsy sleepy thumbs keep ‘liking’ things I wouldn’t ordinarily
Slightly concerned I look like a terrible person
Irony is I don’t even personally use Twitter
Toxic echo chamber
A merciless commander
…and bad spelling
Therapist said to not write about trauma, but write light
Like light fiction
Maybe I should do this but with pieces of a story
And more alliteration
Always
(See what I did? I crack myself up)
A majestic car is across the street
The people stretch in their underwear in front of an open window
Curtains please
The key (in the short term) to dealing with distressing memories in the every day, doc tells me
is distract distract distract
not dwell dwell dwell
I’m getting better at it!
Slowly!
Was lying in bed
Thinking,
I would be nowhere without the women in my life
I always wanted to be B when I grew up
We are bonded
Have you ever thought about how ‘bonds’ can be things that imprison a person OR
they can be things bringing people together, in love and solidarity?
It’s the same word, but one means loneliness, and the other the opposite
(Although sometimes I think you can feel both at once)
But I’m blessed to have the latter with these women
I am not imprisoned
We are not imprisoned
I need to re-read Patti Smith’s Just Kids
Concentration continues to be an issue
Hence micro-journals with nothing profound to say
Not the idea though
Sometimes the void is the point
I sent colouring-in to the Ps
They are special
REDACTED threatened REDACTED
Flippantly
My nausea will not cease
I have wanted to thank you for so many years
Feeling less bruised
So
I’m
thanking
you
Writing/photography/different types of art
Walking through nature with D and the dog
Sunny afternoons, cool drinks
A WhatsApp away from all the love in the world
Feeling that despite all the sadnesses
I’ve got it pretty good
In 2 months I turn 28
And you know what?
It’s not a waste
I am not a waste