Creating a Sensory Room Experience in My Own Bedroom

Posted on by Astrid

It’s been a year since the day center closed. For the most part, it was a good thing for me. I, after all, was often overwhelmed in my day activities group. One thing I miss about the day center though, is the sensory or snoezelen® room. Today, I am sharing how I recreated a sensory room experience in my own bedroom. Since I am blind, I skipped the visual aspect mostly, but I’ll add some ideas for it regardless. That way, you can create a sensory environment for yourself.

Sound

In the day center sensory room, we have a really cool speaker system that’s attached to the bed. It isn’t likely that advanced, so with some speakers at the right position, you may be able to recreate it. I don’t own wireless speakers. However, I found that I can recreate similar effects with earbuds or headphones. I would recommend earbuds for better positioning, but since I don’t have wireless ones, I use my wireless headphones anyway.

I mentioned before that I use an app called MyNoise. This app has over 120 soundscapes and you can customize each individual sound to your own hearing. There are nature soundscapes, but also white noise, Buddhist-like and SciFi soundscapes. I prefer the nature ones.

Like I said, I don’t own wireless speakers, though I might want to invest in some at some point. My phone or computer speakers work okay when listening to music though. There are many calming playlists on Spotify and undoubtedly other music apps too. The ones I love most are Harp Music for Sleeping, Peaceful Guitar and Peaceful Piano. There are also a number of nature sound playlists.

I at one point wanted a music pillow. I may still buy one at some point, but I haven’t yet found one that’s big enough to be used as a sleeping pillow and also works with Bluetooth.

Smell

One thing that my bedroom has and the snoezelen® room didn’t, is an aromatherapy diffuser. I have posted many times about my love for it. Mine cost €40, but they start at as cheap as €15. Essential oils can be a bit expensive depending on the quality you choose. I am obsessed with creating my own blends, so I really like to have a large collection of essential oils. However, if all you want is a nice smell, fragrance oils are also great.

Touch

In the day center sensory room, we had a specially designed waterbed. That felt good, but my own bed is also a pretty good substitute. I usually turn up the head side of the bed slightly.

A thing that’s a true blessing for my senses though, is my weighted blanket. These come in different forms. Some are filled with plastic balls. Mine is filled with sachets filled with granules. It’s a rather expensive blanket at over €500. Thankfully though, my care facility paid for it. With the company we used, you can borrow the blanket on a try-out basis for two weeks for just postage. That helped me make sure it was the right one for me. Mine weighs 12kg, which is relatively heavy considering my body weight of 70kg, but I actually love it this way.

I put a flannel duvet cover over my weighted blanket in winter. When it’s really cold or I need some extra softness for sensory reasons, I use a fleece blanket too.

In addition, I have various soft toys. My favorite is an ordinary stuffed bear. However, I also have a 1.60m large stuffed bear that I got from my mother-in-law for my birthday last year. This one was probably quite expensive. Another of my favorite soft toys, is my sensory cat. This stuffed cat can be microwaved and then gives off heat and a lavender scent.

Sight

Like I said, I am blind with the exception of a tiny bit of light perception. I for this reason don’t benefit from visual stimuli. That being said, I do know a bit about making your room visually appealing to the senses.

My essential oil diffuser works as a night light too. It can be set to seven different colors and I believe also two intensity levels.

Of course, you may want to use your sensory room experience for more than just sleeping. I’m pretty sure in my care home’s makeshift sensory room, the staff put up some form of Christmas lights for the visual effect.

In addition, there are many different visual projection systems. My care facility owns the Qwiek.

Conclusion

I really love my makeshift sensory room in my own bedroom. Generally speaking, creating a true sensory room requires a lot of money. I am so glad though that I could buy some equipment myself or ask for it as a gift. That way, I was able to skip the unnecessary for me expensive things and find things I truly would use. I am very glad that my facility paid for the weighted blanket.

loopyloulaura

Self-Care During These Weird Times

Posted on by Astrid

Okay, it’s been quite the week. Here in the Netherlands, the government are discussing curfews and other stricter lockdown measures and even without those, the current lockdown will last till at least February 9. I’ve even heard some pandemic management gurus say the measures need to be in effect till the summer. Ouch.

Still, I am very happy that I live in a currently stable democracy like the Netherlands. As much can’t be said of the United States. I really wonder how all of my American friends keep their spirits up. Today, for Mama Kat’s writer’s workshop, I’m sharing some ways I take care of myself.

1. Prayer and Bible reading. As my husband says, in unprecedented times, people turn to religion. Now he predicts worse times are still to come for us, although we can never be sure. It’s important to know our life’s purpose if we want to keep afloat. For me that purpose is Jesus.

I have almost a 40-day Bible reading streak on the YouVersion app. I also make sure I pray everyday.

2. Avoiding the news. I know some people have come to watch more TV over the past ten months or so, but I experience the opposite. I look up an overview of what’s been said after each prime minister’s speech. Other than that, I only briefly skim through the news.

3. Doing things I enjoy. I try to write everyday, even if it’s not on this blog. I also look into developing my creative side in other areas, such as soap and bath and body product making. Today I made my first bath bomb in nearly a year. I also try to walk everyday. In this respect, the pandemic certainly helped, because now that the day center is closed, I can go on more regular walks.

4. Relaxation. When life gets to me, I try to relax. I lie under my weighted blanket, turn on a nice playlist on Spotify and diffuse some essential oil in my diffuser.

5. Gratitude. My husband doesn’t want to scare me when he says things may get worse, but he’s right. Most of us in the developed world still have food and shelter. Most of us in Europe have access to health care. Here in the Netherlands, we have a government that tries its best to care for the people. I have Internet access or I wouldn’t be writing this post. Things may get worse, but right now, they are still pretty much okay. I at least can handle the current situation.

What do you do to stay motivated during these weird times?

Mama’s Losin’ It

Also linking up with Grace at Home.

Self-Care Strategies for Coping with Mental Health Issues #Blogtober20

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt in #Blogtober20 is “She Drives Me Crazy”. Many bloggers are using the prompt to inspire posts on organization, decluttering and mental health. So am I.

I’m not feeling too well today. Yesterday, my inner voices started back up with a vengeance. This led to a mini-crisis in the middle of the night. Today I’m feeling a bit low. It may be to blame on my lack of proper sleep last night, or it might just be a bit of the seasonal blues. I hope not, of course.

Anyway, here are some things I do to cope with mental health issues. Some of these are specific to a certain problem, such as depression or anxiety. Others are more general wellbeing tips.

1. Proper sleep and rest. I’ve noticed that, when I don’t sleep well, my mental health goes downhill rapidly. For this reason, I’m trying to get into a better night-time routine. I still use my computer or phone before bed, which I probably shouldn’t do, but I don’t know what else to do in the evening.

I currently am in the process of trying out a weighted blanket, which really helps with relaxation. I mean, even if I don’t sleep, I do rest more when using this. I also use an app called MyNoise, which allows users to customize various mixes of nature sounds or other sensory-friendly sounds. You can set the individual volume for each sound within the mix and there are about 150 mixes to choose from if you have the paid version (which is a one-time purchase of I believe €10,99). Last night, I ultimately fell asleep listening to a soundscape called Patagonia.

I do usually take one hour-long nap during the day. Most days, if I stick to just that after-lunch nap, I sleep pretty well during the night and still feel refreshed the rest of the day.

2. Sensory-friendly activities. I already mentioned the weighted blanket and the MyNoise soundscapes. In addition, I often diffuse essential oil blends into my diffuser. Just today, some new oils arrived, so I’m excited to try them out soon.

3. Staying active. Today is a bad day weather-wise, as it’s been raining most of the day. Still, I managed to squeeze in a walk in the afternoon. I also made sure to stay active and do something in the morning. I made a soap. This is not physically exerting myself, but it definitely gives me joy.

It helps me to stick to a routine as much as possible. Like, I drink coffee in the morning and afternoon, eat my meals at regular times, and do an activity in the morning and afternoon too. I also usually go for a walk in the evening, but today it was raining and the staff were too busy.

4. Mindfulness. I haven’t practised that today, but I find it can help me stay grounded in the moment. I sometimes try a body scan meditation. I also for one love guided visualizations.

How do you take good care of yourself?

For those who are interested, last April, I participated in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge with the topic of self-care. If you click on the #AtoZChallenge tag in my tag cloud, you’ll find a lot of information.

#Blogtober20

Mother As Place of Attachment

Posted on by Astrid

It’s already been eighteen months since I last wrote about what I read in The Emotionally Absent Mother. Still, the book hasn’t just sat there. I struggled to move on from Mother As Source. The next section is titled Mother As Place of Attachment. Somehow, this is a really hard section. I don’t really know why. I mean, yes, part of the reason I struggle to move on in writing about this book, is that I do it publicly and what if my parents read this? Then again, I don’t really care. I’m in groups on Facebook for childhood emotional neglect and emotional abuse survivors too. Though the member list of private groups isn’t available to non-members, I’m pretty sure they know somehow. Honestly, regarding this, I care more about my husband’s opinion than my parents’.

But there’s something specifically about this section that is hard. I’m not even sure what. Maybe it’s just that I don’t have a lot of early memories of my mother. I attribute this to my father being the homemaker and primary caretaker in our household. But fathers can “mother” too.

The first question asked in the section on your mother as place of attachment, is to rate your sense of connectedness to your mother on a scale of 1 to 10. The next question is how your sense of connectedness evolved over the years.

Well, with my mother, I am generally at a 5. I don’t feel she “gets” me, but we do get along okay. Like I said when discussing mother as source, I don’t feel that I’m made of her, but she isn’t from another planet either. Or maybe she’s from Venus. I mean, we’re not constantly disconnected.

Over the years, my sense of connectedness to my mother has stayed the same. I never quite felt like we had a strong bond, but I didn’t feel totally alienated either.

My father is a different story. We had a strong connection, maybe around 8, when I was a child. Now we’re at a 3 at best. Like I said in my mother as source post, as a child, I saw my father as the embodiment of intelligence, success and well what other positive characteristics are there really? When I got to question his having sole ownership of the truth at around age 15, things started to change. Or did things change earlier on? I’m not sure.

Another question is about bodily contact. This is where I get to question whether the schism occurred earlier than age 15. When I was a young child, my father definitely did give both my sister and me lots of opportunities for bodily contact. I remember when my sister and I were little, my father would wrap us in a towel and drag us to our bedroom. He called this “swordfish” and my sister always asked for “sordsish”.

My mother says that, around age 7 or 8, I stopped wanting to sit in my parents’ lap. From then on, bodily contact like hugging or good-night kisses was very ritualistic. I remember around age 11, being forced to read a certain number of pages in Braille if I wanted a good-night kiss. This at the time felt very distressing. I haven’t studied emotional development except in the context of intellectual disability, so I have really no idea whether it’s normal to still want good-night kisses at that age. I guess not.

As a side note, I did initiate physical contact such as hand-holding with practically every adult until I was at least 12. In my psych eval report from age 11, the ed psych notes that I claim not to need a cane but grab her hand immediately anyway. That first bit was no doubt related to my difficult accepting my blindness, but I don’t think the second bit is fully. Even as an adult, I truly crave physical contact and am a bit indiscriminate in who can give it to me. I mean, I am pretty clear that no male staff can provide me with physical comfort (or help me with personal care). With regards to female staff though (and the entire current staff of my home is female), I do accept physical comfort. I honestly don’t know how my husband feels about this.

PoCoLo
Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday

Verbalize Your Needs: Assertiveness as Self-Care #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to my letter V post in the #AtoZChallenge. Okay, I already posted a V post and originally didn’t want to write another one for this challenge or at least not so soon after posting my earlier post. However, I had a topic in mind already. Today, I’m going to write about using assertiveness as self-care.

Assertiveness is nothing more than sticking up for yourself appropriately. It doesn’t mean aggressively dictating how others need to treat you. Like, I am always reminded of a scene in the first Adrian Mole book by Sue Townsend, in which he desccribes that his mother went to an assertiveness training for women only and started to rigidly divide all household chores evenly between his father, herself and Adrian. Well, that’s not how it works.

Assertiveness also doesn’t mean passively agreeing to everything someone else says even if you don’t. I have a tendency to do that and then to complain to other people about the person’s behavior. That’s passive-aggressive.

In order to resolve interpersonal disagreements, I like the DEAR MAN approach from dialectical behavior therapy. DEAR MAN stands for:

D: Describe. Describe the situation as objectively as you can in order to get on the same page with the other person about what you’re actually talking about.

E: Express. Tell the other person how you feel and what you think. Use “I” statements and take responsibility for your stance.

A: Assert. This is where you verbalize what you need or want or don’t want. Be as clear as you can be. Don’t expect the other person to know what you mean if you’re vague.

Remember, we all have different love languages (which apply to friendships and family relationships too). Say your partner’s main way of expressing love is through kind words, but you prefer physical touch. Then you will consistently feel disappointed if they keep saying “I love you” without touching you. State clearly that you want your partner to hug you more often. COVID-19 permitting, they’ll most likely be happy to do so.

R: Reinforce. This means to reward the other person for their behavior. Sounds weird, right? You know you are not dealing with a 5-year-old who gets candy for eating his veggies. Okay, sometimes you are, but in this post I’m mostly talking about relationships between equals. However, what I mean is simply to focus on the positive you want instead of the negative behavior the other is showing you. Often we tend to react negatively in times of conflict, such as by yelling or threatening or withholding our affection. I definitely do. Instead, express how the other person’s changing behavior makes you feel more appreciated, respected or loved.

M: Mindful. Be present and in the moment. Don’t bring up past grievances. I’m often guilty of bringing past stuff into conflicts.

A: Assertive. Stay calm, make eye contact (if possible), keep an even voice. Don’t shout or threaten. It’s okay to express emotions, but let your words express your needs or wants.

N: Negotiate. Once you’ve done all these previous steps, it’s time to let the other person express their reasons for possibly not changing. You need to listen to these mindfully. If you can’t negotiate or you come to an impasse, it may help to ask the other person how they would react if they were in your situation. If nothing else works, you can always agree to disagree.

Understanding and Dealing with Anger #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day 21 and my letter U post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today I’m going to write about dealing with anger.

First, before you can learn to deal with it, you have to figure out whether what you’re experiencing is truly anger. I mean, anger is often our first go-to emotion even when what we’re truly feeling is guilt, sadness, fear or hurt, for example. I for one tend to express all strong emotions, even “positive” ones, as anger. (I put that between quote marks because no emotion is truly positive or negative.)

Second, check whether you are hungry, thirsty or not feeling well physically. Particularly hunger can cause you to feel angry. Anna Borges explains in her book, The More or Less Definitive Guide to Self-Care, that the same chemicals are released in the brain when your blood sugar is low that are released when you are angry. Usually when I’m hungry, I want to overeat and the thoughts I use to suppress that, cause me frustration and anger.

Also, pain can be a really frustrating feeling. When you’re not used to dealing with pain or physical discomfort, it can be that your go-to emotion is once again anger. It is for me.

When you have figured out that you are actually angry, there are several things you can do.

Firstly, leave the environment. Literally physically leave the room. Tell the people you’re with that you need a break to calm down.

Also, write an angry letter – but don’t send it. It may even be helpful to shred it at the end. Write out all your angry thoughts, whine if you want to, let it all out.

Another strategy is to self-soothe. Anna Borges explains that you can see anger as an inner baby who cries. Hold it by doing deep breathing and maybe talking calmly to it.

Lastly, Borges doesn’t mention this but I find it extremely helpful to exercise vigorously. This helps release chemicals in the brain that make you feel good. Also, tearing apart an old magazine or newspaper, stomping your feet, or otherwise expressing your frustration safely, can certainly help.

What do you feel helps you when you’re mad?

Tarot, Etc.: Paranormal or Intuitive Methods for Self-Care #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to my letter T post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today I’m talking about a topic that may be a little weird to some of my readers. Tarot, huh? Yes, I am writing about how to use paranormal and intuitive methods in self-care.

The tarot is a bit of a floaty concept to some. I mean, many people associate it with fortune-telling and predicting the future, which in my opinion isn’t possible. I mean, as a teen, I used to believe in some degree of fortune-telling, but I don’t anymore. However, the tarot is really a method of tapping into your own intuition.

So what is the tarot? It’s a deck of 78 cards, each with their own symbolism and meaning. People who lay out a spread, usually pose a situation or question and then draw one or more cards. Each card then is supposed to give the reader insight into part of the answer to their question.

The cards are visual, in that they have an image on them. As such, they at first seemed meaningless to me. That was until I downloaded a pretty accessible tarot app that had explanations of each of the cards in it.

Like I said above, drawing a card cannot predict the future. However, reflecting on a card or spread can help you come closer to understanding your own innermost self. You don’t just draw a card or lay a spread and expect the cards to solve your problem. You still have control, but really thinking about the meaning of cards, can help you come to realize your most true feelings and thoughts.

In addition to the tarot, there are many other “paranormal” ways of taking care of yourself. I like to explore astrology. Again, laying blame on the stars for your shit isn’t going to solve anything. However, reflecting on astrology can help you understand yourself a bit. As a teen, I would also experiment a bit with the pendulum, but that didn’t help me.

I also as a teen had a large collection of gemstones. Though I mostly kept them for their beauty, I did believe in their healing power to an extent.

I follow a few tarot bloggers who use the cards to explore emotions, character and setting, sometimes even in creative writing. I love that.

Signaling: Using Crisis Prevention Plans #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to my letter S post in the #AtoZChallenge. There are really many S words that are fitting in a self-care routine. After all, “self” starts with an S and self-care is about YOU. I will be writing about creating a crisis prevention plan.

A crisis prevention plan, which is also called a signaling plan in Dutch (hence the letter S), details the signs and symptoms you experience leading up to a crisis. In most mental hospitals, it consists of three phases:


  • Phase 1 or green: I’m doing well.

  • Phase 2 or orange: I’m not doing well.

  • Phase 3 or red: I’m in crisis.

Here in the intellectual disability care facility, a signaling plan is more extensive and can also be used to signal lowalertness. It consists of six phases:


  • Phase -2: sleeping (when not appropriate).

  • Phase -1: low alertness.

  • Phase 0: adequate and alert.

  • Phase 1: low stress, highly alert.

  • Phase 2: high stress, too highly alert.

  • Phase 3: emotional outburst or loss of control (crisis).


I find it pretty hard to translate these into English, so sorry for my quirky word choice.

In each phase, the signaling plan lists signs patients or their staff will notice when the patient is in that phase. For example, one of my phase two behaviors is loud talking. Abilities are also explained. For example, in phase 0 in my case, I am able to make decisions adequately. In phase 1, I can make choices between a few (usually two) different options. In phase 2 and 3, it’s up to the staff to make decisions for me.

Mental hospitals and mental health agencies in general are strongly focused on patient self-reliance, so they include lots of stuff about what you can do yourself in the different phases. In most cases, in fact, the patient is held fully responsible for their self-care unless they enter phase 3. I mean, patients are allowed to ask for help in phase 2, but staff will not reach out and patients are usually required to come up with direct requests for help. IN my opinion, this is rather odd.

I find it extremely comforting yet a bit surprising to see that my current signaling plan, which was created by my care staff and the behavior specialist, details staff responsibilities for each phase.

Like I said yesterday, my signaling plan also includes a recovery phase, which lists signs I’m coming out of a crisis and ways staff can help me then. This is really helpful.

Recovery Time After a Crisis #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to my letter R post in the #AtoZChallenge. There are a lot of R topics related to self-care. I want to write about recovering after you’ve been in a mentally hard space or crisis.

First, let me tell you that recovery time is important in preventing a crisis too. You just can’t go, go, go all the time. No-one can, whether you struggle with mental health issues or not. So take your down time. Whether that be a nap, a nice bath or shower, or listening to your favorite music, is up to you. Or something else entirely, of course. I often need to take a little time to unwind in the afternoon. I do this by lying on my bed with nature sounds or relaxing music playing on Spotify. When we still went to the day center, I’d go to the sensory room for about half an hour to an hour.

When you have just come out of a mental health crisis, it’s especially important to take your time to recover. Your recovery time, according to my DBT handout, may help you come to an insight as to how to prevent this crisis from happpening again. It often does for me. It may not, but then at least you’ll need time to come back to your usual self.

I have a crisis signaling plan here at the care facility. Its different phases normally range from -2 (asleep when you shouldn’t be) to +3 (emotional outburst or loss of control, ie. crisis). My staff put in another phase for me, which they call “recovery”. This is what happens after I calm down from a meltdown. I usually feel sadness and shame then. Staff are in this phase advised to stay near and help me process my thoughts and feelings. This is, for me, often the time when I can be most honest about my needs.

What do you do to recover when you’re climbing out of a mental pit?

Quotes, Sayings and Affirmations for Self-Care #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to my Letter Q post in the #AtoZChallenge. Man, how time flies! We’ve just entered our sixth week in “intelligent” lockdown here in the Netherlands. Tomorrow, prime minister Rutte will hold another press conference to determine whether any restrictions will be lifted on April 28. I doubt it, but oh well.

Today I want to talk about using quotes and inspirational sayings in your self-care routine.

Quotes may seem a little cheesy to some people at first. Then again, maybe you haven’t found the right one yet. If you find a quote that truly speaks to you, it can definitely set you off in the right direction.

I for one love quotes and not just the deep ones. Anna Borges’ first self-care strategy is called “A.A. Milne” after the author of the book Winnie the Pooh. There are lots of funny quotes in that book and in the Disney movies based on it. They may actually make you laugh and inspire you at the same time.

I do also love deep quotes though. My favorites come from Helen Keller, Tori Amos and Madeleine L’Engle. However, I enjoy quotes from a ton of different people.

For those of us who are religious, Bible or other sacred text verses can also certainly speak to you. I am a true cherry picker where it comes to the Bible, picking out random passages to use for motivation. That’s totally okay if you ask me.

When you find a quote or verse that speaks to you, you can use it as a mantra or affirmation. You can also create your own affirmations. The key to getting affirmations to actually do good for you, is believing in them. I mean, I don’t believe in Law of Attraction-like ideas that say anything you set your mind to can come true. Affirmations need to be useful to your life right now. For example, I use the following affirmation: “I love, accept and respect myself exactly as I am right now.”

There are a number of different apps that can be used for focusing on affirmations. I use ThinkUp and Mantra on my iPhone. Both are free but come with ads and an in-app purchase to get premium features and remove advertising.

What are your favorite quotes, sayings or affirmations?