Pros and Cons

For the most part I have my mental health in check. Which means, I still have my bipolar, depression, OCD, anxiety, etc.; however, I am able to keep a handle on them in day to day life.

This balance can be upset by many factors, big or small, with varying results. My chronic pain certainly puts pressure on my stress levels, and other health problems also flare up moods and anxiety.

My recent stroke scare combined with trying to get our house ready for sale, deciding where we can comfortably live, whether Kay and her kids will be coming with us, worries about whether we can afford it, etc. have all been brewing the last several weeks.

I am finding myself battling through minor waves of depression and anxiety. In turn, this is affecting pain levels and my mini-stroke like symptoms (slurring, numbness that come and go).

Now I have a choice. I can let all of these factors cycle around each other and bring me down, or I can become pro-active and decide that I am going to be stronger than my mental illness. I have chosen the latter.

A wonderful tool that my favourite psychiatrist gave me was the pro and con list. A chuckle he had about this one is I even made one before dating my current and awesome hubby! I had been married before and in other relationships that turned out not so well.  Since I really liked this guy, I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing – for both of us. After all, he would have to deal with my conditions.

So, today I am going to start some pro/con lists for everything that is stressing me out at the moment. I truly believe this will help me get a handle on things.

For example:

Pros for moving are

• We will (hopefully) have more room for all of our “stuff”
• When you move you have a great opportunity to cull out things you don’t need anymore…and find things you thought were lost LOL
• We have been wanting a house where we don’t have any strata rules and a yard for our fur-kids
• It would be nice to live in an area that is not so busy
• We will hopefully have room for Kay and the kids to move in, and if not then at the very least we will have room for them to visit and play

Cons include

• We will have a mortgage that we don’t have now
• We have to sell our place first to come up with a down payment
• What we can get in our price range is either out in the country (valley) or is older and needs lots of work
• Some of our family and friends are non-supportive of the move itself and/or us moving “too far away”.
• If Kay doesn’t move in we will probably have to have renters
• A house is a lot more work than a townhouse

That is just a sample – there are many more on both sides, but you get the idea.

A pro/con list can be used for almost any situation and really gets you thinking about what is important. It is a tool I will continue to use throughout my life. I hope it helps you too.