The Dysregulated Podcast
Follow my journey through the chaos of mental illness and the hard-fought lessons learned along the way.
Lived experience is at the heart of this podcast — every episode told through my own lens, with raw honesty and zero filter.
This is a genuine and vulnerable account of how multiple psychological disorders have shaped my past and continue to influence my future.
The Dysregulated Podcast
Fortnightly Check-In #45 - Still Waiting
When silence falls on The Dysregulated Podcast, it usually means something's amiss. Today, I'm breaking that silence with a raw, unfiltered check-in from the front seat of my car at Nobbys Beach during an East Coast Low storm system. Despite feeling spaced-out and fatigued, I needed to let you know: I'm still here, still fighting.
The past week has been unlike anything I've experienced before – mood swings cycling every 5-10 seconds, bouncing between slightly depressed and deeply depressed states all day long. It's left me completely drained. Yet here I am, forcing myself awake when I'd normally be sleeping for days, seeking mindfulness in the midst of a coastal storm. There's something about standing in driving rain and howling wind that grounds me completely in the present moment – perhaps my own unique form of meditation.
My journey to taper off psychiatric medications remains stalled, with NSW Health not providing the responses I'd hoped for. I'm exploring Plan B, C, and D options, though doing this without proper support feels daunting. The contrast couldn't be starker when it comes to therapy – I've experienced major breakthroughs with Internal Family Systems therapy that I can't wait to share once I can properly articulate them. Watch for upcoming therapy reflection episodes where I'll dive deep into these transformative sessions. For those who've been worried about my silence, thank you for your concern. This path isn't linear, but I'm still trucking along. Have you found unexpected sources of mindfulness in your own journey? Share your experiences in the comments or reach out directly.
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Follow my journey living with mental illness and the hard-fought lessons learned along the way. Lived experience is the driving force of this podcast, and through this lens, my stories are told.
This is a raw, honest, and authentic account of how multiple psychological disorders have shaped my past and continue to influence my future.
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You can follow me on Instagram: @elliot.t.waters
Good day everybody. My name is Elliot Waters and you're listening to the Dysregulated Podcast. As always, thank you for tuning in. So just a real quick check-in to see how things have been travelling. I have wanted to do an episode all week because there's been some big stuff going on inside my brain and I'm going to talk about that properly when I have the mental fortitude to do so. The thing is at the moment today is Monday. Often I would be asleep all day today, but I'm not. I've forced myself awake but as a result I'm very spaced out and I wouldn't exactly say I'm completely with it at the moment. So this episode is more of a check-in to say Elliot's okay, because it's been a while since I've uploaded and we know that's never a good sign. So Elliot is okay, things have not been moving, but at the same time there's things been. That doesn't even make sense. Let me try that again. As far as getting off medications and all that stuff is concerned, there's been no real movement. So we've stalled. I've got my theories as to why and I've got my ideas of how to get out of it. But again, when I've got the mental fortitude to go through that story, I will ASAP.
Speaker 0:But the week just gone has been really rough up and down, up and down, up and down. I've never had rapid mood swings like I did last week. It was hell Unbelievable how tiring and fatigue-inducing it is for your mood to be chopping and changing every five to 10 seconds, seriously every five to 10 seconds, all day. Up and down, up and down, up and down. And when I say up, the up isn't like euphoria the up is slightly depressed and the down is very, very depressed. You know what I mean. So I'm still bouncing around below zero, if that makes sense. It was a very, very difficult week and I got through it. But there's a lot of lessons I think have been learned and I want to go through them with you because I need to conceptualize a bit what happened Because, as I said last week, I've never had mood swings as rapid as that and that's going to take a bit to unpack. Let me tell you right now. But anyway, I'm not going to do that right now because I am still very fatigued from the week. That was Today's Monday.
Speaker 0:Often I'd be asleep right now, doing my whole two days of sleep thing, but I forced myself awake. I'm awake, but I am a bit off with the fairies and I'm also getting sick. That's another thing. Having been sick in months feels like I'm getting sick. So if I'm not as clear as usual, it's because I'm more blocked up, which is really annoying, because I don't know about you guys, but a lot of my coping strategies, my best coping adaptations, involve doing stuff that is physical. So being in bed, for example, sick, really makes things difficult as far as coping strategies go.
Speaker 0:Now, don't worry, I'm not in bed sick, I'm not at that point and hopefully I won't get there. In fact, I'm at Nombie's Beach here in Newcastle and there's an East Coast low that's been hovering around the city and there's flood warnings out, extreme weather warnings and, of course, me being impulsive and looking for that hit. I've decided to go right into Knobby's Beach and look at this East Coast low front on and say bring it on baby. So yeah, a bit silly, probably probably not, but I'm not the only person here. There's a few people here, so it's not just me.
Speaker 0:Um, and I really do like extreme weather events and this one is proving to be a doozy, so I don't want to miss out and that's one of the reasons why I forced myself awake, which was so hard and honestly I could fall asleep right now, but I'm not going to. But part of it was because I don't want to miss out on this. You know this is, I don't know. People talk about like gratitude and stuff with like sunsets and all that sort of stuff. I feel a lot of gratitude, excuse me. I feel a lot of gratitude for these extreme sort of weather events. I don't know, maybe that's different than the norm, but that's what I'm doing and yeah, so I'm sitting in my car. So if you can hear the rain and stuff coming down, and yeah, so I'm sitting in my car, so if you can hear the rain and stuff coming down, it's because I'm in my car. I'm recording on my phone.
Speaker 0:This is gritty, this is raw, and I'm here because I don't know, I'm very spaced out, really spaced out. Today's been a tough day. It's not been the up and down up and down like last week was. Today's just been sort of down, maybe not down as extreme as what last week got to, but I definitely wouldn't say I'm in a great headspace currently, but watching this storm come in is, for me, a bit of gratitude and it gets my mind away from other things. This is a bit of mindfulness, especially when I step out and stand in the rain. That, my friends, is mindfulness, because there's not much more you can think about than getting drenched and getting blown away, because this storm is quite a doozy. But anyway, that's all for me for now.
Speaker 0:I've got lots more things to say. I haven't even mentioned at all the latest. When it comes to me getting psychiatric care to taper of medications. There's stories to tell about that, but then at the same time, there's not much, very much, in a holding pattern at this stage. I've tried and reached out to New South Wales Health and I haven't quite got the responses that I've been looking for. So I've been looking at other ways to try and do this, to try and taper off these medications Plan B, plan C, plan D, sort of stuff but it's proving very, very difficult and I really don't want to have to do this in the community. But anyway, that's a conversation for a different episode.
Speaker 0:My therapy reflections. There's a big one of them coming. I'm actually going to the psychologist now, tomorrow. I got in, which is great, because last week has been really difficult and today has also been difficult. So it's good that I've got this psychology appointment tomorrow, because I think I really need to deload a bit or unload or whatever you want to call it download, upload, whatever. I need to get it out, and tomorrow will be a good opportunity to do that.
Speaker 0:And when I'm feeling a bit more switched on, there's some big episodes coming. Let me tell you. They're all written out, it's all ready to go. I just need to be in the frame of mind where my inner critic and imposter syndrome don't push me too hard, where they make me shut down and not do anything at all. So you know, that's what I've been battling today. That's why I'm recording on the phone right now, because this is very spontaneous, spur of the moment, sort of stuff.
Speaker 0:But it's important that I get this out there. I am okay, don't worry everybody. I am okay, although there's been a bit of a silence, a bit of a period with silence. I know that that usually means not good things and unfortunately it's been a difficult week and a half, but at the same time I'm still trucking, baby, don't you worry about that. So thank you everybody for listening.
Speaker 0:I'll be recording, as I said, my therapy reflections. There's going to be at least two of them coming very soon. I might do them back to back even as well, because huge gains have been made in therapy, which is great, which is brilliant. So the medication stuff there's been no real gains on that front at all, but when it comes to therapy, big time, big gains, and I can't wait to tell you all about it, when I can conceptualize it myself and come up with a good way to convey what's been going on. Because again, we're looking at therapies like internal family systems therapy, which is very imaginative. So it is hard to convey what was all going on. But I'm going to give it my best shot when I'm feeling sharper again. All right, thank you everybody for listening. I do appreciate it and I'll see you hopefully very, very soon here again on the Disregulated Podcast.
