Making Scents of Mental Health: an introduction to our new collection

Making Scents of Mental Health: an introduction to our new collection

Dr. Aimee and I have been friends for quite some time now and she's been a huge help going through recovery of an overwhelming physical (which impacts your mentality) transformation from IV-bound to the person you see before you today. Because of our direct connections to healing ourselves and others, we wanted to combine our forces into something helpful for people to get the vocabulary they need to start the difficult conversations with their peers or even their new therapists. 
I didn't realize the impact that Lyme Disease had on my mental health until I began trying to acclimate into everyday activities: I would come home from a great dinner, an amazing picnic, walk on the beach, or anything, and JUST SOB. i'm talking ugly cry, bellowing over- unable to breathe. But I was so happy today- why am I crying? what is happening to me? 
I finally mustered up the courage to ask my close friend Dr Aimee about my secret sorrow I was experiencing after my new times out... She immediately responded to my text saying "ya girl, let's get tea, coffee, or wine? when are you free?" 
It was really that simple: I wrote my friend that I needed help, she made time, and now all I had to do was to get the words out of my brain as to how I was feeling.. or not feeling? 

We met up and I could feel myself wanting to avoid the very topic that brought us face to face- she knew it and went right in: how are you feeling right now? she asked. I was shook-eth and said.... GREAT YOU KNOW REALLY GREAT.  Dr. A laughed, and she said, it's okay to not be okay, and that's why we're going to get to the bottom of it. 
I felt hot and tingly- but also seen and scared at the same time and i wasn't quite sure why my adrenaline started to pump. I told her what I was feeling in this moment, and she said I think you're having a trauma response to being social again. 


I told her over and over again that I wasn't traumatized. 
She refused to accept it because part of trauma is realizing you don't have a choice over what your body feels is traumatic to you or not. Compounding trauma is repeated exposure to trauma (of many kinds) throughout my treatment has forced my brain into a survivalist mechanism that isn't sustainable.
 

The more I spoke about my endless surgeries, lungs collapsing, getting legislation passed so I could get IV antibiotics legally, being alone and homebound doing this alone, being scared to be alive, being scared to die, being scared to never get better again, to wake up as I did before I started treatment, or to be scared to not wake up at all.

But now, I'm free. I stay up until 4 am to get every ounce of my energy and daylight I can because I crave being alive. THIS is why I cried: I was happy, I am happy. I am alive, and I am here.

The point is here we sometimes need just the right vocabulary and ear to help us into the right path to solving our problems. She found me the right Trauma Psych and I moved right into a treatment plan. Dr Aimee and I are  introducing this collection in May during Mental Health Month - More importantly, we have developed this collection as an invitation for people to use this everyday item and their experience of it to begin understanding a psychoanalytic process while also demystifying mental health.
check out the collection here: https://shopfloreslane.com/collections/making-scents-of-mental-health
Back to blog

Leave a comment

Please note, comments need to be approved before they are published.