I have just written this morning’s #whatif prompt post. It makes me a little jittery with emotions that I obviously haven’t dealt with yet. But I realised that it fits perfectly in with VJ’s prompt.

Attention or paying attention.

One of my “tools” or coping strategies to survive the bad parts of my childhood was not to pay attention. Not to pay attention to my feelings, to actions of adults that were not appropriate and to what was going on around me.

I sort of created my own world inside my head. No, there were no people or creatures living in it, it was more of a protective bubble where only my perception or stream of consciousness existed. It might be that it is the experience of becoming or being a person with DID having alters. Who knows. I have no diagnosis so I can only guess.

Paying attention is something I am learning now. Especially paying attention to what is going on inside of me. If you live with a mental health issue you have to because you need to act before things get bad. If you don’t pay attention you can’t do relaxation exercises or take medication or ask for help so you spiral down or out of control so easily and everything just gets worse.

And I feel that I need to take action now. I am still rather anxious because of my experiences and if I do not take care of myself I am going down badly. So, I invite you head over to VJ’s post and read what the other participants have to say about attention :-). V.J.’S WEEKLY CHALLENGE #17: ATTENTION

VJ’s suggestions to Participate:

• Create a post on your blog.
• Tag it VJWC.
• Link back to this page or leave a link to your post in the comments.
• Read and comment on other posts.
• Look forward to your responses.