# knitting (etc) for mental health



## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

I have a radio interview Wednesday morning to discuss knitting as a coping strategy for stress, depression, anxiety and general mental health.

Clearly I have found great comfort in both knitting and expressing myself through the creative design process...

Anyone else have experiences they would be willing to share? I am curious ... we all tend to say it works, and I am convinced that had I been able to knit back when my life first fell to pieces I would have done better... but any stories you can share (details not necessary if you prefer to keep it vague, that's fine) would be appreciated.


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## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

Well, I'm game. 
In the last year, both of my parents have become very ill. My Dad has moderate Dementia, and my Mom has late stage 4 lung cancer. My Husband lost his job, back last March, still unemployed, gotta love the Union, (not). We had to sell our house to pay the medical bills for mom. Our 21 yo son knocked up his 19 yo girlfriend, and they moved to Nebraska to start thier new lives. Of course niether has a job, or any education, so that is going real well. So now in a nut shell, we are broke, about to most likely have to raise or grandbaby(due in May), are on constant watch over Mom, and homeless!
We are staying at moms, as she has chosen to stop treatment and pass here at home. I knit for my sanity. If I didn't I truly think I would lose it all.
My knitting helps get my mind off of the things I have no control over, it allows me to make something in this world go the way I want it to. I chose the color, style, type of fiber, what have you. It is the one thing, I have total, control over.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Yes, knitting is very good for stress,kinda like petting a dog, When one's brain won't shut off and quit going over and over things-it's time to get the knitting out and work on something that is a challenge,counting reading patterns. It 's good for the Spirit to create.


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## weever (Oct 1, 2006)

When I was a young mom of four small children (within 6 years), I didn't have a moment to myself. Things I did (like cooking, cleaning, caring for kids) didn't stay done. Raising small children FEELS like an exercise in utter futility. It isn't, but it feels like it. I had my husband's grandma's loom in our basement, and I'd find time every so often to go down there and weave rugs. The rhythmic banging of the beater and throwing of the shuttle and the magic of the rug as it came into being soothed me. I often joked that weaving was cheaper than therapy...


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Wow this is something that is so powerful for me. I advocate fiber time to everyone I know who has any fiber arts experience. For the just the tactileness (not sure that's a word but the best I can do now), soothes me. I'm a tactile person. The act of spinning is my meditation a way to center myself, to calm, to reclaim me. When I have worries spinning, knitting, weaving, and fiber prep allow my mind to think clearly while in a calm state. The repetitive act of each activity cares for my body while I take care of my mind. It is a holistic experience, one of head, heart and hands.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Oh Hercsmama bless you ... it must be tough walking in your shoes just now. Hang in there, keep knitting and let us listen anytime you need to talk. Thanks for sharing, truly. You are so right about knitting being one thing you can control ... and you can rip back and do over as often as it takes, which I really appreciate. Real life do-overs are rarely so simple.

7thswan, I have found the same thing ... knitting is just distracting enough. I can't go round in circles caue I am busy counting ... but I seem able to still think, just at a calmer pace.

Weever, I had some serious anger to get past and you are so right - the SLAM of the beater bar sure feels good ... and you make something at the same time!


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Marchie, I think you hit on a key idea ... having your body occupied gives an outlet for the nervous enrgy, somewhere productive for that to go, then your brain clears out enough that you can think. You phrased it so well, thank you!


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## Sonshine (Jul 27, 2007)

I don't post in this section much, but this thread caught my eye. I knit and crochet, not very well, but still enjoy it. I think one of the reasons that knitting and crochetting is such a life saver is because it gives you something that you can control. Too often things happen in our lives that we have no control over. When you are knitting it gives you something that you have total control over and is constructive. It gives you something to create, something to take your mind off other things and something that is uniquely you.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Wind in Her Hair said:


> What I am knitting is more than a shawl or a sock or a scarf- I am knitting _MYSELF_ - I am mending my soul.



Wow. So beautifully put ... 

My counsellor says that part of my healing is to undo old pathways and build new ones, reintegration, she called it. Knitting helps the process, according to her - as I build something in my hands I build something in myself.

I love the way you phrased it. Thank you!


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

knitting has just the opposite effect on me...... Now spinning - I could do that all day. The rhythm, flow of the yarn, it's very soothing. I'm looking forward to going outside to spin this spring and summer. What could be better than sunlight, birds chirping and wool off my own sheeps' backs?


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

My profile picture on Facebook says, "I knit so I don't kill people". It is only half in jest  It helps me keep my mouth shut and my hands off people's neck.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Sonshine, you're right, just making something YOUR WAY is so good sometimes, isn't it?

Callieslamb I hear you about the spinning - there's a class at Olds Fibre Week on spinning as meditation! Do you find knitting not relaxing because it's not a skill that is automatic for you, like spinning is, or is there something else about it? Just curious.

I've seen those t-shirts Marchwind ... and the knitting bags that say "It's cheaper than therapy!" (although if you knit with silk and merino, that may not be true..)


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## gone-a-milkin (Mar 4, 2007)

I have been ruminating on this topic all day, to think of how I would word it. :cow: :grin:

Knitting and all the fiber work for me is yoga.
Yoga means union.
The Swamis say that you are not your body. You are not your mind.
You are not just a physical thing being driven by your fears, needs, and expections.
By putting the body and the primary attention of your mind to work at a task like spinning or knitting,
you create a free place for your True Self (the part of you that is God) to be at peace and do its work.
This type of work is not just for mental health, but for spiritual growth.


It shows in the way your body relaxes and your problems recede. Time becomes an illusion.
We like to call it 'meditation', but it is doing honor to the Truth when you become calm.
It puts us back to center and lets the inner knowledge that we all contain come to the surface and make us whole again.

I could go on and on, quoting various Yogis, but I will spare you most of that, 
except for this one from Vivekananda because it is so very sweet.

"I am the thread that runs through all these pearls, and each pearl is a religion or even a sect thereof.
Such are the different pearls, and God is the thread that runs through all of them;
most people, however, are entirely unconscious of it."

:angel:


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Beautiful GAM! Thank you for that


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Frazzle, is there a way we can here your interview? What radio station, call letters, dial number, website?

Good luck! Will be thinking of you.


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## MullersLaneFarm (Jul 23, 2004)

Good Luck today, Frazzle!!

GAM, that is beautiful!

If it wasn't for my fiber arts, I don't know where I would be these last few years. With my fibromyalgia and degenerative joint disease, the fiber arts is sometimes the ONLY thing I can do to be productive in a day. It has maintained my sanity.


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## Charleen (May 12, 2002)

Frazzlehead - Be sure to let us know how things went this morning! We're thinking of you!


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Marchwind said:


> My profile picture on Facebook says, "I knit so I don't kill people". It is only half in jest  It helps me keep my mouth shut and my hands off people's neck.



I have a chalk board in the kitchen. I write on it, usally it says-Stay Calm and Knit. When my Dh Daughter and Family stayed here for a week- I wrote, Stay Calm and Smile. It's an old saying-Stay Calm and Carry On.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Hey everyone!

Thank you all so much for helping me get my thoughts together before the interview today. You are fountains of wisdom and I'm gonna save this thread - I'll need some of this inspiration for my next book!

Hannah, the reporter, was lovely to talk to (she has such an adorable British accent), very easy to speak with and very open. 

We talked about the designs in the book, and how I needed to make things that purposely told my story because somehow, it helped me come full circle and think about what needed to be thought about, but at a safe pace ... at the pace of the knitting. Some things really just take quite a bit of time - and you have to give yourself the time to work through it all. I hadn't thought about it before, but maybe the really big projects I worked on were just that - to give me time to do all the thinking I needed to do.

We talked about the Hearts Ease shawl, how it's the one I made in Jessica's memory (my daughter) - to cover that spot on your chest where the heartache feels so physical after grief and loss; and about how now when I wear it and people ask me about it I can say, "yes, I made this - I designed it in memory of my baby girl, isn't it pretty?" and I'm happy to remember her this way. We talked about the Memory Shawl - which I made in memory of my first husband - how it's easy to knit because in that awful time between a death and the funeral(s) (there was a really long wait when he died, like, more than a week), you are all at loose ends and can't think but you need something to work on ... and then the finished shawl is appropriate to wear to the services. We talked about the Comfort Wrap, and how it's got big pockets so that you can keep your kleenex in there if you're in a place in your life where you need to do a lot of crying. I've been in that place an awful lot, I know you need kleenex pockets!

We talked about my counsellor saying that knitting is helping me undo my old thought pathways and build new ones - which I believe, though I don't know how that works, because it seems to be working for me.

We talked about using knitting as an outlet for all that anxious energy - instead of pacing or fretting or twisting hair or whatever, you can send the energy into your needles, into your work, and then it's not making you crazy *and* you get to make something! So those of us :ahem: with a bit of an overdose of Protestant Work Ethic can sit and rest when we need to, without feeling like we are 'being unproductive'. And like so many have mentioned, you get to be in control of the project - you can choose the colour and what you work on and what it looks like, and if it doesn't work out you can start over!

We talked about how knitting can be so forgiving - how if you make a mistake you can just undo it and start over, how every time you pick up your needles the yarn says 'it's okay, just try it and if it doesn't work we'll try something else' ... it's like a sermon in your hands, every time you pick up your work. 

We talked about how knitting is so grounding - in depression or anxiety we are often 'in the past' or 'in the future' in our heads, but the only place we can ever truly be is right here, right now, in the present. One of the skills counselling teaches for dealing with that is to try and get really 'present' in your body - to feel the floor under your feet, your butt in the chair, to be really aware of your current surroundings ... and knitting really helps you do that because it is so tactile, and so much 'right there' in your hands, needing some of your attention ... but not all of it, so that you can still think while you work.

We talked about knitting groups - apparently in the UK, the health boards are looking at setting up actual knitting therapy groups, like, official ones. Here, I said, I think we do that - but unofficially. People get together to knit, and then because we have that in common it's safe ... we can talk about knitting at first and then we become friends, and then we support one another. I do think there'd be a place for knitting groups that have professional support available ... my DH says he agrees that knitters need professional help! Goofball. 

She was just lovely to talk to, and I hope that the interview material I provided will be helpful to her in making up the final piece. She'll send me the finished work when it's done - and I promise to share!

Thanks everyone - you are my knitting support group and I am *so glad* to have you all in my world! 

Bless every one of you - just keep knitting!


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Frazzle thank you for the update. It sounds like a really good interview, and it sounds like maybe she got it. Did you happen to ask her if she was a knitter? Hopefully she will use a lot of your material.


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## weever (Oct 1, 2006)

Love hearing the stories. Thank you, frazzle...


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## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

I think it's so awesome that you are getting to go through such a good time after going through such a bad one!
I'm so looking forward to getting to read or hear the interview, how exciting for you!


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## PKBoo (Apr 10, 2008)

Wonderful thread and posts! Can't wait to hear the interview frazzle!

Your book is wonderful - I have stayed up waaaaay too late the last few nights reading it. I LOVE how you tied in Forgiveness, Faith, and Fiber after each chapter. I'm glad you have been able to start your journey towards peace with this, and I'm sure you will help many other people through your words - very moving.


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## frazzlehead (Aug 23, 2005)

Yes, Marchwind, the reporter herself suffers from biochemical depression - not situational, just periodic episodes of it as her brain chemistry is a bit off, and she knits for comfort and support ... that's how she got interested in the story.

She totally gets it. 

I am really interested to see how the finished piece turns out, I think it's just fascinating that people are thinking about ways to make knitting an official part of caring for people who need support. It works for us, so ... seems like a good plan, eh?

PKBoo - thank you SO much for the encouraging words about the book! It's hard for me to imagine how others will 'hear' the story, since of course I lived it and I can't really imagine what it's like to read it from 'outside'. I am glad the shape of the narrative works for you - it was a bit odd figuring out how to put those pieces together, I'm glad it flowed in the end!


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