My beginnings were basic but before long these were some of my projects...
A borrowed example of knit bombing!
knitting
August 2018
I started with the inevitable scarf, made baskets and graduated to cute animals. I threatened to knit bomb my psychologist's office but (I'm sure much to his relief), I never did follow up on that idea…
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I first learnt to knit and crochet as a young girl; I remember enjoying it then. I found the repetitive movements of my hands and eyes and the click, clack of the needles a soothing thing. It also felt worthy; within no time, I could see the ‘fruits of one’s labour’ in the form of visible improvements in technique and a very tangible something to feel proud of and show off to others – possibly even wear!
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I am an expert-by-experience in that I was diagnosed with PTSD and undertook a long and challenging journey through treatment. Dissociation was a particular challenge for me. I can’t remember why I decided to take up knitting, after so many years, but I tried a lot of grounding techniques before I settled on this as the most effective.
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I'm writing here to encourage others to consider taking up what some may think of as a granny thing-to-do. During treatment, my critical internal voice and the unhelpful jibes of friends about taking up knitting were easily overcome because I was so desperate to find something to ease my symptoms. I didn’t do any research on it before I took it up but I did in order to prepare for writing this article. A Google search on the 'benefits of knitting' got an eye-watering 99,700,000 hits! In terms of writing this article, it was probably good that I wasn't influenced by those waxing lyrical about the benefits of knitting before trying it! Regardless, I’ve selected a few results from my reading around that I thought were relevant for people with PTSD.
Temma Ehrenfeld writes in Psychology Today about how knitting keeps us in the present moment and distracts us from mulling over the past or fearing the future. Our body’s response to the relaxing aspects of knitting is to lower blood pressure and heart rate. She goes on to cite research that suggests that the calming effects of the repetitive movements is due to the release of serotonin and dopamine. Furthermore, the movement of your eyes from side to side whilst knitting, may be helpful in itself in ways similar to the clinical use of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) treatment of trauma.
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If you want a more personalised account, Jacque Wilson writes for CNN about a trauma sufferer, who was skeptical at first. She thought it felt silly and found it difficult to do with hands that she couldn’t even keep still; however, as she learned to knit and purl, hours melted away and she found that she was no longer focusing on the future, imagining catastrophic things happening.
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I haven't read this eBook, but if you are interested in the topic, Lonna Cunningham has published her knitting journey, titled, "Just Keep Knitting: a journey of healing through forgiveness, faith, and fibre."
There's lots of anecdotal evidence for the benefits of arts, crafts, creativity and some claim that the benefits of knitting and weaving stand out from this crowd. A blog that I found helpful did a good job at explaining how knitting seems to be able to induce a form of meditation very similar to Mindfulness, which can be very effective in treating anxiety, depression and chronic pain.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi first described this phenomenon as Flow: a few moments in time when you are so completely absorbed by an activity that nothing else seems to matter. I haven’t read any of his research, but his summary of years of thinking about flow is that it is the secret to happiness! If you want to hear more about Flow, you can see his 2004 TED talk here.
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​Based on my own experiences of knitting my way through some very debilitating symptoms of dissociation and PTSD, I can wholeheartedly agree with those that speak of the benefits. I felt it helped to ground me, quieten my anxieties, keep me in the present and I definitely experienced the sense of flow that Csikszentmihalyi describes. However, I can't say that my progress to better health was ONLY due to the benefits of knitting and I have experienced that sense of flow with other activities.
Obviously, knitting isn't for everyone. And I get that. But if you are interested, let me reassure you that one of the wonderful things about knitting is that you don’t have to stop at just thinking or reading about the benefits – knitting needles and yarn don’t cost much and there are oodles of free projects available on-line.
If you're a man and reading this but feeling like it's something only girls can do, please think again. Another cursory Google search using 'do men knit?' got 423,000,000 results and many articles such as this in the Huffington Post on Bros and Rows: the real history of men who knit. So don't let gender be the excuse that stops you. Plough your own furrow!
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Sisters and brothers, if you want to do it, then get out those needles and yarn and have a go!