Mental “health” is such a strange concept. Being human is hard. I mean, we’re animals, with full awareness, and we comprehend our own mortality. We are, for all intents and purposes, born into this earth out of nowhere, taught life has this greater purpose, and then, inevitably, return to the dust a short time later. Along the way, the people we care about often just disappear.
At an even grander scale of context, the earth has been around 4.5 BILLION years. We’re lucky if we live to 100. And even if we do, those 100 years will be filled with some really amazing moments, but also a lot of loss, pain, and events we’d prefer to avoid that are entirely out of our control.
Someone convince me being anxious and depressed is an “unhealthy” way to handle this predicament.
Even if we are privledged and can afford a decent life and have a great job and live in a time when survival past infancy is not an oddity and haven’t been born into slavery or any of the many horrible potential life situations we could have found ourselves in, it’s still a pretty bleak scenario.
So, one’s mental “health” is, I believe, more our ability to delude ourselves into ignoring the inevitable in order to function in society, than it is a true symptom of being healthy. From a more positive angle, I often think, why not strive for mental “ok,” since those ~100 years roaming this earth can be quite long and enjoyable or miserable, but this miracle that brought us here doesn’t have to be filled with a constant state of suffering (at least if we’re born into enough privilege we have the option to control our destinies.)
Let’s face it — in the end, it doesn’t really matter (unless you have religion to give you some meaning — good for you if you do.) But, for the rest of us, for now, it’s at least worth trying to find peace and enjoy the little time we have on this earth.
As a soon-to-be mother, and soon-to-be 35-year-old (wait, didn’t I just turn 18?), I’m admittedly tired of being the emotional train-wreck that I am. I’m tired of feeling like either I share too much or too little about myself and I am incapable of normal human connection. So, I give in. I’ll head back to therapy. I won’t take your meds that have poor scientific proof they do anything but numb me for a short while. I don’t want to be numb. I’ll try my best to stop self sabotaging (my #1 talent) and maybe, one day, grow out of self doubting myself at every turn. As a mother, I’m hopeful I won’t have the time or energy for the rampant guilt, the constant overthinking, the bingefests of candy and chips after an especially bad day. And, if anything, this pressure to not show my future child that side of me is probably much more effective than therapy at changing my thought patterns and behavior.
For all the self doubt I have, it’s kind of strange, but I actually think I’ll be a good mom. Not a great one. Not a flawless one. I’m willing to give myself the room to fail here and there. I don’t have that kind of patience for myself in everyday life, but as a parent, I know there are things I’ll mess up and that’s ok. If I can just be there for my kid and provide an environment of love, hopefully that will work out. I am so fortunate that my husband, the sweetest guy in the entire world, completely agrees with me that the most important gift you can give to your child is a family that loves each other — and that includes parents that are affectionate and loving too.
Sitting in my therapists office (the new one, not to be confused with the dozens I’ve met with over the years), I’m an open book. I’d imagine some people go to therapy and sit there and don’t know what to say. I put it all on the table. Here’s what’s wrong with me this week. Here’s exactly why my behavior and patterns are abnormal and how do I stop them? How do I change “me?” How do I become anybody else? Here’s why I’m broken and please help fix me. Can I be fixed? Please tell me I can be fixed.
I know it doesn’t work that way. We go over DBT strategies to help learn how to handle strong emotions. They seem helpful. In a “crisis” situation, run your face under cold water or go for a run. When your mind is caught up in one emotion or thought, try looking around your space and start naming objects in your head with their colors. Green couch. Brown bookshelf. Beige carpet. These aren’t long-term fixes, but they help, in the moment of many moments where my mind just gets stuck.
Furthermore, I’m tired of the worst anxiety of all, this crippling social anxiety. We haven’t addressed that yet. I think I have to actually like myself before it goes away. But I have no idea how to make friends. I’ve been reading all these strategies online and then whey I try them, I think I’ve only managed to make myself seem more strange and unlikable. I’m pretty sure I’m not imaging that either…
If I’m lucky, I make another person laugh, and for the moment, I feel ok. The rush of being funny is a drug. It’s really my only way of connecting with people. (Maybe that’s why comedians tend to be so depressed and often so lonely.) I like to think that at the very least, occasionally I have a quick enough wit to make others chuckle. If I’ve made one person laugh that day, it will feel like I made myself worthwhile for that 24 hours. It is a rush. It makes me feel not so alone.
But, beyond this rare connection, the depression and anxiety just weigh on me day after day. I’m just tired of hiding all these feelings. There is no time or place to discuss our emotional state, unless some major life crisis happens that you had no control over — and even then, you should keep your sharing to a minimum to be socially acceptable.
I was reading another Medium post earlier about how one writer here was told by a therapist that she has “mild” depression, and she clearly didn’t know what to make of that diagnosis for a situation to her that felt and feels anything but mild. But there are people out there who, surely, have extreme chemical “imbalances” and where depression turns into action towards ending ones life. Then there’s all the other depression, where you may play the metal game of “would it be better if I wasn’t here” but then decide at the end of it the answer is you have no interest in disappearing, only interest in feeling better.
There is such a stigma around mental health that, I write to cleanse my mind, but also to hopefully help others who are going through something similar. If I can help one person by being open and honest about this (and not ashamed of it), then, that’s worth it. I am not ashamed of deviation from the statistical norm of mental perfection. Yes, I find it harder to get out of bed in the morning sometimes than a “healthy” person. Yes, my anxiety has cost me opportunities in the past, and yes, I know if I want to be a good mother and live a stable life I need to find a way to manage all of this chaos in my mind better.
Change is hard, and it’s rarely permanent. But, for the pieces I can impact, for the black-or-white thinking that makes no rational sense, for obsessive thinking patterns and the moments of panic, for not feeling stuck and incapable of completing simple tasks due to the debilitating fear that said completion won’t be perfect — maybe I can, not… change, but evolvetowards a better, less neurotic, less scared, and more capable of givingversion of myself.
life with interest 