I've been thinking a lot lately about mental health, and what it means to be mental health aware.
It’s a really difficult subject to talk about.
Why is this on my mind? It's hard to say, precisely. World Mental Health Day was recently, and that's part of it. Then there's also all the stress I've been under lately. I'm fine - really - but it's also been a bit of a challenge to keep up with everything in my life recently. I'm blessed to have a supportive workplace with people I've known for a long time, but the job itself is new, and there are innate stresses that come with that. Ben and I also bought a house (enough said there, right?).
Anyway, even though these are all good things, it's been a lot of stress and maintaining mental wellness has taken a lot more conscious effort. And it got me thinking, this is a big topic that I don't think gets enough attention.
It’s easy to feel like mental health struggles are something to be embarrassed of, or a sign of weakness, of laziness, not being good enough...generally, it’s easy to think that problems with mental health are one’s own fault. But they’re not. These problems are natural, they’re common, and they’re normal. It’s normal to feel unwell in response to life stressors. And it is more common than people think to feel unwell even when there are no life stressors. Some people are just born with brains that don’t want to work quite right, and that’s no one’s fault.
I’m one of those people...my family carries genes that in the right combination lead to a general disorganization of neurological development. I inherited these genes - that’s why I have tics, and why I was susceptible to FND. It’s also the reason why I began having severe struggles with my mental health as a very young child. About the time that the above photo was taken (or earlier, really) my internal state began just falling apart. People don’t really understand how that can happen to someone with so few reasons to be stressed, upset, or worried about anything. But, it can. And it did, to me.
I had an ideal upbringing...yet, some of my earliest memories are overshadowed with horrible anxiety, self-doubt, and other negative feelings. It’s just how my brain developed. Because I have mutations that affected my neurological development, I simply didn’t have the biological mechanisms that most children develop in order to process a lot of incoming stimuli, manage age-appropriate social and other expectations, or regulate my emotions. I also had severe childhood onset obsessive compulsive disorder.
As a result, I spent a huge portion of my early years anxious, confused, angry, and so very, very sad. And I blamed myself. I only understood that I was different, that there was something wrong with me, and that I couldn’t be the way I wanted to be. For a long time at that very young age I hated myself. I wanted to change everything about me. I didn’t know how to be happy. I had behavioral outbursts, very few friends, and strained relationships with the people who were doing their best to help me to get better and to understand how loved I really was all along.
Very few people really know this about me...it’s not a secret, but naturally it’s also not something that comes up a lot, either...
I was in an ideal situation - my family realized sooner than most that things weren’t right, and they got me the support, treatment, and general extra love that I needed. My brain still likes to rebel but mental health generally isn’t something that gets me as much anymore. While I'll probably always carry greater susceptibilities to these things than some, I've learned how to give my mind and body what they need in order to be well. Equally as importantly, I've learned how to reach out to a support network of people who care about me and understand my unique challenges, history, and needs when I start to feel overwhelmed. Unlike when I was so much younger, I know that when anxiety feels like it's closing in rather than isolating myself and letting myself be consumed that there are things that I can do to help myself ride the wave and come out the other side okay. Of course sometimes I wish that this weren't something that I had to deal with at all, but most of the time I feel at peace with it. I've learned to accept that like so many other positive and negative things, this is a piece of who I am. By making room for them where I must, I've learned to live with these tendencies in a way that is emotionally healthy and sustainable.
But before I knew this, I was living a different story entirely...and while I've made so much personal progress, there are so many others who continue to struggle.
For someone in my situation my story and trajectory are ideal. So many don’t have families with the education, awareness, motivation, or means to get them the help that I had. So many people with the poor luck to be born with unbalanced brains go through life without their struggles being recognized or validated, forever caught in cycles of shame, self-blame, and guilt. So many lives are needlessly damaged and lost. But we can change this...we just need to change the conversation. Be mental-health aware.
Support your struggling loved ones. This changes more than you know.
