It’s May, which means that it’s Mental Health Awareness Month! I thought I’d share some strategies that have helped me to progress in my mental health journey throughout the years.
As many of you know, I was diagnosed with PTSD due to multiple events, some which lasted years, others, just moments. These events include but, unfortunately, are not limited to coming from a broken family, experiencing financial hardships, being bullied and sexually harassed in the workplace, and surviving a physically and psychologically abusive romantic relationship.
The aftereffects of all these events have morphed and changed over the years. My traumas have taken the form of everything from depression and anxiety to suicidal ideations to self harm, flashbacks, drinking, racing thoughts, panic attacks, night terrors, random disassociation, and more.
The frequency and intensity of many of my symptoms have, thankfully, improved or even disappeared over time. But even now, there are many days I wrestle with my mental health and use the strategies below, which, I hope will benefit not only those of you who also struggle with mental health issues but also those who want to learn more about such issues so you can be of service to others.
I hope I don’t sound too harsh in any of the advice I give from here on out. Even though I use the word “you” frequently, I’m also saying a lot of this to myself as well. I’m also trying to write this all out like we’ve sat down at a boba shop and are having a conversation in which you’ve actually asked me for my advice. Obviously, I can’t speak to everyone’s circumstances nor can I advise perfectly, so if something doesn’t apply to you, please filter it out. But the following tips are what I’ve learned from years of my own trial-and-error life experiences.
- Self Awareness
If I had to choose only one strategy to share with you, it would be to hone self awareness.
I don’t think a lot of people truly understand that self awareness is a skill, and like any other skill, it requires practice and hard work, and like anything that requires practice and hard work, there will be pain, mistakes, failures, and long-term struggles involved.
But also great rewards.
I know it’s unfair and demoralizing to have to accept the fact that life has put you through hell and back, and now, you have to put in painful grunt work that most people won’t ever have to do just so you can attain a semblance of normalcy. But it’s the harsh truth, and if you’ve suffered enough in life like me, I know that you, too, have gotten pretty good at accepting harsh truths because you know your survival depends on it. So I have confidence that you can accept this truth too.
Self awareness looks like trusting your husband/loved one when he tells you that your anger is out of control or that you should sit down and rest because you’re exerting yourself too much and exerting yourself too much for too long triggers deterioration in your mental health. It means trusting and communicating with him over and over again, sometimes peaceably, sometimes through arguments, until one day, you realize that you can catch yourself before he does.
It means paying attention to the specific things that calm you down or make you happy then mustering up the willpower to reach for those things before you mind starts to spiral. Do you notice that you’re sensitive to scents? Maybe you can make it your homework to find nice scents every time you pass Bath and Bodyworks or the fragrance section at the mall, scents you find calming, and have some of those scents on your desk at work or in the car. When someone gives you attitude at work and the bad thoughts start brewing (because brew they will), train yourself to reach for that scent. Learn to breathe. And understand that you won’t do it perfectly overnight, and that is perfectly normal and okay. Like I said, it’s hard work to be self aware and to act on that awareness.
Self awareness also means noting what triggers you. And yes, there can be about a bajillion things that trigger you, but the more aware you become, the more patterns you’ll start to see. For example, I’ve learned over the years that I get triggered more easily when I’m physically tired, but not tired from working out. If anything, having a regular exercise routine ensures that I stay physically healthy, which helps my mental health, and that I get all my pent-up, negative energy out through good, old-fashioned sweat. But if I’ve had a long day at work, if I haven’t eaten well for a while, if I haven’t had enough sleep, if I’ve had to work on something that’s emotionally draining for several days, then I know a trigger is right around the corner, and I need to force myself to watch my favorite movie for the next two hours, listen to an album I enjoy, take a long, hot bath with epsom salts, pet the dogs, or all of the above to keep my mind within my control.
Lastly, self awareness looks like taking responsibility. At the end of the day, there is only one of you, and that means that you are unique. Being unique means that you will have unique issues and, therefore, unique strategies for combating them. Of course, you can and should receive help in discovering them and working on them, but ultimately, only you can truly, 100% understand and help yourself because it is your life and no one else’s. The more effort you put in to gaining self awareness and taking the steps you need to get better, the better off you’ll be in the long run. Working hard is hard, but “hard” isn’t the same thing as “bad.”
You should know, too, that taking responsibility means being brutally honest with yourself. What are your pitfalls? Your temptations and weaknesses? Are you lazy? Do you lie to yourself and others? Do you make excuses? Are you more depressed than you need to be because you’re moping? (And yes, there’s a difference between depression and moping.) Are you ungrateful? Are you arrogant, or are you humble? Do you exaggerate your circumstances?
On the other hand, do you understate your circumstances? Do you feel okay acknowledging how much you’ve had to go through, or do you feel like a whiner or an imposter when you do? Do you know how to rest, or do you feel guilty about resting even when you know deep down you need it? Do you know your limits and accept them? Are you okay with admitting to yourself that you are a badass for having survived your past? Do you blame yourself for things that you shouldn’t?
Do you know that your mental health is a priority? Do you know what a healthy mind looks like?
Do you want to get better? If so, are you willing to take the necessary steps to get better?
Point is, you need to know and accept that you can be your own worst enemy and hone your self awareness to pinpoint the exact ways in which you often defeat yourself. Again, I know it can feel overwhelming to put in more work to get better when life has put you through enough as it is.
But you just need to take baby steps. You are not weak for taking baby steps nor is it stupid to rest frequently. Healing is a marathon not a sprint. Chip away at that boulder weighing down on your mind. Hone the discipline it takes to do so and acknowledge and take pride in any successes, no matter how small. All of it will most definitely help that mental burden to grow lighter and lighter over time, even if the changes seem imperceptible. And trust me, the more practice you get with gripping your issues by the horns, the more skilled you’ll get at throwing down and submitting your inner demons.
- Seek Help But Selectively
I feel like there’s a lot a self help advice thrown around that makes healing your mental health seem easy or instantaneous. One of those pieces of advice is to “Talk about it” or “Seek help.” To me, this is yes-and-no type of advice. Yes, because getting help is a good and necessary thing. No, because this type of advice sets up the expectation that finding someone to talk to will be easy and that once you do find a person, all your problems will go away.
Finding help is hard. It is very, very hard to find the right person to talk to, whether you’re trying to find a friend or even a professional therapist. If I could go back in time to when I was at my absolute mental worst, I would actually talk less to people because literally all of the people I talked to said very upsetting things, often unintentionally, and made my already fragile mind even more fragile. I’d take it real slow and be real selective about who I try to share my story with, and even then, I’d share only tiny bits at a time.
It’s ironic, though, because I find that when someone’s at their worst, they instinctively reach out to anyone who’ll listen, almost like a drowning person trying to grab anyone around them to try and survive. If I could go back in time, I’d tell myself that no matter how desperate I feel, the loneliness won’t go away by sharing my story with just anyone. But then again, I’m not sure how realistic that advice is either given how crippling loneliness is and how shot my mind already was. To be fair to myself, I know I was trying my best and that was the best that I could do at the time when it came to seeking much-needed help. So, I can only say that for those who don’t have mental health struggles, please try to help and understand others when they need help. Just be a friend. Because it’s a good friendship that can truly make a difference and give a hurting person the strength they need to carry on. I know it would have done wonders for me at the time.
Also, I’d tell myself not to immediately trust people when they say they’ve been through something similar. People might just be saying that to try and empathize. It can also be for more sinister reasons, like insecurity, jealousy that you’re tougher than them, etc. A lot of times it’s a mixture of both. Don’t be afraid to judge people. Not in a way that makes you feel above them, obviously, because there’s nothing good in arrogance. But in a way that simply determines, plain and simple, what they’ve actually been through and how much they do and do not understand about both their and your circumstances.
If you discover that deep down, they really don’t get you, that’s fine. Not everyone will. It sucks, but it is what it is. But I’ve learned to avoid opening up too much to those kinds of people despite even their best intentions because they will inevitably say something triggering and/or give bad advice. You have a right to choose who you want to share your story with.
- Sometimes, It’s Not You
Sometimes, the problem that makes your life and mind so unbearable really isn’t you. Yes, there are a lot of people out there who blame shift and think that all of life’s problems are simply a matter of blaming someone or something else and doing nothing about it themselves. But personally, I know that in many of my worst moments, I was trying 150% to get better and to survive, but my mental health continued to deteriorate simply because I was trapped in really hard, sh*tty circumstances. To make matters worse, no one was willing to help me even when I asked for help. It really was the horrible nature of those circumstances and the accompanying loneliness that were crushing my mind day and night. It had nothing to do with not trying enough. What helped my mental health the most was those awful circumstances finally coming to an end.
So sometimes, your healing journey comes down to praying and enduring. And if simply surviving is taking up all your mental bandwidth, it’s okay to admit that and focus just on surviving. I know that the suffering can seem endless, and yes, sometimes, bad situations do last for years at a time. But when I feel overwhelmed, I remind myself that high school ended almost two decades ago. I couldn’t imagine it at the time, time flying by so quickly, but it did. This, too, will pass, and that’s the truth.
- Do Not Blame Yourself If You Are Not to Blame
You can learn from your past, but you don’t have to blame yourself for everything that happened. Again, this piece of advice doesn’t apply to people who like to blameshift. But if you’re like me, it’s good to remember that not everything was or is your fault. It’s great that you’re trying to be a responsible person, and you should keep that up, especially as you continue honing your self awareness. But it is just the plain and simple truth that not everything is your fault.
I feel like this applies, in particular, to those of us who have experienced some kind of sexual violence or abuse. There have been so many times I’ve wished I could turn back the clock, go back in time, slap myself across the face and scream that I should have known better than to trust - never mind love - such a monster, to have said the things I said, to have done the things that I’ve done. But listening to other survivors’ stories have been particularly healing because their stories helped me to realize that I would never blame another woman the same way I blame myself. She wasn’t evil or stupid for trusting a master manipulator. It was the master manipulator, the abuser, the liar, the one who took advantage. That person is to blame, not the person who simply trusted in another human being.
Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from our past. We can. For example, I see red flags in people way more clearly and twice as fast at the average person now because I’ve analyzed my traumas over the years and learned from them. It’s good and necessary to learn. But learning from my past is not the same as blaming myself for the past. It’s okay to simply acknowledge that that person or circumstance, not you, was a rotten egg.
For me, I had to accept over time that I often blame myself because, in this weird and twisted way, it feels … “easier.” It’s easier to blame myself than the person or circumstance that hurt me because it can be so mind-boggling, to an unbearable point, that someone I cared deeply about could be so terrible or that the world that I wish to care about really is just that plain awful at times. At least if I blame myself, I can hate myself and berate myself freely and feel like I have a solid answer. But sometimes, it’s just the sad truth that you’re not to blame and that to blame yourself would be to live a lie.
- God Has a Plan For You
It’s okay to acknowledge that you are a badass for surviving and for trying. As my gym coach once told the class, “Quit your whining. Because you are a badass!” And he’s right. I think those who have not only suffered much in the life but also hauled ass to try and get better, to survive and thrive, are hands-down the wisest and strongest individuals in this world. Don’t be afraid to take pride in and feel confident that you’ve come this far. Acknowledge the good things because they are just as true as the bad things. It has nothing to do with arrogance and everything to do with maintaining a balanced picture of reality.
And know that every single time you do fail yourself and feel like giving up or even do give up, God still has a plan for you. God still loves you. God is with you and wants to help you.
You just need to rest then dust yourself off and take one small step forward.
