While mental health is not at all a new topic, it wasn’t until recent years that it began to enter more and more conversations as a serious subject in the lives of many people. There are a million different factors in someone’s life that could affect their mental health, and sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint all of them. As my own life progressed, I would find solutions to some problems and more questions for others, and once I felt that I had completely soared over a hurdle, a whole new set of problems were thrown at me.
For a while, as different issues were thrown my way with no clear ends, I felt as though I was the problem if I was still struggling with my own mental health after such a long time, and I felt awful for anyone whom I imposed upon with those struggles.
This past summer was the worst of my life, as I was forced to reflect on my own health and dive deeper than I’ve ever had before. It ended up being the summer I needed, though not the one I wanted. Everyone’s experience with mental health is different, and we all have our own set of problems and conflicts that we tend to stuff into our minds. There was a lot I had to learn about my own journey and a lot that stuck with me that I often need to remind myself of, and maybe some things that you can keep as reminders, too.
Your Mental Health is Just as Important as Anyone Else’s
When you consider the world as it is, you think of the billions of people who are going through their own conflicts and hardships that haven’t even occurred to you. When you consider your own world as it is, you witness your friends and family go through their own struggles, and you can’t help but feel that yours don’t line up with theirs. Everyone has difficulties with their mental health, but that doesn’t mean yours pale in comparison.
I am someone who tends to (according to my mom) carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. That awful summer began with the dismissal of my own issues because my family itself was experiencing some hard hits, and internalizing what I was feeling to let someone else feel it instead caused me to break down in a way I’ve never had before. Diminishing your own struggles because they seem trivial compared to what someone else is going through isn’t worth causing more damage to yourself, coming from someone who had to learn the hard way. It’s very possible to set boundaries to ensure that you’re giving yourself space whilst still getting time to be there for someone else. Everyone deserves their own healing process to its full extent.
It’s Okay to Make Mistakes and to Have Mistakes to Learn From
Though it’s not my favorite thing to look back on, I had to learn to accept the mistakes I’ve made in life and even the fact that I’ve made mistakes. It’s so easy to believe that you’re deserving of your struggles and undeserving of any help or understanding if you made mistakes that could back up those claims.
I didn’t like who I was or how I was treated when I was younger, and I looked for people to place all my blame on, to embody the resentment towards how I felt the world was treating me and would continue to treat me. I became a mean person as a result and struggled greatly with my own mental health, as my actions were a poor reflection of what I was keeping in. After a while, I had to find a balance between acknowledging my experiences whilst still holding myself accountable for how I chose to react. I know I didn’t deserve to be treated the way I was, I didn’t deserve to feel the way I felt about myself and my body, and I didn’t deserve to feel as small as I did. Still, I understand how my actions reflected that in a negative way. I learned that the whole world can’t be blamed for what goes on in yours and that focusing on your health is crucial to healing. It’s important to remember that poor mental health is never an excuse for your actions, but a reason to improve them.
Give Yourself Some Credit – and Some Love
Every step you take today is one you didn’t take yesterday, and if you’re someone struggling daily with your mental health, it’s so important to give yourself some credit for the little things you accomplish every day. I am someone who holds myself in high regard and beats myself up whenever something doesn’t go right. For a while, it felt like life was kicking me down, and when it wasn’t, I felt the need to do it to myself (my parents have never pressured me about my grades, I just always beat them to the punch). Somehow, however, when I tell my mom about whatever’s affecting me, she manages to pick out the little things I’ve accomplished in between and reminds me of what I’m capable of despite what’s going on around me.
We all have our bad days, some with more consistent ones than others. Even if it’s just getting out of bed, completing an assignment, or eating a healthy meal, that’s something you did today for your well-being. If you read a book, spent time outside, or wrote in a journal, that’s something you did for your mental health. For me, a big step was having the strength to reach out for help when I needed it. Signing up for therapy gave me the win I needed to let myself know that I did it to improve and that I did it for me. As silly as it may sound, acknowledging and celebrating the little things you do every day gives you a different perspective of yourself, one that is capable of so much more than what life has dealt you.
You Are Not Impossible
Mental health is a journey. Impaired social interactions, work or school-related stress, grief, isolation, financial strain, and body image issues are all factors that can affect mental health, and depending on the person, more than one of these factors can pile on top of each other. My mind often feels like a tornado, and I feel as though I can’t get a handle on anything racing through it. It gets so hard having to explain what I’m feeling because of the difficulty in finding words for it, and I get scared that it means I’m not capable of finding solutions when I can’t even pinpoint the problems. However, instead of trying to take everything on all at once, sometimes all you can do is take a step and keep moving forward. While mental health is not a linear journey, it’s also not an impossible one.
Listen to your body, listen to your mind, and take care of them with the knowledge that you are worth the journey, and it’s a very capable one to embark on.
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