Where’s My Mental Health?
So where am I? I like stats and figures and I thought about what would give my mental health out of 100. Then at the end of the week I’ll see if it’s any better. To be clear this isn’t a happiness score, It took me a while to disassociate the two. I see mental health as the ability to deal with and process emotions, feelings and thoughts I have in a way that I am comfortable with. I see it as anyone who can be happy. If any of us ever win the lottery we will be over the moon for that time. Doesn’t mean that has fixed any mental health problems we were facing. I think I can deal with a lot. I’ve had experience with working under stress, had my fair share of struggles, so I thought my score would be high, but then I thought of how to deal with them and what do I do to feel less stressed and more regulated. I think that isn’t where I’d like it to be. So for the sake of a score I’ve settled on 60/100. So let’s see if this score improves over the week and more importantly what I’m going to learn about myself along the way.
Taking stock of where I am leads me to look at a few online resources and with the exact same input have been able to diagnose myself with several different Neurodivergence and mental health conditions. From Aspergers to OCD and Depression. What I did find is that none were consistent. I didn’t get the same diagnosis twice, nor did I get any that told me I didn’t have a diagnosable condition at all. It makes me doubt their validity. I suppose if I wanted an unbiased and professional opinion I should probably stop looking on WebMD and pay to see a qualified professional. But I don’t, my instinct is that it’s not worth it. That’s so bizarre to me, a quick google shows that I can get a whole hour session for £50 and I’m sure there will be places cheaper than that. I wouldn’t think twice about spending that on a night out and a dinner if I had a stressful week but it’s never occurred to me to spend it on seeing a professional. So maybe is it time? Well I’m lucky enough that my work will grant me the time to see a professional during work hours and again I can see that finding availability to see a professional on the weekend or after work is just as easy. Being that I knew these options existed already I guess the last reason why I haven’t done this previously is effort. I want to put the effort into my mental health so no wonder I can poke holes so easily in it.
Escapism or Coping Strategy?
I am 100% guilty of convincing myself I am doing a task or hobby for my mental health. At the time I enjoyed it and I had fun or found it cathartic but then as soon as I stopped I’m back into the same feelings and thoughts I had before. Maybe I’m being overly critical but reflecting now I wonder if that was actually doing my mental health any good or was it just a dopamine fix or a slice of escapism that was doing a lot of heavy lifting for my mood at the time. Is it paper over the cracks or does it have a legitimate place in all my coping mechanisms.
I have a couple of times looked at mindfulness or meditation and so far I haven’t clicked well with them. When I am experiencing low moods, lack of motivation or just generally feeling overwhelmed, the last thing I feel ready to engage with is overly positive guides or deeper thought processes to work out why I feel so low and what I can do to change that. I just want to feel a little better immediately. I tell myself then that what I need is to play a game, watch some TV or just scroll on my phone on my own for a bit then I’ll feel better and I’ll be able to take on the world. I spend my free time doing that then before you know it I’ve run out of the little time I get to myself and now I’ve got important things that need doing. I can’t put them off anymore and there’s been no long lasting impact of the time I had set aside. I speak to my fiancée and she rightly tells me I had plenty of time earlier. Why do I feel so busy? I do worry about this all building up if I don’t actually deal with what it is that has made me feel stressed or moody or fed up.
Where I Want My Mental Health To Be
I look for the dopamine hits and I get creative with how you find them, but with ideal mental health I’d get those kicks naturally through the day. So maybe that’s what the goal should be? Build in time each day to better my mental health. Become ok with putting myself first at certain times and becoming more resilient and better able to communicate my own thoughts with those in my support network. I want to be more ok in myself and in my skin, feel less like I need to impress others and not care as much what others think of me. I want to be able to do better in situations outside of my comfort zone and do better when confronted with difficult circumstances. I am also hoping that by doing this, I will spend less time going over the mistakes I make in my head and be easier on myself, in turn reducing the stress I feel.
Taking Steps to Get There
I think each day I’m going to actively try and do something different and new with a genuine open mind. I guess the first step is admitting it could be good to do this and then this itself is serving as today’s new thing to try. In just writing this out I’ve taken a good hour to myself to look at my mental health. It was tricky, I think I definitely haven’t done something like this before. I wanted at every stage to say ‘nope i’m ok’ and move on to the next task, so having to be the person holding myself back and asking “well are you? Do you take time for yourself or are you just uncomfortable in this situation” was hard. I didn’t like it at the time. It makes me think I have a lot of things to deal with but after a short break and some fresh air I feel a lot better about it. Next step is to talk to my partner later when she’s in for work and despite us being engaged to be married I think I’ll struggle to be as open with her as I was with myself, perhaps that’s another sign I need this week to work on myself some more. I think more so because I anticipate her maybe asking why I’ve started thinking about all this and asking If i’m ok I think it’ll be difficult to say that I am I’m just trying to better my mental health. I don’t want to worry her. Maybe that’s the stigma of mental health we have to change as a community to each other.
In the last 24 hours I’be bought myself a journal. Today I’ll fill it out and then you’ll hear or read about that tomorrow. And hopefully we can all take something away from this week. I’m determined something good will come out of how uncomfortable and vulnerable I feel by doing this.
Remember that we are here to support you and your family – if you’d like to talk I’m available at alex@actionduchenne.org or on 07939973981
