Yesterday was World Mental Health Day and, ironically, I was having an awful day struggling with my mental health. I didn't get a chance to post anything about WMHD because I had three college classes, homework, my sister is in from Australia and I desperately want to spend time with her, my house is being renovated, and I was riddled with anxiety.
This is my second semester in college and it's been extremely challenging. Not just because I'm an adult student tackling school again after almost a decade, but because I'm an adult student with chronic depression and an anxiety disorder tackling school again after almost a decade.
The importance of the day was with me throughout all of yesterday, and it even inspired me to be very vulnerable and open with a young man in my biology class who joked about my test anxiety. "Do you need me to have 911 ready for next Thursday?", he laughed. I thought it was funny (if you'd seen me during our last test, you'd understand why), but instead of laughing with him and then changing topics, I invited more questions about anxiety and depression, and answered them with honesty and vulnerability.
The conversation ranged from my test anxiety to the three levels of arousal: hypoactive (low), normal/stable, and hyperative (high), and how I exist in high levels of sensory arousal almost all the time; like running from danger but there is no danger. He asked question after question and brought up examples of his life in relation. He listened, I listened. He talked, I talked. "I had no idea that it could be like that. It must be exhausting." is how the conversation ended, and I couldn't have asked for a more rewarding experience on World Mental Health Day.
Educating our friends and family, and even people we may not have relationships with but who want to learn more, is how we will eliminate the stigma of mental illness. Having conversations, being brave (which is "easier said than done", as a friend of mine always says), and talking about our experiences and our struggles is how we can challenge the association between mental illness and "crazy", or "weak", or "outcast".
It starts with our courage. Our courage to be even more vulnerable than we already feel. Our courage to face adversity head on, knowing that not everyone will accept our truth into their hearts. The courage to know when to stop and come back to one another when it gets hard, in order to recuperate. Most of all, the courage to live your true self, out in the open. No more "Traffic was bad" when you're late because you had to convince yourself to live one more day that morning, or "I'm just really tired", when someone asks if you're okay. It's hard, I know, but it won't always be like this. We've begun the work and must continue in order to legitimise mental illness, and we must do so together.
One of my first classes since starting college was "College Success". It's a class designed for (you guessed it) setting you up for success in college. One of my assignments was a self-change project where I picked a habit I wanted to change or apply in my life and then tried it for two weeks, documenting it along the way. I chose meditation, but I feel like that didn't do as much for me as did the hard work I put into the assignment itself. To wrap this piece about World Mental Health Day, I thought I would include the video I made for the end of that class and the end of that project.
I'm not sharing it because it's good (that's absolutely up for interpretation, ha!) but because of how hard I worked on the project and especially this video, while bringing myself back from the deepest, darkest depths of depression. I'm proud of myself. I did it, I continue to do it, and I will continue to do it. So can you. Just be courageous.*
*"Easier said than done!"