I’ve always been very open regarding my mental health. It’s no surprise that life is messy and chaotic, so I’ve learned opening up and expressing my inner thoughts is more beneficial than hiding them away.
I’m someone who put up walls and lived behind masks of fake smiles and fake laughs. I’d hide the scars I created and became a professional liar, weaving tales and learning to tell stories at a young age to get people who were breaking through my walls off my back. There’s no ladder, no underground tunnel, no entry point. They weren’t allowed beyond the wall; it was too dangerous.
What if someone saw how absolutely depressed I was? Would that change the way they looked at me? Would they view me as weak? All these questions started forming and flying around in my brain that eventually I was so lost in the darkness of my mind, I had given up on finding a way out.
I started therapy when I was a sophomore in high school. The walls were cracking and people were peeking through the holes I couldn’t plug. My first therapist blamed me for my thoughts and feelings.
Just snap out of it.
It’s easy.
There are people in the world who have bigger problems than you.
…needless to say, this was a colossal mistake which added to my list of reasons to not hang around like a shadow casting its doom on all those around.
Enter my therapist whom I still see today. He believes me. He validates me. He helped me break down that wall at my own pace and taught me that even though it’s easier to skip to the last page of the book, you need the context of the entire story to understand the ending. I needed to understand why I was feeling this way in order to take back the control.
Flash forward to this very moment I am writing this. Today, I’m doing alright. I feel rundown and slightly discouraged about things going on in my life. I feel inundated by outside factors that cause this stress and anxiety that has the power to swallow me whole. However, writing this allows me to see that my emotions are real and I’m allowed to feel them.
Life is about learning and understanding who you are and how you work. Your mental health matters.
Your mental health. Matters.
Dive into your mind. Figure out your triggers; what makes you happy, what makes you sad, how you can find the ultimate goal of contentment. As you learn about yourself, you can then continue forward one day at a time and ride every wave of emotion knowing you’ll come out on the other side. It’s not selfish to put yourself first. It’s admirable and important in order to not drown in the things you push aside.
You are loved. You are wanted. You matter.