You Are Not Alone: My Mental Health Journey - Part 1
DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical or mental health professional. Everything I share is information gained through personal experience, professional help, and outside resources. It is your own personal responsibility to seek professional help and advice before implementing any life-altering practices. Everyone's mental health journey looks different. My story is just one of millions. If you are feeling lost, scared, alone, concerned, or just not right, I encourage you to connect with a mental health professional. Don't wait until it becomes a crisis.
*TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of Mental Illness & Suicidal Thoughts*
You are not alone
You are not alone. Although the opposite often feels true, especially when it comes to emotions.
Emotions are a very personal experience - anger with someone who acts unjustly; frustration over a project; joy in a goal achieved; pride in a new piece of work. Emotions are the response and expression of how we personally and individually see the world.
But collective emotion - that’s really powerful. A personal experience suddenly becomes a shared one, fostering a special connection with another human soul. Collective emotions can move mountains. We see it everyday. Crowded protests, city-wide clean-ups, and successful food drives are all perfect examples of what can happen when numerous people share the same emotions, like anger, hope, and compassion.
Collective emotion can also be felt on a smaller scale. By finding common ground, two people can find a mutual emotion. One person decides to be open, honest and vulnerable, and the doors swing wide to the possibility of a deeper understanding of each other and each's life experiences.
This is why I felt I needed to share this story, my story. I want to bring a mutual emotion to our relationship, even while it's still in these very early stages. I want you to know my journey so we can find common ground, and know that although we are unique, our emotions are not. We are not alone.
But growing up, I thought I was alone. My emotional and mental health issues were so isolating. I thought there was no one who understood what I was dealing with. In my eyes, no one else was experiencing life like I was. That meant I was alone.
A suspected culprit
Each year I got older, my emotions became more intense, always backed by deep fear of, well, a lot. “I’m afraid of being afraid,” is what I said to my mom as a child. She knew my fears, but noticed a bit more. One day, she cautioned me, “I think you may have some bipolar.”
This wasn’t a stretch or assumption. She was paying attention to the signs, and developed the theory. Having it professionally diagnosed or treated, though, wasn’t an option. My other parent held the very common, but unhealthy belief therapists are for “crazy” people. Mental illness among “normal” people wasn’t a thing. People like me, and on top of it, a teenage girl, were just emotional. Counseling wasn’t an option.
As I transitioned into adulthood, I began noticing the patterns my mom must have been seeing: a few hours, days, weeks of “happiness;” then the depression, sadness, and puddles of tears. My self-identity as a “germaphobe” was also in full swing, deeply fearing, not just germs, but anything that could cause me to be sick or “kill me”.
FEAR IS A CONTROL FREAK
As life got more complicated, the emotions and swings got worse. I learned the warning signs of an incoming shift, and fought to managing this fear of nothing and everything. I knew I should probably seek professional help, but didn’t know where to start.
Soon my fear took over that situation too.
“Where do I even start?"
“What if I pick the wrong therapist?”
“Are there different counselors for different things?”
“Am I crazy?”
“Am I actually feeling these things?”
“Am I bad enough to get help?”
“Do I really need help?”
“I just need to get myself under control.”
“I need to pray harder.”
“I’ll be ok.”
But I wasn’t ok. In fact, it was getting worse. The lows had lots of tears, sadness, anger, fear. The highs had lots of “joy,” jumping and running around, extreme goofiness with my husband.
Have you ever seen an overtired child, doing anything and everything they can to be silly, goofy, and wild just to stay awake? That was me during a high, and I chuckle about those moments now. But the highs also left unpleasant memories: unwise impulse spending; poor decisions; obsessions that brought me to tears.
At this point, I was about to turn 30, married for years, two kids. Life in general was getting harder, because life for any adult is complicated. However, I found myself staying in the tears, sadness, and overwhelming fear longer and longer. And the emotion was getting deeper and stronger.
A DAY I WON’T FORGET
Then one day, it happened.
During a “meltdown” - what I call my episodes of sitting on the floor in a corner in fear and tears with no explanation - my thought pattern changed.
After not being able to comprehend how people could ever even contemplate it, a switch flipped:
Suicide.
I was suddenly awakened to that desperate feeling of wanting it all to stop, of seeing no way out. No, I wasn’t considering it or thinking of ways to end my life, but in this moment, I now understood how people saw it as a viable option. I was having empathy for those who had taken their own life, and I was terrified.
That was it: the blaring, undeniable, couldn’t-be-ignored red flag that scared me enough to motivate me into taking action - not only for myself, but for my family, my husband, my two young children.
I finally felt the urgency.
I needed help now.
Continue to Part 2…
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