This is an annual compilation of designed posts shared on Instagram over the month of May 2023 to raise awareness on mental health. Please read, share, comment and hopefully gain a bit more awareness in the process.
May 10th:
10 days into the month and finally, a post appears! ✨
May is Mental Health Awareness Month 💚 and it has become the month I share a bit about my struggles with my own mental illness. This year’s theme is #BreakTheStigma so I’ll be sharing some symptoms I experience on a fairly regular basis. Most of the time we brush off things we might be struggling with because we think it’s just life and everyone has to deal with the same things, but that’s not true and recognizing that maybe we need help is really okay and highly recommended.
May 12th:
I am a planner and decision maker naturally, or at least that’s the version of myself that I remember and thought I was.
The first symptom I’d like to highlight is the indecisiveness. 🙈
It’s when my brain gets clouded and overwhelmed with all the possibilities and I can’t focus on one thing. It’s when I can’t decide if I’m going to work at home or at a coffee shop for the day so I just stay in bed. It’s when I can’t figure out if I should try to eat healthier or just feed myself to live and so I don’t eat at all. It’s when I can’t choose what 3 tasks to prioritize for the day so I do nothing. My inability to make decisions on a daily basis is crippling. To counter it, I try to pre-plan things the day before so I’m not overwhelmed in the morning but sometimes I wake up overwhelmed by my pre-plan 🫣.
Today I have to do my apology tour. It’s when I’m coming out of a particularly difficult time and I’ve ignored people or clients and need to communicate before more time passes. I hate it, but I’ve accepted that a huge part of dealing with this is communicating, and actually dealing with the consequences, not ignoring it.
May 15th:
My body shuts down. I’m numb. I am unable to move. This is what a lack of energy feels like for me.
Sometimes I get a warning when my energy is about to go on low, it feels like a battery draining slowly. Sometimes it’s literally a switch, one minute I’m on and then just like that, I’m off. And then sometimes, a lot of days recently, I open my eyes, but can’t lift my body out of bed. I try to raise my hands, nothing. I do a bit of mental gymnastics and self talk to get my body to move or I give up and stay in bed till I feel like I can move.
Energy is really this lovely thing our body needs to do most tasks and when there is none, sometimes without warning, it is a very frustrating experience to push through and still figure out how to reply to emails, have meetings with clients and feed myself (the latter usually doesn’t happen even though that’s the one that would actually give my body more energy).
The fix for this is to go for a walk. But I have very rarely been able to muster up the energy to put on clothes let alone drag myself outside to put one foot in front of the other. It’s cruel when the “cure” for something is polar opposite to what your body is experiencing, and the unintentional guilt trips of well wishers who say things like “why don’t you just…” is the most unhelpful thing in these moments. On days like this I have to be gentle with myself, which is a work on progress like everything else.
May 17th:
I sleep 8-10 hours most nights and wake up exhausted. If you give me a chance, I can sleep for 12 hours. I spend most weekends in bed sleeping if I’m not out interacting with people. I sleep too much and my body never feels rested. I’ve never been able to nap before. Now I can sleep in the middle of the day if I’m feeling stressed. I know I’m out of a bad cycle when I’m asleep for shorter periods of time.
May 19th:
In 2010, Bruno Mars sang a song about not feeling to do anything, named The Lazy Song, and it maybe re-introduced that struggle of exhaustion vs laziness. But it also gave folks a word “lazy” to define my mental illness. (Maybe I’m putting a lot of pressure on a song that’s just reflecting society back at us but walk with me…)
“Today I don’t feel like doing anything. I am just laying in my bed. I can’t even pick up the phone, please don’t leave a message at the tone. Today I can’t do anything.”
This is a more accurate, less lazy, more illness representation of today’s symptom.
I can usually pick myself up by planning a vacation somewhere, eating my favorite meal, watching a movie, but when the loss of interest in ANYTHING kicks in, traveling means nothing to me anymore. Food is not exciting. My favourite movie becomes annoying noise and stimulation. My dog becomes any dog, not my child who I love and care for. My friend’s birthday is whatever. My deadlines are not important anymore. Zeroooo interest in anything. It’s a scary time I hate. And when it happens I have to force myself out of my space and head. Especially when I do have deadlines that on a regular day I would care about. I drag myself to the shower. I take 2-3 hours to get dressed and hop in the car, and I go to a place where there will be lots of people, lots of noise to distract me from myself long enough. Where I can feed off of other people’s energy. And find interest in life again.
May 22nd:
We don’t talk enough about the scary memory loss aspect of mental health. Not dementia, not blocking out trauma, just the basic remembering everyday things. If I try to remember what I had for lunch last week, I couldn’t tell you. If I don’t write things down when I’m in a meeting and set reminders, I won’t ever remember to get back to a client. I don’t remember names, birthdays, memories, both my short term and my long term memory are shambles! Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined this to be a symptom of being depressed but here we are. I don’t think I’d be able to survive without Google Calendar. Literally. Here’s to getting through today, this week, and the rest of this awareness month in one piece.
May 24th:
When I am at my lowest of lows, I avoid any situation where I need to be around people. I ignore messages from friends, sometimes I put my phone on DND so I don’t get overwhelmed, it’s just me, my couch, my bed, (my dog), and my mind, spiraling out of control. The default is to sleep, because it’s easier (and safer) than all the thoughts. The avoidance (for the friends who are ignored in the process) is really to protect everyone else from having to interact with an unstable version of myself. On a good day, I’m able to balance emotions, think clearly, and communicate with a dash of empathy and compassion. On a bad day all those filters and techniques disappear, I barely have energy to say hello, don’t ask me to smile, I have nothing to give or contribute to an interaction. I want to move, speak, or think as little as humanly possible and being in a social setting in that headspace is a recipe for disaster.
On the other end of this intentional withdrawal, is the one when I don’t realise I’m slipping into a new cycle of low. I don’t feel to go anywhere or do anything with anyone. It’s just me and Netflix for days. I’m lethargic, i probably haven’t bathed for a while, I’m in yesterday’s pajamas, my place is a mess, dishes are piled up, and I’m just existing (barely). This unintentional avoidance of social interactions is the real symptom, and when this happens I force myself to take care of my personal hygiene and leave my cave of sorrows (home) and go outside. I have to remove myself from the environment that has me stuck in order to clear the funk mentally. It’s the only way. Sometimes a friend messages at just the right time and pulls me out, and I thank the universe for the slight reprieve.
I wanted to highlight both sides of this because the first avoidance is self care (or maybe self preservation) while the second one is not and we sometimes think we’re doing the first one when really it’s the second. Or maybe they are both the same thing and just my brain lying to myself lol. This is a big one for me, and so separate from intentional rest periods and enjoying my alone time.
May 26th:
The never ending voice in your head that says you’re not good enough, that berates you on a daily basis, that criticizes your every action, thought and feeling. 😖 We talk a lot about imposter syndrome, well this is her big sister. And she doesn’t go away.
In a coaching session during the pandemic I got a really helpful tool to battle this feeling. My coach told me to identify whose voice I was hearing, and identify where I learnt it from. I realised it wasn’t my voice but actually someone close to me. I then had to find a new voice, someone who was kind, who is gentler, who speaks to me the way I’d like to speak to myself. Once I had the person, or at least the idea of the person in my head, my homework was to find an object that reminded me of them, an object I would see daily, so when I started berating myself again, it would gently tell me, it’s okay.
Here’s the feeling a little less worthless today. 🖤
May 29th:
I’m annoyed a lot. Irritability is a part of life right? But when you lose your composure because your pen ran out of ink, then maybe it’s not just the regular old irritability, just maybe it’s something else.
The smallest of inconveniences feel like an attack on my very being. I can handle the big stuff really well. Car accident? No problem. Apartment flooded out? Sure let’s deal with that. You call me when I sent you an email? Burn everything down immediately! 🔥
Noticing this level of reaction to the “little things” has tuned me in a lot and forced me to just be more aware of my reactions. Irritability is stress, and stress kills 🥹
May 31st:
And here we are, at the end of another month. We made it. We survived. Go us!
Identifying our symptoms is step one on a long journey of living with mental health challenges.
It. Takes. Work.
It’s so tempting to use our symptoms as an excuse because we have a genuine reason and explanation for our behaviour. We have to equally put in the work to treat, manage and deal with our symptoms. Like all serious illnesses, the consequence of ignoring symptoms is death, and mental health is as serious as a heart attack folks.
And this is not an easy process. I shared before how many therapists I’ve been to, how many tries at medication it took to get the right one. It’s a process. And it’s going to take the time it needs to take. I know this is in no way comforting but the good news is you are not alone in your struggles. Find community. Keep sharing. Connect with others and swap tips. You are not alone.
Until next May, take care.
Words by Ayrïd Chandler 