Making Room for Mental Health
It is a far flung falsification that not everyone deals with mental health issues. My own journey through depression, anxiety, and substance use is ongoing and takes more energy from me that at times I feel I can muster.
This piece is a shift from my more formal articles. It is instead a journal style precursor to a series of articles to come as they relate to the various topics touched upon in this piece. Before diving into formal research and data as it relates to mental health, I thought it would be prudent to share my own experiences in the hopes of further normalizing the topics in general, and setting the stage for more in depth thought.
Content warning: mental health, substance abuse.
The act of being social has never come easily to me. Since before I had the consciousness or vocabulary to label it as such, my social anxiety has often felt crippling.
“What will they think of me if I say this?”
“I know I look ridiculous and the way he is looking at me confirms that.”
“Am I really worth this person’s time and attention?”
These are some of the many thoughts that are constantly running through my head. I do not believe that these thoughts are unique to myself, but their effect on me is. I often find that while these thoughts fly through my head, I cannot focus or think about what is happening in actuality and I freeze. Growing up I and others labeled this as shy, or slow to warm. For me today that label is plain and simple: anxiety.
To further that anxiety I have most often found it easiest to communicate through writing than speaking. Seeing words alive on a piece of paper or screen brings clarity to me in a way that speaking and listening never fully can. That is great for writing, but when I am freezing and anxious in social situations, it is no help to me and quite a hindrance.
Most often in my adolescence I turned to isolation as a means to an end; it was safer and easier for me to engage with less people than to push myself into situations that I knew I would struggle in. I highly doubt I knew that fact at the time, but upon reflection it is absolutely how I protected myself. That isolation lead to me feeling deeply alone and depressed, which then furthered my feeling that I could not handle social situations; it was an ever expanding cycle.
Then I came to an age where substance was introduced to my life, namely alcohol. Finally, something that made me feel more comfortable in those social situations. I felt like I was born anew, and could enter into any situation and know that I had a way to make myself feel comfortable. The problem was that I still did not even know why I was feeling so anxious, and instead I was letting that anxiety steep in an inhibitor that more often than not left my body feeling depleted.
This was my strategy for years, and to be completely honest at times still is; habits are hard to break, and anyone who has, has tried, or will do so deserves much credit.
We live in a society that is only just beginning to recognize the import of mental health. We also live in a society that pushes people to vices easier than recognizing feelings and emotions, especially young, cis-gendered, straight men as myself. It was through introspection and several tough conversations with the people I love that the idea of me having mental health problems sunk in at the age of 22.
By that time I had almost fully isolated myself, with a few quite notable exceptions (much love to my family, partner, and friends). I had found that my drinking had drifted from the unhealthy habit of a social safety net, to the unhealthier habit still of a way to cope with the feeling of being alone. In following this trend, I again was creating a self-fulfilling and ever-growing loop. This time though, I also recognized that I was not just hurting myself, but inadvertently others as well.
I have been fortunate since that time to be able to attend therapy, and later to begin medications. These are two privileges that should not be and never should have been privileges. Everyone deals with mental health issues at some point in their life, however, governments and subsequently insurance companies find it cheaper to ignore that fact. We need to make space for equitable access to mental health services for all.
Therapy has changed my life. I will tell anyone I meet that they should consider therapy; even if things are going great in your life, it is important to build the tools for when they are not. These topics are not talked about at a young age and often never are. Not only should every child have access to a school nurse, but also a school counselor. No child should learn about substances in school before they learn how to talk about how they feel.
Medication has also changed my life, and I must admit it was the change that was the biggest hurtle for me. I felt like my whole reality was going to shift once I took these medications, and that in some way I was going to be contorted by the mental health field into a more moldable consciousness. This could not be further from the case in my experience. That being said, there are numerous instances of mistreatment, misdiagnosis, and overdiagnosis that have led many to have negative experiences with medication, so it is understandable that for many medication is not ever going to be viewed as an option.
No one can ever tell you what medication will work best for you. Only you can know, and it can take years to find the right fit, and right dosage. Psychiatrists can give you recommendations and options, because that is their job, they have the experience and body of knowledge to hear your specific problems and know what might be able to help. What they don’t know however is you, and it is up to you to take those recommendations and decide what is going to be right for you. This process for me took almost two years of trial and error, and I have finally found a balance that works.
In the time since I started medication I have seen a vast improvement to my my social anxiety and depression. It is not the alternate reality that I once feared, but is in fact like putting on a finely tuned pair of glasses for the first time through which to see my most important reality — my own.
The mind and body are inextricably connected. Since starting medications, I have also seen vast improvements to my gut health, and joint pain; Problems which existed before, but were much exacerbated by my declining mental state. Everyone carries their stresses in different places and ways, but everyone carries them none the less. In addition, I now have a healthy tool through which to confront my anxiety and have become less and less reliant on alcohol - something that was hurting my body and my relationships. This has gotten to a point where now I am in a place where I can re-imagine my relationship to the substance.
I truly wish I lived in a society where it was not stigmatized to speak about your problems. I also wish I lived in a society that does not fetishize substance abuse and mental health, but does little to meaningfully confront those issues.
By sharing my own experiences, I hope to continue to further the normality of problems. It has taken a long time for me to get to this place, a lot of hurt for me, and I know a lot of hurt for others. If someone could not be present at my lowest, for whatever reason, then that was their choice, and it is up to me whether they can be there when I reach my peak. I do not hold it against anyone for not sticking around, that is out of my control, and more than likely I did not treat them fairly at my low. Fallibility, humility, and forgiveness are my guiding forces, and what is in my control is where I go from here, and with whom I share the life I am excited to lead.
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