May is mental health awareness month. I just found out. A month dedicated to raising awareness. I don't know who needs to hear this. Maybe its even just for myself, a step on the journey to my own mental health, but here it is.
Although I've been wrestling with depression possibly since high school, I've never really stopped to reflect on all I've been through. Depression runs in my family; many of us naturally have low serotonin levels, and other genetics that predispose us to mental health struggles, but I just thought what I was living was normal. I never really woke up to the great importance of mental health awareness until recently.
The end of high school and start of college were extremely difficult times for me, but I didn't have the knowledge or words to know that this wasn't how the world was supposed to feel. I just thought I was a "bad Christian" for obsessively doubting and feeling so low that life itself seemed hopeless and pointless. I figured everyone teetered on the edge of existential crises rather regularly. I knew feeling physically paralyzed when overcome with hopelessness and doubt probably wasn't normal, but I had no means of figuring out why. Thankfully several amazingly life-giving people came into my life and I found ways to cope, ways to hope against hope. I still struggled in the environment I was submerged in, but I heard about something called spiritual OCD. I tried to research it, but couldn't find enough information from the sources I could see. The thought that depression may be playing into the whole scene hadn't even occurred to me.
It wasn't until after I took a semester off, studied abroad, and finished my last semester that I had a conversation that shed some light onto the struggle bus I had been riding. I graduated early and was temporarily moving back in with my parents, in a fairly new relationship, trying to figure out which future ship to board, and I talked to my mom about some of the struggles that had been dogging me for years, some of the thoughts and the fears. And for the first time, I was made aware that it could be depression. I knew that others in my family battled with depression and other mental health struggles, but I had always imagined them as removed and far away. I didn't really even know enough to say what they were, and I never realized that there could be a name for what was going on in my mind. But at that point, I had decided to move to Beijing to work with a nonprofit and the departure date was closing in; I was about to uproot myself and change homes yet again, leaving all support systems and friends. Thankfully, before I left, I had a chance to talk with the doctor and get some meds. Even then, I didn't really have time to try to understand what was going on in my head. But I took the meds and they seemed to help, but the transient style of the next two years made it hard to be consistent- always moving homes, moving countries, no insurance and no salary, it was a challenging time.
Then, after I came back for grad school, I decided I was "ready" to go off the meds, which I had already been taking inconsistently due to the lack of availability. Probably not the best move in hindsight, especially since I was undergoing multiple transitions and life-changes yet again, but I did. And for a while it seemed okay. I still encountered existential crises somewhat frequently, still battled with thoughts of hopelessness of the futility of it all, but it wasn't the same as before. It seemed more manageable, what I thought was not too out of the ordinary.
After finishing my degree in New York, I did it again. I uprooted myself, said goodbye to all my support systems and friends and moved to Shenzhen. I definitely did not realize the chaos I was willingly walking into, and soon I discovered that I wasn't mentally or emotionally prepared for what I would find there. A new school, no textbooks or curriculum, an unfinished building and kids who behave like they've never been in a classroom before. Vague expectations, little support, lack of training and resources, expectations to report progress without clear definitions of what that meant, no horizontal or vertical alignment among grades. Classroom management was an absolute disaster, and this was my first year teaching standards and content to kids. Literacy for a class that has 15 different reading levels in it, some kids who can't say a sentence with others who are nearly fluent. It was enough to make even a seasoned teacher shudder. Add that to a new city, a new apartment, and later a new relationship. I was struggling. Crying after work nearly ever week. Obsessively thinking about work around the clock, never feeling like I did enough. Only able to see the negatives, frustrated with myself for how I was reacting. Having moments at work where I was fighting back tears, struggling to breath normally, feeling overcome with fear. Moments when I wanted to curl up in a ball and never come out from behind the wall. It was like I was carrying a giant weight on my back ever day, waking up in dread for what lay ahead. I couldn't control my thoughts, and they kept taking me in a downward spiral to a place where I could barely function. I just thought it was stress. After all, a first year teacher is usually a mess from all the demands of her new position. But this seemed different. I just thought I needed to chill out, relax, not think about it so much. Just trust God more. But every time I tried, it would get my mind and body even more riled up. It was a frustratingly vicious cycle that I couldn't seem to break free from, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't seem to find freedom. I saw how it was negatively affecting me, my relationship, and all other aspects of my reality. But I felt helpless. Hopeless. I could quit, but this "stress" would just follow me. I had become someone I resented, someone I did not like, someone I looked at and didn't even recognize. I just wanted to be lucky and free again, and I kept thinking it would get better with time. But it didn't. It got worse.
Then on what was supposed to be a relaxing 2-week vacation, Coronavirus blew up and things kept on spiraling. Now I was in an unfamiliar country, with no computer, no resources, still expected to teach. I was traveling with two great people full of life, seemingly quite carefree, with few responsibilities, which only magnified my own struggles and what I later came to know as anxiety.
Then I had another conversation. I was explaining my situation to a friend from work, and she suggested a name. She said it sounded like that could be anxiety. And even just having a word that might fit provided some strange sort of relief. I began researching, trying to see if my experience could in fact be anxiety. The thought had never crossed my mind. I just thought I was broken. I'd heard people talk about anxiety vaguely in the past, but I didn't really know what it was or how it affected you. After reading and listening about this monster called anxiety, I began to realize that it was likely that it really was what had been shadowing me for the past 6 months. The unnervingly high scores I kept getting on the unofficial assessments online seemed to support that. But I didn't know what to do to combat the invisible monster of anxiety and his close companion, depression. Before that conversation, I didn't even have the vocabulary to describe what I was feeling inside. And I'm pretty good at putting on a face when I need to, so sometimes, even if I talked about it, people find it hard to believe that I was struggling with anything. I started reaching out to people I knew who may be able to offer guidance or some first step of help. The school counselor, a friend's psychologist mom, using the resources they recommended to keep learning and searching for help.
I ended up departing the company of those two travelling friends, seeking some sort of refuge in the house of a dear friend in yet another country. It was difficult to leave people I cared about and loved, but things were getting so bad I was becoming desperate for some sort of relief. Another conversation in Germany was the first time I felt hope that it wouldn't always be this way. Hope that there could be change. I tried setting up appointments with counselors, but nothing was working out. Eventually, I ended up coming back to the States, staying with my parents for the time being, hoping to find some sort of stability and routine.
I reached out to multiple counselors, tried for hours and days to get ahold of doctors. But I was determined to get help. I knew I couldn't get out of that spiral myself. And after several long weeks of searching and appointments, I was prescribed medication that treats both depression and anxiety, as well as OCD, I found a therapist, and another who did a different kind of therapy. That's also when the guy who had been the only bright spot in the past 6 months of my life decided to end things, right when things were starting to come to light and healing was beginning.
It felt like being kicked in the gut just when I was trying to get back up. But I was determined.
I've written about how I've invested in my mental health in previous posts, and that's not at all to boast about the progress that's been made, but in the hopes of giving hope to those who are struggling with an issue without a name.
Oh, I wish I would have known sooner that this beast that's been plaguing me was also known as anxiety. I fumbled and stumbled like a child in an unfamiliar room in the dark, not aware that I was actually in the dark, let alone where the light switch was. I had begun to think that stumbling and falling so much was just normal. I didn't see a light at the end of the tunnel because I thought I was just broken and out of reach of hope. I didn't have the words to express my thoughts or emotions, I didn't understand the situation or how my brain could affect all those things. I never considered the major life transitions that were all happening at once, the innumerable stressors that were suffocating me. I didn't have the awareness to know that this was a time I should ask for help, that I didn't need to try to beat this thing on my own, in the process just beating myself, so I kept trying to defeat it, and kept getting hit with hard blows that left my life feeling absolutely depleted.
If I had known what anxiety was, if I had an awareness of depression and mental health struggles, maybe I wouldn't have struggled in vain for so long, thinking there was something wrong deep inside me and I just needed to try harder to fix it.
Now that I've reached out for help, and invested a great deal of time and energy into getting healthy, I feel like a new person. I'm still learning (and unlearning). I still have a long way to go, but I know that I'm not alone. Especially now, in a time of crisis, so many people are coming face to face with mental monsters that they can't describe. They're scary and unfamiliar. They seem to have unlimited power. We aren't aware that it could be our mental health, unaware that there are resources and help.
Each time there was a turn for the better in my journey, it seems a conversation is what sparked it. So I guess my hope is that we won't brush mental health under the rug. We won't pretend it doesn't exist or that those who struggle with it are somehow inferior. The stigma alone can cause people who struggle to keep quiet out of fear of being judged. I think more of us than we realize have had encounters with mental health struggles while we've been alive, especially now. And the fact that you've survived and can live to talk about it, hopefully even from a healthy place, or even just a place of solidarity, is enough of a reason to be open to sharing your story with someone else.
Some of us never really learned about mental health. Or maybe we didn't listen because we thought it irrelevant. But awareness really can make a difference.
Being able to give the monster a name can give us direction and tools on how to defeat it, strategies and a community to support us.
It's easy to hide yourself and feel alone, forgotten, and unseen in your struggle and pain. But there is so much healing to be found by running out into the rain that's been so intimidating. Even simple conversations can start a transformation process that may usher in change.
Ask your friends how they really are, and truly listen to their response. Be open to sharing your life experience, sharing resources and hope.
We are not alone.
