Mental Health

Mental health used to be something hardly talked about, and if you were to speak of it as something to value and take care of, you might have gotten laughed at. In more recent years, it has been talked about so much that the term “anxiety disorder” sounds more like a Gen Z buzz word than a mental illness. I think that both the neglect of mental health and the over emphasis on prioritizing mental health have proven to be problematic in a few ways, but I think that the increased awareness of the subject is a good thing. Baby boomers, Gen X, and a lot of millennials can certainly tell you what it's like to deal with people who would scoff at taking steps to “improve your mental health.” But everyone also knows that person who’s totally fine and blames every shitty thing they do on anxiety, rather than just owning up to being a shitty person. 

 I think it is important to note that  when older people laugh at some of these things, often they are more so laughing at some of the frivolous things that our culture has attached to a phrase, rather than what it actually is. For example, your grandma might think you're stupid for saying you took a day off of work because of a panic attack, but your grandma might think you are very wise for going on a walk in the morning because it helps you regulate your emotions throughout the day. 

Still, it seems agreed upon that mental health as a topic of conversation has become much more common in recent years. Statistics suggest that mental health issues have become much more common and severe in the last several years as well. That opens up another conversation, as to whether or not the pervasiveness of the topic of mental health has simply given more people the tools to self identify, or if the mental health decline was the cause for the increase in conversation? It’s a “chicken or the egg” type question, and I don’t want to spend a lot of time on this, but I think that the latter is more so true.

When I was a teenager, I mostly thought of all the mental health talk as my generation being overly emotional and unwilling to accept responsibility for anything. I don’t know why I thought that exactly. But it was probably influenced by my conservative Christian upbringing. Self-responsibility is big haha. And it’s a good thing to learn. Although I still think these things go hand in hand a littleeee bit, I now feel quite different. I could cite a lot of reasons, but my anxiety and depression are probably my top two.

an AI representation of Wanderer above the Sea of Fog

I don’t recall dealing with a lot of anxiety growing up, except for socially. I tended to be more happy-go-lucky than anything. I started homeschooling in third grade,  and my mom kept me involved enough with different co-op groups and sports and stuff, but by the time I was in seventh grade I felt so disconnected from culture. I either wasn’t allowed to watch or participate in the same stuff my friends from public school did, or I just wasn’t even aware of it. Throw-in that I didn’t have a phone, I was one of the worst kids on my baseball team (first time that happened to me), and my best friend and I were hanging out less; and it only makes sense that I became so unsure of myself. For years I hated being in groups. I felt like my every move was being watched or judged somehow, and I would just freeze up so it felt almost impossible to do anything. I was afraid to eat food in front of people when I was in film school. It wasn’t until I was around twenty-one years old that I started to figure out how to better manage my social anxiety and to be able to enjoy being in large groups more. Admittedly, I still don’t love hanging in groups where I don’t know everyone well, and once in a while a new group or new job environment will throw me off. Things are a lot better in this area though.  

Around the time I was twenty years old, I started to notice that I hated being alone. I would get all twitchy and fail to concentrate on anything, whether something productive or something fun. Over time, I wasn’t just feeling fidgety, but sometimes I would feel an overwhelming amount of negative emotion on top of it. It was a challenging time when I was unwilling to even consider anxiety or depression as real things I could be dealing with. Ironically, as I was spazzing out for no reason, I was convinced that is what all anxiety is. But that is what it is for me, lol. This painful mix of anxiety and depression was rough, but more often than not I could find ways to deal with it, even if I wouldn't call it what it was. I could usually hang out with people, or just grin and bear it. Soon,  rather than just having instances of feeling sad and depressed, or having a couple weeks of being down in the dumps, that became my normal way of feeling. 

2023 was a turning point for me, and not in the best way. It was essentially the third year in a row that I was more unhappy more of the time. I was finally recognizing that I was struggling with anxiety and depression, but I still was just doing my best to ignore it and move on.  After a very unhappy year and the drawn-out end of a childish romantic relationship, I found myself in a devastating depression and in need of help. For a few months, I wrestled with suicidal thoughts and self-harm. I ended up trying an antidepressant medication for the first time. I went on the meds mostly because I was fearful for my own safety, and of course because I was seeking some kind of comfort. After a short stint on Lexapro, I did what you aren’t supposed to do and cold turkey quit them. Although I didn't feel as low while using the SSRI, I just felt so zombified, and drinking wasn’t fun anymore haha (note: they mean it when they say not to drink on that stuff). 

So I ended up moving to beautiful Redding, CA (that was a joke, I hate it here), where I felt I would be able to get back on my feet and get moving in a better direction again. And I can say that compared to where I was a little over a year ago, I am doing much better. I don’t know if that’s saying a lot, though. Ironically, I had a panic attack since typing out the first draft of this last night. It was brought on by just kinda being stressed out about a new job. That is so embarrassing and so annoying. This new job is an entry level thing that a lot of people do when they’re in high school and college lol. So, I guess there is still a lot of room for improvement. I am thankful to be alive, and I am doing my best to not let these mental illnesses or whatever stop me. But I know that the way I am being affected by them now is not how I want to be affected forever, and I want to improve. In my lazy moments when I feel fine, I may not feel a drive to improve, but days like today remind me that I absolutely want to change. Or at least improve.

A lot of things bother me about my anxiety and depression. That might be an obvious statement, but let me explain what I mean. There’s behaviors and beliefs that I end up falling into that wouldn’t normally tempt me. Even just things as simple as nervous habits or giving into overly negative thinking. Often so much of the time I spend alone, I end up being unproductive and just trying to grab onto whatever I can that will distract me from how bad I feel. I also have found more recently that my anxiety has been having a more intense influence on my physical well being. My digestion and energy levels can get pretty bad sometimes. Honestly, the thing that bothers me the most about my anxiety and depression is that I feel it often makes me not as good of a boyfriend and friend. I can get so caught up in my own headspace that I fail to be present in the moment. Sometimes I just miss things in conversation, or don’t have as much to say as usual. But other times I fear my partner has to pick up the slack as they comfort me and manage their own life.   

It's hard to say exactly the effect that my anxiety and depression have had on my art. Oftentimes it has made it much harder to be consistent in spending quality time writing. But I can’t help but think that some of the struggles hold an important place in my love for poetry. So much of my love for writing has shifted and changed due to the harder times during the last few years. That said, I do not believe that pain is the only fuel for creatives. I don't write as well when I am completely unsettled. Being a little unsettled can be good, but when my fingers are shaking it makes things harder lol. I think I am going to start focusing on reading more poetry when I am especially anxious, rather than trying to push through and write. I feel that may lend me more focus to write better. Either way, more reading always makes for better writing. 

I have found that it is important to remember in the midst of struggling with these mental illnesses, they do not define my life. Anxiety and depression are a part of my story, but I don’t want to make them out to be bigger than they are. Some moments will be marked by them, but others will not. There are people with much more serious mental illnesses that are very successful and happy. I can’t control what happens to me, but I can control how I react to any situation. The idea of “reacting” always makes me think of this thing my eighth grade baseball coach always preached.  Anytime he would hit grounders at us, he’d tell us to attack the ball. He coached that it’s always best that you move towards the ball and choose the hop that you field it on. The alternative is more likely to result in an error because when you sit back and wait, the ball is moving towards you and it is determining what kind of bounce you are gonna get (technically, the path of the ball is determined by the swing of the bat, and the ball is an inanimate object, but I wrote that in the way the sounded best). All that to say, I can choose to act towards any goal that I desire and am willing to put in an adequate amount of work to achieve. Because I am aware of my mental illnesses, I can plan accordingly and take steps to minimize their effect on my life. I like how this blog is ending on a point of balance, because so often the truth is in tension.