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What is Mental Health and Why Does it Matter?

What is Mental Health and Why Does it Matter?

I didn’t want to write this blog post. Not one bit. But I felt I needed to share some insight from someone who has struggled with mental health for most of her life.

If you could only see the look on my face right now, you would wonder what gives? What’s the deal? Why is it so hard to say that?

I do not accept this as my bill of health, or that this is my end game. I have mood swings, I have highs and lows, I have anxiety. Sometimes I don’t sleep well. For most of my life, I expressed my feelings by self-harming.

Does any person ever really want to say something like that to anyone, let alone the entire world?

The truth is, writing those words makes me feel broken. Like a young lamb incapable of fending for herself. And if you have ever met me in person, you would say emphatically that I am anything but an incapable little lamb.

But that’s just it.

Mental illness (there it is again, that pit in my stomach when I refer to myself with those words) is real and it’s not verbiage I like to throw around lightly. Why? Because I do not believe I am a victim of anything, and I do believe that I can live a happy life. I know I can. Because 98% of the time I am.

Maybe the cards were kind of stacked against me.

My father is one of the most hardworking men I have EVER met in my entire life. Someone who has done and seen things in his lifetime NO ONE would EVER choose to do or see. But there he was. And in some ways, he is my hero. In other ways…well, it’s complicated. But like me, he has had his own demons to face in this lifetime. I am pretty certain if I would even whisper “mental health” to him, the hairs on his back would stand up like a dog ready to attack.

As for me, I’m pretty sure I was in the boat before I even knew it. But in 1996, (I was 12 by the way) who was talking about mental health? Unless you were a PhD attending elite conferences far away from my Wisconsin hometown, you didn’t even know that existed. People with mental health issues lived in institutions with padded walls and were drugged to the point of walking zombies, right?

And I say that with slight humor, but that is my cover for the complete discomfort I still feel when I categorize myself as someone with mental health issues.

I wish I knew then, what I know now. Things may have been different.

I wish my parents would have been more comfortable and knowledgeable with dealing with a child with addiction, depression, and anxiety. But then they would had to have been more comfortable with their own confrontations with it as well.

I wish I would have understood more about what was going on inside me when I was 12, 14, 18. All the while, feeling alone, embarrassed, and judged.

But truly, I don’t want to change any of it. It’s my life. My story.

And maybe it doesn’t bother me quite as much as it used to because I’ve survived. I decided long ago to fight. To not just mask the issues, but uncover them, and start dealing with them.

I was chemically imbalanced and a holistic nutritionist helped me with that. I was low in just about every single vital nutrient, thanks to an eating disorder, and I got help.
I ate my feelings for more than a decade, and I got help with that.
Talking about my feelings, expressing my feelings, or just feeling anything was scary to me. And I got help with that.

Mental Health Awareness

I lost a friend two years ago who she struggled with mental health as well. Something she said to me years before has always stuck with me. “Hope, I can’t go get help, because it will be in my file, and I might then lose my job”. Be that true or not. It was true to her. And as a result, she didn’t feel she could get the help she needed when she wanted… she passed from drug-use two years ago.

What if she had felt comfortable enough to get help?
What if she had felt safe enough to share her struggles?
What if she would have felt mental health was as easy to care for as a broken bone? Or as accepted as seeking cancer treatment?

I will never know that answer.

But I do know help is available. And it is VITAL. Let me say that again. It is VITAL that you reach out. Those uncomfortable feelings you feel just thinking about reaching out won’t last.

See your mental health as a priority. Not as a silly stigma.

Talk to your partner about your struggles. Let them in. Do not be embarrassed about seeking out a therapist. Everyone can benefit from an outside perspective and sound advice.

Support others on their journey. They may not be ready to talk about their struggles or concerns with you. And they may never be, but support them by simply holding a space of safety for them by learning what the warning signs are that they may be struggling. By giving them room to breathe and letting them know you are there with a card, a text, or a call.

And if you are feeling like you need the care yourself, then do not hesitate. The world needs you. You have something amazing to offer and this one moment is a part of that amazing journey unfolding.

We all have to take care of our health: physically, emotionally and mentally. And let this be a gentle reminder that there is help out there. I’m living proof it works.

 

For More Information about Mental Health, check out these articles:

Mental Health and Parenting: What No One is Talking About

6 Simple Self-Help & Recovery Tips for an Eating Disorder

Mindful Ways to Reduce Stress

Ground Yourself by Coming Into Your Root Chakra

Depression | Recognizing Depression, Causes and Treatments

Binge Eating

 

This was originally published for Thrive Global on May 28, 2019.

You Were A Blessing: Moving Through Grief and Loss

You Were A Blessing: Moving Through Grief and Loss

All day I have been thinking about it. About her.
All day she has been on my mind.
And part of the long car ride home from speaking… I cried.

I cried those special tears that go deep. That I feel everything all over again. Not just losing you. But when I first found out I was going to lose you. It was hours. Literally hours after I had just came to terms with becoming a mom and welcoming you into my life. Our life.

I didn’t know it then but you would become the best thing to ever happen to me. Your showering of gifts that would have never happened if it wasn’t for your life exactly the way it was.

The insights. The personal push into taking back my life and truly standing in recovery and never looking back.

You gave me compassion. Insight. Perseverance. Determination. Trust. You lead me to feel in a deep way. A deep way I didn’t even know was possible to feel. You gave me three beautiful children. Of whom would not be in our life if it wasn’t for you and your life.

You gave me a deeper sense of purpose. Purpose to live. To be bold. To be brave. To pick up the pieces and move forward.

A few weeks after you left me. I dragged myself out of bed and looked in our bathroom mirror and told myself I needed to find something good in this. That this pain. This unexplainable pain. This pain I would never wish on my worse enemy had to not be for nothing.

And then it happened. I started to see the blessings. The blessings that only carrying you in my womb, and holding you in my arms and watching you leave this earth tightly nestled within my grasp. Then giving you away leaving me with the most empty feeling I could never fully explain to anyone could feel.

But it happened. The blessings. I started to see them randomly on occasion, but I knew it was you. Then more frequently. Things would happen and the only explanation was you.

And now 12 years later I have experienced dozens, hundreds if not thousands of blessings your life exactly the way it was could have given.

My biggest blessing was in losing you. Losing you gave me purpose to live. Losing you pushed me to forge on fully into recovery. That because of you I wasn’t going to waste another second. Through your death I found life. Like a real life. One worth living. One worth striving for. One where I wanted to not just live but become the best version of myself while helping others do the same.

But I’m not going to lie. Losing you was one of the darkest, most difficult, incredibly painful experiences ever. But that pain brought your Papa and I closer together. It showed us truly what it meant to have a healthy baby. What bringing another life into this would meant. And how valuable our own lives truly are.

It is on this day each year that I am reminded of what you gave me. And I am forever grateful for you and for you coming into my life. I couldn’t fully see it at first because, well, grief is hard, and messy and complicated and as much as people try to box it in-it’s impossible to.

And for anyone out there grieving the loss of a loved one…a child. The grief never leaves. It just changes. The waves become less rocky and if you are open to it, and ask to see them, the blessing will blow in.

I am sharing this because I know what it is like to struggle. To beg for your life. To want to die, and watch someone die in your arms. But I also know what it is like to get back up again. To not just survive, but to thrive.

You will get though this. I see you. I feel you. I hear your cries. I know your pain. And give yourself the grace to just feel this moment. Because it will eventually pass, but the hole in your heart, I’m not going to lie, will never go away.

But I have come to understand, it’s not suppose to. It is partly what has made you who you are at this point in your life.

But the beauty and blessing is, eventually a seed will sprout and a beautiful flower will grow. That flower would have never been there if it were not for all of this.

Tonight we prayed for you in gratitude for all the blessings you have given us. That we have all experienced as a family, all because of you. This family we are today is all. because. of. you.

Never lose hope…

#dailydoseofhope

Additional Grief and Loss Resources:

Sleep During a Crisis: How to support your mental health and sleep

 

Krebs Kids Grief and Loss Blog Post Hope Zvara

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