It It Just Me Or... Is It Okay To Still Be Figuring Out Your Mental Health?

Content warning: mental health discussion

Hi, I’m Megan. Throughout my life, I’ve struggled with: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, obsessive thoughts, compulsive behaviours, dissociation and suicidal ideation. Whew, that feels like a lot to write down.

This summer, I fell into one of the deepest mental health holes I’ve been in for about a decade (since recovering from anorexia in my teens). Even as I’m typing this, there’s a little voice up there telling me to stop, because surely, I’m not the kind of person who should be struggling with these things.

When I sat in front of the doctor I’d never met before and told him about the hole I was in, I assured him that I was doing everything right. I was doing the self care – the walking, the talking, the eating, the washing, the sleeping. Yes, I had people around to support me. No, I didn’t work constantly, although whenever I’m not working I’m thinking about working and no it doesn’t feel okay to take a break. Yes, I’ve been going to therapy for five years. So why is none of it working?

I left – crying and sweating – with a prescription for anti-depressants and a feeling that I could have done better at explaining things. I mean, I talk about mental health on the internet all the time. I encourage other people to know their worth and take care of themselves. I’m all about breaking down stigma! So why did I still feel so stupid, sitting in a puddle of my own sweat, asking for help?

Why didn’t I have this all figured out already?

I’m a few months down the line from that moment, and I still can’t really answer the question. All I know for sure is that this stuff is really fucking complicated. It’s tied up in everything that we’re born with, everything that we live through, and everything that we do. I might never totally figure it out.

But what I can do, as someone who talks about mental health on the internet, is be honest. It’s not the big fix, but it’s something. Something that might make another person who hasn’t got it all figured out feel like maybe they aren’t the problem after all. (Hey, you’re not the problem, I swear).

I’ll always remember a conversation I had with my friend Imogen, at a time in my life when it felt like the panic attacks would never stop and that clearly, I was defective. They said to me that maybe my brain isn’t broken at all, maybe it’s reacting completely appropriately to the current time and place we exist in, and all that goes on in it.
Being a thinking, feeling, conscious being in the here and now, is a lot. There are constant streams of trauma and pain available within a few clicks alongside whatever’s happening in our own personal lives. There are more devices, algorithms and industries competing for our attention than ever before. There’s the pressure to constantly produce and the necessity of getting by in a system that values money more than people and the planet. Everything is faster. Everything is temporary. Everything is designed to make us feel like we’re the problem that needs fixing.

And then there’s us. The ones who want the world to be better. The ones who feel things, deeply. The ones who aren’t great at forming a barrier between everything going on out there and everything that goes on in here. The ones who take it out on themselves. Figuring out how to be okay here is no small thing.

Every year that goes by I get another piece of my own mental health puzzle. Sometimes it’s a piece I thought I already had but it turns out I lost it while I wasn’t looking. Sometimes it’s a piece that falls into place after decades of wishing it wasn’t real. The figuring out is constant. I think I’ll be doing it for my entire life. And I tell myself that’s okay. It has to be okay. Because this is the only brain I’ll ever have.

So, I choose to stay with her. I try my best to treat her with kindness. I try to accept everything we are, and everything we’re not. I do the self care. I take the medicine. I talk to the people. Some days, I get a glimpse of what life must feel like for people whose brains don’t work this way and it’s fucking glorious. Every day, I keep going.

I keep trying to figure it out. And I’m proud of myself for that. I’m proud of every one of us figuring out the things other people don’t even see. We are so much stronger than we realise.

If this v vulnerable email made you feel something good, consider sharing it with someone else you think will feel it - or even the entire internet! It’d be great to have new friends here. 🥰