When I first started My Brain’s Not Broken, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I was a few months into my first full-time job, and I wanted to share what it was like to be an adult who was trying to figure out depression and anxiety while also trying to figure out post-grad life. In the years since, this blog has transformed into a place where I’ve learned so much about mental health and wellness. And that’s why, for the past few months, I’ve been trying to think of ways that I could build this blog as a space that’s bigger than my own mental health journey – and that’s what I want to talk to you about today.
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A Breath of Fresh Air
Last week I was feeling a little under the weather, which led me to writing about the perfectionism that it brought out in me. After several days of not feeling so hot, I woke up yesterday morning feeling somewhat healthy for the first time in a while. It was, as the saying goes, a breath of fresh air – not only physically, but mentally as well. It reminded just how powerful a healthy day can be on the journey to long-term wellness.
Continue readingLearning More About Myself
This week, I’ve done a lot of reflection about where I am on my mental health journey. Part of that was inspired by my recent post about how anyone can benefit from therapy – I reflected on my own journey in therapy and how that has affected my day-to-day life. And even though I reflect often about the growth and change I’ve experienced over the years, I’ve reached a few conclusions about what it means for a person to learn more about themselves. I always thought learning more about myself would be interesting and insightful – maybe even fun, to be honest! But I was wrong, and it’s helped me grow in some major ways.
Continue readingFinding the Rhythm of Life
When I watch movies, there’s a specific type of scene that always makes me jealous. Before we see our characters go off on their adventure, we sometimes see a morning routine montage – a quick-cutting, crisp shot-by-shot look at how these people get going in the morning. Maybe it’s because we know their world is about to change or because of the way it sets the scene, but that peek into a character’s life is such a great way to get to know our heroes of this story. But on occasion, it also makes me wonder – why can’t my days have more of that sort of rhythm?
Continue readingTaking Pressure Off My Coping Techniques
Over the years, I’ve added many coping techniques and strategies to my mental health toolkit. While these techniques have provided a lot of support on my mental health journey, they’ve also created some problems. I realized I was putting too much pressure on my coping techniques, and that’s what I want to share today.
Continue readingWe All Deserve Nice Things
Today’s post might be short, but that’s because the message is simple. Over the weekend, I checked off one of the biggest things currently on my bucket list – I saw my favorite musical on Broadway. And even though it still makes me uneasy to gush on this blog about things I love (here’s hoping I can get more comfortable with that!), I want to share some thoughts about what came to mind when I’d realized I’d done something that made me incredibly happy.
Continue readingSpring Is Here! Kind Of. Maybe?
As I write this, I am looking out the window to another 50-degree, so-so winter day. But I don’t care because to me, March means one big positive for my mental health – the no-good, rotten, very bad days of winter are almost at an end. And even though spring isn’t “officially” here yet (at least not according to the calendars I looked up), I’m an early adopter of spring because of what it represents and what it can mean for our mental health.
Continue readingBreaking Old Habits and Building New Ones
After writing my post earlier this week, my mind drifted to the topic of habits. If I’m being honest, I was never too interested in forming and practicing habits. I understand their value and how they can help people improve their lives – what I didn’t like was the attitude I created toward my habits, especially in the past two years. Almost every habit I’ve created since March 2020 has been to cope with the pandemic, and it’s evolved into a mix of good habits and (mostly, in my opinion) bad ones. So how can I undo this change and reset?
Continue readingThe Challenge of Recognizing Our Shortcomings
I don’t know when I realized this, but I’m awful at compartmentalizing things. For a long time, I didn’t even know what it meant to compartmentalize things and when I did learn, I wasn’t sure how to put it into practice. It can be very frustrating to discover you’re not good at something, and that frustration can grow even more when you realize it’s holding you back from wellness in an area of your life. Here’s how I handle it, and how I deal with the challenge of recognizing my shortcomings.
Continue readingWhy There’s No Wrong Way to Ask for Help
The more I learn about depression, the more I come to terms with the fact that there will always be more to learn. In fact, it’s likely that there’s so much more I don’t know about my own depression than what I’ve learned over the past decade. I write that to say when we talk about mental health, knowledge certainly is power. But sometimes, it can also be something that leads to shame and stigma. Even though depression is complicated to understand and difficult to unpack, there is no shame in experiencing it. But reducing the stigma around mental health is so much more than saying that – it’s also encouraging difficult conversations that unfortunately, most people don’t want, or don’t know how, to have.
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My Brain's Not Broken 