This month on My Brain’s Not Broken, I decided to intentionally focus on the pandemic’s impact on mental health. We’re also closing out Mental Health Awareness Month, and I’ve been very pleased to see the content that people have created and the wonderful ways that people have embraced conversations about mental health. Today, I want to focus on what’s ahead – not necessarily on what our mental health should look like after the pandemic (if that’s even a thing), but what we can do now. We’ve been living this way for 15 months now, and that’s brought a renewed focus on how we can better take care of ourselves in many ways, including mental health.
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Mental Health Can Be Exhausting – And That’s Okay
I try not to think about it too often, but I spend a lot of my time being tired. In fact, I’ve spent so much time being tired that it’s become more of a default setting rather than something I feel. Part of that could be that I don’t rest/sleep as much as I should (which I’ll admit is true), but the biggest reason I’m tired all the time is that I spend my days managing and living with mental health issues. And even though that takes a lot of energy from me (mental and physical) on a daily basis, that’s okay. In my experience, being tired isn’t always a negative thing – in fact, most of the time it’s a reminder of who I am and what I am working toward.
Continue readingFive Reminders During Mental Health Awareness Month
For those who are more familiar with Mental Health Awareness Month, this month can be a good time to reflect, learn, and grow as mental health advocates. However, it’s also a time to share with others, especially in the ways that we discuss mental health and how exactly awareness is spread. If you’re just getting started in your journey as a mental health advocate (which anyone can be!), I put together five helpful tips and reminders that can help you spread mental health awareness and start having those important conversations.
Continue readingFinding Mental Wellness During Uncertain Times
On Tuesday, I wrote about what my approach to mental health has been like during the pandemic – an approach that includes a bit of pessimism, an emphasis on focus and a willingness to let out my emotions when I need. The more I wrote about these things, the more I reflected on how I’ve been able to maintain mental wellness as often as I could during the past year-plus of this pandemic.
One of the more difficult things I’ve come to terms with is that as long as we’ve been living this way, I still haven’t truly processed what we’ve gone through, and what we’re still going through. Truthfully, I’m slightly nervous of what that will look like for my mental health. But the bigger question on my mind is, how do you process something when you don’t know when it will end?
Continue readingA Pandemic Approach to Mental Health
For Mental Health Awareness Month this year, I’m placing a focus on the pandemic’s impact. At this point, I’ve been working from home for 15 months, my life has seen drastic changes, and I have hit more mental walls than I ever thought possible in only a year. Part of me hoped I’d never really write about my mental health approach from this last year and a half. Now that this is the second Mental Health Month in a pandemic, I decided to share parts of how I’ve been able to find peace and wellness where I could find it. This approach includes a dose of pessimism, an emphasis on focus and a willingness to let out my emotions when I need it.
Continue readingFour Ways to Spread Mental Health Awareness
I’ve said this plenty of times before on the blog, but I talk about mental health a lot. It’s a topic constantly on my mind, and the more I discuss it the more it comes up in every day life. I view mental health as a key part of people’s lives, which is what makes Mental Health Awareness Month so important as a mental health advocate. But how do you spread awareness about a topic as broad and far-ranging as mental health? Where does a person even start? Today, I’m sharing four of the biggest ways that I spread mental health awareness in my work, and how each of these ways works to shrink the stigma and start a discussion about mental health.
Continue readingMental Health Awareness Month 2021
It’s May, which means that it’s another big month for mental health! May is Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States, an annual event that raises national awareness for mental health. While mental health awareness happens year-round, this month is a time for specific conversations about shrinking the mental health stigma and advocating for the mental health policies and services that people need. Different organizations will have various themes, and this month is a good time for the mental health community to come together and advocate for what we ALL need to maintain mental wellness. Here are a few campaigns to keep an eye on this month!
Continue readingCoping With Chronic Mental Health Challenges
I’ve knowingly lived with depression and anxiety for more than eight years. Even though I’ve grown in a lot of positive ways over that time, there have also been many challenges and obstacle, a lot of which existed primarily due to depression and anxiety. A while back I realized that matter how many steps I take to improving my mental health, obstacles will always exist. They might look different during various parts of life, but they will continue to happen, challenging my mental wellness in a now-familiar pattern. It’s one of the most frustrating aspects of living with a chronic mental health condition, but there are things I’ve learned over that that improved my approach to living with depression and anxiety.
Continue readingTalking About Mental Health on the (Inter)national Stage
TW: This post discusses suicide/suicidal thoughts.
Like millions people around the world, I watched Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah Interview this week. I thought it was very good for many reasons, but since this is a mental health blog I’ll stick to what we do and what inspired this post, which is how Meghan Markle spoke on her own mental health. The way she shared her story and how she connected the dots reminded me of the value of public figures to opening up about their mental health.
Continue readingHow We Glamorize Mental Illness – And What We Can Do About It
It’s safe to say I talk about mental illness more than the average person (okay, much more than the average person), which means I can get so focused on specifics and details that I miss things that are outside my scope. Over the years, mental illness has become more and more glamorized and honestly, I missed parts of it. I mostly ignored this content because I thought I knew what the causes were, but it’s much more complicated than I’d anticipated. So today I’d like to address one aspect of why it’s dangerous to glamorize mental illness – and how easily it can be perpetrated.
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My Brain's Not Broken 