I can’t underestimate how much I enjoy talking about mental health. It’s one of the few times in my life where I feel free, my brain isn’t going a hundred miles per hour and I’m able to speak honestly on a topic I feel comfortable talking about. A few weeks ago, I accepted a chance to be a guest on a mental health podcast and talk about my journey with depression, which is something I’d never done before. The experience taught me not only about the importance of sharing my story, but the growth I’ve experienced in my mental health journey.
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Why I Always Make Room for Mental Health Improvement
Over the years, I’ve learned a number of methods and techniques to manage my depression and anxiety. Some of those have worked very well (meditation and talk therapy), while others haven’t been as effective (I’m hoping to come back to journaling one day, but it’s not soon). Either way, I’ve learned a lot about what’s helpful for me on my mental health journey, and used those lessons to continue building my mental health toolkit and growing more certain in how I manage mental health. But as I’ve learned recently, there’s always space to find more ways and improve that relationship with mental health, which is what I want to talk about today.
Continue readingMaking the Mental Shift Into Fall
Every year around Labor Day, I start to make the mental shift into the fall season. I know I’m not alone in this (and I’m not here to talk about how amazing fall is, I promise), but I think there are important adjustments we make heading into this part of the year that aren’t always talked about. Seasons don’t only mean a change in weather; they also mean a change in lifestyle and a shift in our schedules. Fall is much more than back to school and changing leaves – it’s another opportunity to work on our mental health in a changing space.
Continue readingMaking Mental Health Adjustments Part Two: Adjusting to Yourself
Adjusting to changes in your mental wellness isn’t easy. There are so many ways things can change, and since every person has their own unique story and personality traits, there are a million directions these changes can go in. In part one of this post on making mental health adjustments, I focused on how to adjust to new or different symptoms of mental illness, and wrote about the effectiveness of adjusting to one symptom at a time. Today, I want to focus on making mental health adjustments that help us build a healthier lifestyle – not just adjusting to our symptoms, but adjusting to how mental health affects our well-being.
Continue readingMaking Mental Health Adjustments Part One: Adjusting to Symptoms
How do you adjust to changes in your mental health? I’ve never seriously reflected on this question, but I know why I haven’t – it’s because I’m always doing it! I’m constantly adjusting and adapting to changes in my mental health, and I know many other people do this on a daily basis. Even though we’re constantly adapting, it’s difficult to take the time and break down how this is possible. Today is the first of a two-part series on how I’ve made adjustments to my mental health; specifically, how I adjust to symptoms of mental illness.
Continue readingBreaking Down Mental Health Terms: What Are Crying Spells?
Language is one of the most important aspects of mental wellness, and how we talk about mental health can go a long way toward shrinking the mental health stigma. This recurring feature on the blog will tackle different words and phrases that I use when talking about my mental health. I know that other people use this language as well, and defining some of the more relatable terms can help others understand what it means, instead of having to explain it constantly. Today, I’ll be talking about the phrase crying spell.
Continue readingDepression As a Default
When I was writing my post earlier this week about the trouble with being on autopilot mentally, I wrote that my autopilot state of mind can be full of depressing and negative thoughts. Even when I wrote that, I wasn’t sure what I meant. After further reflection, I realized I wanted to share more about how I experience depression by default, what it means and why I say it. Like many other areas of my wellness, I created that phrase to name part of my feelings and emotions over the course of my mental health journey.
Continue readingThe Trouble With Being on Autopilot
I’m currently making my way out of a months-long mental funk, and things have felt a little off. That’s not to say that I’ve been struggling too much or things are unbearable. But sometimes you end up in a bit of a funk, and if that affects your mental health it can take some time to climb out of that hole. This time, I realized one of the main reasons I ended up in this funk was that I was on autopilot when it came to my mental health. Though being on autopilot has its benefits with getting through our day-to-day activities, it can also contribute to negatively affecting our mental health.
Continue readingFive Reminders About Building Your Mental Health Toolkit
Earlier this week, I wrote about some of the new symptoms of anxiety that I’ve been experiencing in the past few months. While it hasn’t been fun to learn how to manage and live with these new symptoms, it’s been another opportunity to work on what I like to call my mental health toolkit. Over the years, I’ve been able to create different coping strategies and methods to manage my mental health, and it’s played a big role in changing the way I view my health.
Continue readingHow to Handle New Symptoms of Mental Illness
After living with anxiety and depression for almost a decade, I’ve become used to the symptoms that occur on my mental health journey, especially since my physical symptoms manifest themselves pretty plainly. Since my mental health has a clear impact on my physical wellness, it got easier to recognize my physical symptoms and adjust. Though it’s been extremely helpful throughout my journey, it also makes things difficult when new symptoms of anxiety appear. Not only is it surprising to accept, it can be very discouraging when new symptoms arise – but there are ways to deal with it.
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My Brain's Not Broken 