Dealing With It
Is Awareness The Solution When It Comes To Our Mental Health?
It is the first day after mental health awareness month, and I am realizing that I am still aware that mental health matters.
It leads me to think. How much are we solving by creating awareness? And what could be achieved with ownership?
I have dealt with depression for 12 years, but I became depressed 16 years ago.
You’ll forgive what might seem like a pedantic effort on my part, but it is an important distinction for me when I reflect on my journey.
From 2009 – 2013 I gradually began to care less and less about who I was and how I showed up.
Instead, I became much more interested in being the person the room I was in needed me to be, while privately hating myself for it.
This behavior snowballed into 1 or 2 rather terrifying moments which I don’t feel the need to provide detail around, but the reality became that I could deal with my depression, or let it beat me once and for all.
Fast forward 12 years where today I am 4 months away from celebrating my 9-year anniversary with my therapist and have become more educated on myself than I could have ever known was possible.
And yet my depression has not been cured, nor will it ever be in my opinion.
This is where I believe we still have so far to go with what we are bringing awareness to every May as companies celebrate, events honor, and practitioner’s hashtag the importance of Mental Health Awareness.
Amongst the awareness efforts, I wanted to make you aware of a life that is lived to its best with depression.
I have numerous bad days a year between my ears. Days where my already larger head feels 2-3x heavier and where all glasses of water are measured by how empty they are.
When these moments and days arrive, I made the commitment to myself when I walked into therapy 8 years and 8 months ago that I would start to do the work.
The work allowed me to build a foundation at first, which enabled me to mentally grow and rise out of where I had been nestled for some time.
One day, around the five-year mark (yes, I had to work on the foundation and was rising for that long) I felt ready to look out into the world and consider what was possible for me.
And when I stepped into what was possible, I again learned where I would need to focus on my mind to navigate whatever new, challenging, or lofty path I had created for myself.
Today, as a business owner and semi-entrepreneur (still unsure if I am yet) I spend more time alone with myself than I did in some of my darkest days 12-16 years ago.
I don’t always speak kindly to myself. I don’t always see the world through a brightly tinted lens. But on such days I own the work required to show up ready to perform to the best of my ability.
Depression has taught me many lessons, but none less impactful than the role ownership plays.
When I was living depressed, nothing about my behavior was that of a person “dealing with” anything.
But I had a personal trait rooted deep beneath the walls of my DNA from my time as an athlete that I had been neglecting…
Owning my actions.
So today, as the calendar turns from a month of awareness to 11 months of less awareness, I sit here sharing my thoughts to hopefully make you aware of a perspective you can either embody or share.
If you are someone who considers themselves to be living with depression, I encourage you to own it in a way where you simply ask, “what is one action I can take to deal with this better?”
If you are someone who considers themselves to be living without depression or any mental health matter, I encourage you to own your role by asking “how can I support you in feeling you are able to deal with this better?”
The truth is, we’re all carrying something. What’s not known, however, is how well we’re dealing with it, and whether we’re owning the responsibility we all have to help each other deal with it better.
I know being aware of that has helped me. Maybe being aware of it helps you too.