Mental health is thankfully something that is being talked about more openly lately. With suicide being the third most common cause of death for people ages 10 to 24, the second for ages 25 to 34, and tenth for all age groups in 2010, it's high time for there to be an open and frank discussion about mental health care in our nation. I personally have struggled with generalized anxiety and major depressive disorder since my sophomore year of high school, and these are some of things that I learned in the past 10 years that I wish someone had told me.
1. You’re not weak.
You may feel like you should be able to just shrug it off. You may feel like you’re pathetic. You may feel like you can barely take care of yourself. But if you get up every day and you fight through it, know that you most definitely aren’t weak. And, if you can’t get up on some of those days, or any days, you’re still not weak. You’re alive. Against the urges and the voices that tell you that the world would be better without you, you have fought those and won. If you feel like you need to go talk to someone, you’re not weak. You’re using whatever you can to fight. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, even insinuate that you’re weak. You’re here and alive and that is a battle won all on its own some days.
2. You may get lost in your own mind.
Sometimes it’s not the things outside of us that cause anxiety, but our own thoughts. It can be a never-ending, vicious cycle if you have both anxiety and depression. You can get stuck feeling anxious about being depressed when you don't think you should be. Do something. I know it can be the hardest thing to just get out of bed some days, but that's one of the few things that can help get you out of your head. Get up and eat, put clothes on, step outside, or text a friend. It feels like it will never end, but you can do it. I believe in you.
3. Medication is truly trial and error.
If you decide to try medication to manage your mental illness, then you should know that the first medication you try may not work. It could even make you worse. That’s okay and it doesn’t mean that you’re "unfixable" or "stuck like this,"’ but you need to tell your doctor so they can adjust the medication or try a different kind. What worked for me may not work for someone else. It may be the second kind that you try, or the third, or the fifth, or a combination of several. And medication isn’t necessarily a forever thing. I was on medication for almost two years, but I’ve reached a point where my doctor and I feel that I have learned healthy coping mechanisms that work for me, and during the summer, I started slowly lowering my dosage until I no longer need to take medication every day.
4. It’s okay to not pretend.
Fake it 'til you make it was my motto for several years. I would force myself to interact with people, because if I laughed at the right moments, nodding like I was listening, and smiled at people, then I was obviously okay and no one would have any reason to ask if I was okay. What I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t pretending very well, and it took people who truly cared about me pointing out that they could tell for me to finally say that, some days, I just can’t be around people, because it's so much effort to appear "normal" and okay. Through this, I learned to practice self-care and that it’s okay to occasionally put my own needs first.
5. Your absence will be felt.
Whether you're thinking about suicide or withdrawing, the people who care will notice. They may not say anything because mental health is still such a touchy subject, but they notice when you’re starting to withdraw from them. If you were to take your life, it would leave a hole in their life. You will be missed. You probably already are missed when you can’t make it out of the house, or when you have to cancel plans again last minute. Don’t think that no one cares, because someone does.
So I will leave you with this:
"You all have a little bit of ‘I want to save the world’ in you, that’s why you’re here, in college. I want you to know that it’s okay if you only save one person, and it’s okay if that person is you.” - Unknown
