A rant about mental (and physical) health

Dul Gantulga
Nov 4 · 4 min read

За энийг үнэхээээээр Монголоор бичих гээд чадсангүй хэдэн сар болчихлоо, уучлаарай Монголчуудаа, Англиар нь ойлгоод уншаарай, хайртай шүү, kthanksbaiiiii

Dedicated to that one guy who called me “mentally эв эрүүл хүүхэд”…


It’s been over 5 years since I first had a really bad anxiety attack in an empty bathroom at my university. I was 17 at the time, had no idea what the fuck anxiety attacks were, let alone what anxiety was. Up until then, I just assumed all my anxiety/depression symptoms were the symptoms of me-ness. My palms were always sweaty (mom’s spaghetti), I panicked over the smallest things and cried A LOT over nothing. As far as I was concerned, Dul was panic-y, Tsetsgee was sporty, Navchaa was artsy-fartsy and Boldoo was a glass-half-full kinda guy.

Since then — especially in the past 3+ years — I’ve learned quite a lot about mental health in general and started to talk about it more openly with other people. To my surprise, all those me-ness symptoms had a strong correlation with the symptoms of anxiety/depression (and depersonalization/derealization, which we’ll discuss later) and many people suffered from the same issues that I thought were MINE and MINE ONLY??? How dare they feel the exact same things I did? lol… Jokes aside, it was surprising to see other people hit the nail right on the head and talk about the things you’ve been suffering from your whole life. This experience became even more mindblowing when my friends started to talk about their struggles with mental health issues. It would make my inner “mom friend” activate and I’d try to “save” them from this horrible, horrible world filled with horrible, horrible people.

It really is a serious issue and it’s not being talked about enough. I hate how most Mongolians refer to it as “эморох” to the point where it became normal for everyone to feel shitty and not do anything about it. It’s sad to think that they don’t even know what they’re suffering from.

…and that’s the anxieTEA

I was reading a book called Notes on A Nervous Planet by Matt Haig a month ago and this quote made me say “that’s what I’ve been saying this whole tiiiiiiime!” out loud:

…Mental health is intricately related to the whole body. And the whole body is intricately related to mental health. You can’t draw a line between a body and a mind any more than you can draw a line between oceans. They are entwined…

… And physical illnesses have mental effects. We can hallucinate with flu. A cancer diagnosis can make us depressed. Asthma can cause us to panic. A heart attack can cause mental trauma. If you have a lower back — or tinnitus, or chest pain, or a lowered immune system, or a painful stomach — because of stress, is that a mental or a physical problem?

Just before deciding to read this book, I’ve heard multiple people say how they don’t understand why their mental health is causing them physical health problems. Truth be told, I was one of those people. I used to complain about my back pain, indigestion and a million other physical health problems to my best friend on a daily basis. After acknowledging the fact that my immune system does go down with my mental state, I became that person who says “I hate how my mental health can affect my physical health so much” without actually wondering about the “why”. But (*insert peach emoji here*) when you think about it logically, you’re just setting yourself up for some sort of physical health issues, in most cases. Or your depressed-ass brain is, I suppose. I personally start eating less, sleeping less (or too much), I never leave my bed nor socialize with other people whenever I’m really depressed. When you’re in a horizontal position all day without consuming anything but Instagram/Facebook/Youtube contents, your body starts to feed itself from the muscle and fat tissues. Because duh, you’re not feeding yourself actual food. It may sound like the easiest thing to notice but it took me fucking forever to realize that all this time, the person who was fucking me up was myself. This, of course, turned into a period of extreme self-hatred. Because, (sick) brains, they’re the best at feeding you bullshit, especially when you’re down.

Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash

If you’re thinking “but I’m still dealing with all those physical problems even though I’m not THAAT depressed” right now, it may be because you’re not dealing with something and it’s making your subconscious mind worry so much that it’s projecting it onto your physical body. Maybe you’re going through something and haven’t been able to take care of yourself. Maybe your childhood habit is fucking you up right now, that you haven’t even noticed what’s happening with your physical body. Sometimes you gotta take a step back, look at yourself, ask yourself how you’re doing and take care of your own body and mind before dealing with anything else.


Written whilst feeling panic-y and overall shitty, which seems to be the only way I now know how to create new things. #SorryNotSorry if I sound angry/annoyed/rushed?/whatever… I realized that I had A LOT to say when it comes to mental health that I kept jumping from one thing to the other when writing about it in Mongolian. I guess I’ll ease into it…

Pretty sure not a lot of people are surprised that I’m ranting about mental health after ranting about books. Very on-brand. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool…

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade