Breaking the Stigma: Sharing My Mental Health Journey
An insightful personal story about overcoming mental health challenges
As my dad would always say, I was a “shy kid.”
I tended to stick to people I knew, and talking to anyone I wasn’t familiar with was a nightmare.
After years of therapy and looking back on my childhood, I can see that I was an anxious perfectionist who was afraid of being criticized for saying or doing the wrong thing.
As a result, I said and did as little as possible around other people.
Although by today’s standards, I think it would be pretty obvious that I was an anxious and depressed kid.
Fast forward to the age of 16 when I lost my mother to breast cancer.
Understandably, I found myself submerged in depression. However, due to the circumstances, my depression was often dismissed as grief.
In hindsight, I should have taken the therapy that was offered, but my proud adolescent brain thought I could handle it. Although my depression was bad at this time, it didn’t trump my perfection-driven anxiety that was still terrified of being criticized in any way, shape, or form.
This fun part of my personality really hung on for dear life since childhood.
Despite the multitude of struggles I faced, I managed to maintain decent grades and graduate high school in 2010.
After high school, I spent a few years just trying to survive.
My life consisted of work and sleep as I worked to pay my bills. It wasn’t until a few years later when I was 21 and a year into university that my boyfriend, Steve, literally picked me up out of bed and took me to the therapy office at my university where I met the therapist that I would see for the next 5 years.
Seeking Support
As a 21-year-old, I was still pretty proud and resisted help.
The perfectionist in me felt weak if I couldn’t do something myself. However, after years of struggling to navigate life on my own, I finally caved and started talking to a therapist.
At my therapist’s suggestion, I also consulted with my doctor, and together we decided that SSRIs could be beneficial for me.
The introduction of medication provided a much-needed launching point for addressing my anxiety.
I understand that medication is not the right path for everyone, but personally, it played a crucial role in taking the edge off and enabling me to take greater steps toward healing.
Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to take the bigger steps that lead to greater healing, or maybe it just would have been a lot more difficult. Regardless, I am profoundly grateful to have had that option available to me.
My first few weeks of therapy were basically trauma dumping on my therapist.
We didn’t delve deeply into specific issues right away; I simply needed to unload everything that had been building up in my mind until that point. While I had touched upon my experience of losing my mother with a few trusted friends, I hadn’t truly explored it in-depth.
So, when I started therapy, it all came spilling out, and it felt relieving just to talk about and acknowledge all the things that had happened to me.
After I got set up on medication and my therapist had a good idea of my past and what I wanted to work on, we started to talk through tools that I could use to cope with my anxiety and take care of myself through depression.
Exploring Coping Mechanisms
Therapy has been an incredible source of learning and growth for me.
One of the techniques that made a significant impact was exposure therapy guided by my therapist, and the practice of positive self-talk.
My anxiety was heavily fueled by my tendency to catastrophes every aspect of life.
I would constantly worry and mentally prepare myself for the worst possible outcomes, which prevented me from fully enjoying the present moment.
Granted, my life up until then justified this a little, but that’s a story for another time.
To counter this tendency, I adopted the mantra, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” into my daily affirmations.
It became a reminder that the catastrophic scenarios I conjured in my mind were not problems I needed to tackle at that moment. If something unfortunate were to happen, I would deal with it then.
I made a conscious decision not to waste precious time and energy worrying about things that may never happen.
While medication and a shift in my mindset significantly helped with my anxiety, dealing with depression was an entirely different challenge.
I struggle with depression, especially due to being diagnosed with PMDD, a hormonal disorder that leads to debilitating depressive episodes in some uterus owners.
As a result, I usually go through a bit of a depressive episode once a month, to the point where I can pretty reliably track my cycle based on my mood. Knowing that the intense feeling of depression will likely lift in 5–7 days is comforting, but in the thick of it, it feels like it will never end.
Like I said, I still struggle in this area, but I am better at managing it than I used to be.
When I sense my mood dropping, I recognize it as a signal to prioritize self-care. I understand the importance of being kinder to myself and allowing for more rest during those periods compared to the rest of the month.
This can be hard for me, as my inner critic often pushes me to do more and berates me for taking breaks. This is the time to use my positive self-talk skills and yell back that I won’t be of use to anyone if I can’t get out of bed, so let me take care of myself!
Breaking Stigmas and Self-Stigma
Amidst the many stigmas surrounding mental health in society, I often found myself applying them to myself even more harshly than others did.
I’ve had a long battle with shame.
When I first sought help for my mental health, I wasn’t fully aware of the concept of shame. I genuinely believed that if I didn’t hold myself accountable, nobody would, and I would be deemed a failure.
Reflecting on that mindset, I now recognize it as shame — this feeling of not being good enough. Brené Brown’s words resonated deeply with me:
“Shame tells you that you are bad, whereas guilt tells you that you’ve done something bad.”
I remember bursting into tears while I watched her TED Talk.
I had never heard it put in simple terms, and it finally clicked that all the negative feelings that I had for myself, which fueled my anxiety and depression, stemmed from shame — the idea that I was inherently unworthy and undeserving because I failed to meet society’s expectations of me.
Identifying this feeling was the catalyst that propelled me toward dismantling this destructive thought pattern.
I started to affirm to myself that I am, and always have been, a person deserving of happiness. A part of me had believed that I deserved to feel miserable, as if I hadn’t earned the right to be happy.
But here’s a secret that should never be kept you deserve happiness simply because you exist.
There’s no need to earn it or prove your worthiness. You are inherently deserving, period.
And let me remind you that care tasks are morally neutral. Did you do the laundry? Great! You deserve happiness! Did you not get to it? You still deserve happiness. The only difference is that there’s still laundry to be done.
It doesn’t impact your worth or moral standing in any way.
Embracing Self-Care
I used to believe that I took care of myself.
I made sure to shower regularly, eat well, and get enough sleep. But as the years passed, I realized that self-care extends far beyond physical well-being.
The most profound growth in my self-care journey occurred in my mind, as I learned the importance of being kinder to myself.
Therapy brought forth a life-changing revelation — I had been treating myself horribly. The words and criticisms I directed towards myself were things I would never utter to anyone else.
With this newfound awareness, a new mantra found its place in my daily repertoire: “How would you treat a friend in this situation? What advice would you give them?”
I make a conscious effort to ask myself these questions whenever I catch myself berating and criticizing myself.
I’ve committed to being my own best friend, and although it may sound cliché, it truly works.
In conclusion, my journey towards healing and self-care has been a transformative one.
From being labeled as a “shy kid” to battling anxiety, depression, and shame, I have come a long way.
Seeking therapy and medication were pivotal steps in my recovery, allowing me to gain the tools necessary to manage my mental health.
Through exposure therapy, positive self-talk, and embracing self-care, I have learned to be kinder to myself and challenge the stigmas that held me back.
Although I still face struggles, I now understand that I am deserving of happiness and that caring for myself is essential.
My story serves as a reminder that seeking support is not a sign of weakness but a courageous step towards healing.
