A Conversation About Mental Health
135 lbs.
I didn’t register the magnitude of that number at first. The number began to blink on the digital display, as if it wanted me to understand something. I knew I felt terrible. I knew I felt exhausted. It was just another regular day. And this was just another number, but this time, it felt different.
135 lbs.
It hit me. I opened my tired eyes, wide in disbelief.
With each blink of the display, every indicator of my deteriorating health flashed by.
135 lbs — I had lost 30 pounds in two and a half weeks.
135 lbs — I had averaged less than 4 hours of sleep per week.
135 lbs — I had eaten only one meal today. No appetite.
135 lbs — I had alienated myself from friends and family.
I held on like this for two months after the breakup. I somewhat expected this coming off of heartbreak for the first time. Depression and anxiety seemed like things that would come and go, things that were temporary. But the number that flashed before my eyes was an indication of something that was painfully real. Something that I never would have expected.
Looking back, I realize I would have benefited from having someone to talk to earlier about every little detail — all the emotions, all the scary thoughts, all the insecurities.
That day shifted the way I thought about mental health and its importance to my well-being.
I want to share my thoughts about my depression, my anxiety, and my journey since then. I hope that through sharing, we can take power away from stigmas of mental health and create a better culture for supporting those who struggle with it on a daily basis. I’m not looking to evoke pity or empathy; I want to encourage further conversation about mental health, a topic that is not nearly discussed enough.
It all comes back to how I grew up, a product of the environment I was raised in and the culture in which we live in today.
It’s always been difficult to share with others about what I’m facing personally. For most of my life, I thought I could do everything myself, conditioned by society and by culture to “be a man,” whatever that meant.
Be tough.
Don’t cry.
Don’t express your feelings.
Get over it.
Rather than share with the ones closest to me out of fear of burdening them with my problems, I tortured myself by bottling everything in. I suffered silently, believing that I had the fortitude to overcome this by myself and that no one would understand what this felt like. I didn’t want anyone to know I was struggling. I kept up a facade for months, pretending that I wasn’t silently hurting. Crippling, self-harming thoughts and anxiety made it difficult for me to be me.
Throughout my life, I was taught to keep my mental health private, even to friends and family. But for the first time, I mustered up the courage to engage in conversation with my parents about how I was feeling and how much I was hurting. I was met with the same response that I heard so many times growing up — “Don’t tell people, they’ll think you’re weak.” “Get over it.” “Figure it out.” It was the idea that the perception of my character based on my struggle with mental health would affect my career, my relationships, and my life. I know my parents want the best for me, but they were scared. What else do you say when your son tells you he is fighting dark thoughts and evil demons inside of him?
Even more so, I think that our culture is increasingly detrimental to people’s perceptions of themselves and of their mental health. Our obsession with social media and its focus on capturing only the happy, beautiful moments of life has created a mindset of comparison to illusion. It was easy to trap myself scrolling through Instagram comparing what I felt was my broken life to an idea of life is supposed to be like. No one has any reason to share the days when they’re fighting with their depression or the days where they’re dealing with a panic attack.
That was my wake-up call, that one morning. I went into work feeling the worst I had ever felt in my entire life. I had buried and suppressed everything I had felt for months and watched it take a heavy toll on my body, and an even heavier toll on my mind. But that day, I lost it. I was willing to throw everything away, everything from my career to my friendships. I was seconds away from throwing away life itself.
I knew I had to deal with it. Somehow. Some way.
The most important realization for me was recognizing that I needed help. The weight of what I was facing became too much of a burden to bear alone. This was a whole new feeling for me — caring about my mental well-being and knowing that I wouldn’t make it too much longer if I stayed on this path.
I made the decision to find a therapist. I never thought I would one. I believed that I could just figure out my struggles on my own. I thought my depression and anxiety was my fight and my fight alone. It would just take time. Besides, nobody had the time or patience to listen to my problems. People around me had their own lives to worry about, their own problems to tackle. But little did I know that seeing my therapist would be one of the best decisions of my life.
To be honest, I was skeptical and had a lot of reservations heading into my first appointment with my therapist. The biggest question on my mind was “Will I get better?” She surprised me. I went into therapy with hopes that I could learn to cope with the depression and anxiety that came along with heartbreak. I thought we would focus on relationships, love, and the like. Don’t get me wrong, we touched on those topics, but we talked about a range of things, things I never would have considered. I assumed that I already knew who I was, but my therapist helped me dive deeper into myself on a level of introspection I had never experienced before.
The biggest breakthrough for me came from talking about my perception of myself. Telling a stranger about how I perceived myself, how I viewed my own character, and how I valued myself opened my eyes to how much pain I was putting myself through. Heartbreak is devastating, sure, but that wasn’t the real reason why I almost gave up on life. The reason was that I placed too much of my own value on another person. I lacked the confidence in myself to know my own worth and my own value. From here, my therapist worked on helping me figure myself out — my goals and ambitions, my character and my self-worth.
My journey began with understanding. I needed to understand that I was my own worst enemy. I was lost and didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to become. My sense of purpose? Nonexistent. Constant feelings of failure? Devastating. The absence of hope? Crippling. And when they all are compounded together, it felt like the end — no more success, no more peace, and no more happiness.
But in talking everything out with my therapist, I learned something that I think is extremely important: there is no use comparing yourself or your progress to anyone or their progress. We are all different people in different chapters our of lives. I’ve learned to internalize my own progress by measuring where I have come from and where I’m now going. I’ve learned to take note of the successes that come with each day, whether it be as small as getting out of bed in the morning or as large as going out with a group of friends. And I’ve made so much progress not only in learning to forgive myself for failing, but also in being disciplined enough to try again tomorrow. What a journey it has been.
The reason I’m writing this piece isn’t because of my relationship. I want to share the impact of talking to someone about how I’m feeling and how much it affected me. I saw how important it is to speak out loud and to talk to someone about things like this. Granted, talking about it is uncomfortable. It’s difficult. It’s awkward. And I’ve had my fair share of sessions where I felt like it was impossible to communicate how I felt and the problems I was facing. There were times where I felt like nothing would work and nothing would be better. That my problems would never be solved. But I’ve learned that it takes time — time to learn, time to better understand, and time to better manage what has hurt me so much. There are still ups and downs, days that are difficult and days that fly by. I’m still grieving in a way, but since then, I’ve come so far.
What astounds me now is how much of everything I was able to suppress. Looking at the bigger picture, there are many people in their day-to-day lives who are hurting to varying degrees. It is non-discriminatory. From celebrities and athletes to friends and coworkers, the reality is that many of us have a lot in common. While it is an individual’s personal choice whether he or she wants to share with others, it is important that we work toward creating an environment and a culture where someone can feel comfortable doing so.
Mental health isn’t something that you can readily see in others. Sometimes, the best way to cope is simply to put up a facade, to pretend that everything is okay. People only show us what they want us to see. But no matter who we are or what we do, mental health affects us one way or another. Each and every one of us carries problems that hurt us, problems that confuse us, and problems that scare us. But it’s important for us to share what we’re going through, for it allows to us bond as people.
Mental health should not be a stigma that defines anyone because after all, we are people first. People with hopes, dreams, goals, and ambitions.
I want to end with realistic expectations for myself — I haven’t figured everything out. I’m not even close. But personal growth is a journey and the most important step I can take is to be truthful with myself and with others. I’m trying to live a life where I simply do good and be good, for myself and for others. And most importantly, I’m working toward being resilient enough to face the difficult parts of life, while being grateful for the gift of life itself and all it has to offer.
But it all started with recognizing that I needed help. If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?
