Moving Forward with Mental Health

I was reminded today that Mental Health is hard work.

I have trouble using words like sufferer, disability, condition etc when referring to mine and others Mental Health. It is something that is internal, instinctual and as such takes effort to manage and plan for.

The truth is most “treatments” for Mental Health are coping tools to enable the person with it to identify its onset and take actions to minimise its impact.

When you talk to MH professionals they will ask about your ‘triggers’, for some this is easier to understand and identify, and for others it is less of a trigger and more of a succession of small issues. I am definately in the second group, and for me one of the earliest signs is clawing of hands or repetitive involuntary actions. At the early phase of a developing episode I am able to mentally control these (when i notice them), but by doing that it further tires me and hastens the start of the episode.

Now through therapy I identified that I had independently implemented many of the recommended MH management practices myself over my life prior to being diagnosed. This is in part due to the long term nature of my MH, and the fact that I had grown up with it and worked to control it, not realising that the issues I was building coping mechanisms for where early signs of MH.

For example – planning for identifiable MH inducing occasions. I had always found seasonal holidays and family gathering, hard to deal with, and often felt very isolated and what I now know as depressed after them. At the earliest possible point where I was able to find family acceptable excuses for not attending them I did, for example I volunteered to work the seasonal holidays. thus providing an excuse I could use with the family not to attend the events.

At one of my works there was a joke with my boss that one of the bank holidays each year was my “religious” festival, as I would work all the rest so long as I was guaranteed that one off, each year during that time I would attend a large music festival – one of the few places I have ever found easy to be myself and others accepted me for who I was, they have always been and still are positive MH events for me.

So my advice for all those with MH is, review you calendar, Identify those occasions/events you can that cause you to struggle and ideally plan to avoid them, and preferably plan to do something totally different that will provide a positive effect rather than the potential negative one. If you are not able to avoid them, accept that for a couple of days/weeks after you will be struggling and try to plan for this, if you can arrange positive events that are fully in your control to do, or at worse accept that you may need a couple of days rest to recuperate and limit the long term negative impact, also look to see if you can find valid ways to shorten your exposure to the event,