Episode 1 Mental Health Monday - 7 Components of Mental Health
Episode 1 Recovering Trash Person Podcast – Published 8.2.21
*Trigger warning: This episode touches on mental illness,
psych meds, rape, and thoughts of self-harm*
What is mental health?
The dictionary defines it as: “a person’s condition with regard to their psychological and
emotional well-being.”
This seems
like a good place to discuss my mental health diagnoses. (In the future, there
will be an episode on each of my mental illnesses). In 2000, when I was 18, I
was first diagnosed with anxiety & depression and started talk therapy with
a college counselor. I have been in therapy, on and off (more on than off)
since. In 2012, I was diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder – quoted from the
National Institute of Mental Health’s website: “a common, chronic, and
long-lasting disorder in which a person has uncontrollable, reoccurring
thoughts (obsessions)
and/or behaviors (compulsions)
that they feel the urge to repeat over and over.” This came to light only because
the psych med I was on for my anxiety & depression (Wellbutrin) was
beginning to exacerbate my OCD symptoms. I also have CPTSD (Complex
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder – quoted from Healthline.com “Most people are
familiar with post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder that results from a traumatic event, such as a natural disaster or
car accident. However, a closely related condition called complex
post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) is becoming more widely recognized by
doctors in recent years. CPTSD results from repeated trauma over months or
years, rather than a single event”) from long term exposure to trauma &
abuse, as well as acquaintance rape. I also meet the criteria for Bipolar II and
I believe in self-diagnosis, especially given that access to mental health care
and psychiatry is not a universal right and negating someone’s mental illness
based on self-diagnosis, I believe, is ableist and elitist. I also have Binge
Eating Disorder – quoted from National Eating Disorders Associaton website “Binge eating disorder
(BED) is a severe, life-threatening, and treatable eating disorder characterized
by recurrent episodes of eating large quantities of food (often very quickly
and to the point of discomfort); a feeling of a loss of control during the
binge; experiencing shame, distress or guilt afterwards; and not regularly
using unhealthy compensatory measures (e.g., purging) to counter the binge
eating. It is the most common eating disorder in the United States.”
My day to day symptoms can include (but are not limited to):
ruminations (the process of
continuously thinking about the same thoughts, which tend to be sad or dark),
obsessions, compulsions and hypervigilance (a state of increased alertness. If
you're in a state of hypervigilance, you're extremely sensitive to your
surroundings. It can make you feel like you're alert to any hidden dangers,
whether from other people or the environment. Often, though, these dangers are
not real).
7 Components of Mental Health
According to the website Pillars of Wellness (link included
in show notes), there are 7 components of mental health:
1.
In-person therapy
2.
Community
3.
Physical heath
4.
Intellectual health
5.
Environmental Health
6.
Boundaries
7.
Self-care
The first, therapy, I have attempted to rebel against in my
own life. And I’m a therapist! It’s easy to assume your growth is “good enough”
and it’s easy to convince oneself they don’t *need* therapy. That may be true
and it’s also true that having someone objective to talk to gives us a
different perspective on matters and can often increase our emotional
intelligence. When in-person therapy wasn’t an option in the pandemic, online
and virtual therapy were well needed replacements. In fact, after years of
struggling to find a competent therapist to connect to, I started online
therapy. The “anonymity” piece gave me the space I needed to talk about some pretty
tough subjects and actually made it easier for me to think of returning to
in-person therapy, which thankfully I did. For me, therapy is a place where I
can discuss revelations I have observed in my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
without judgment while also giving me the space to feel the feelings in a safe
way.
The second is community. This is one I think gets overlooked
often, because we as a society have become hyper-independent and tend to look
down on people who need help or resources. I feel this component wrestles with
our “American Dream” myth that working hard enough and hustling is the cure-all
for mental health, ignoring that our very sick, capitalistic corpocracy is
actually what’s contributing to our mental illness. In this, I see community as
things like pamphlets on mental health at the doctor’s office and walk-in
respite places for folx who are struggling. There is one in my city in
Asheville, NC called Peer Living Room (link included) where folx can meet with
Peer Support Specialists for individual or group sessions, as well as grab a
hot cup of coffee, play a game, or use the computer. This service is essential,
especially given the number of people without housing in our city.
The third is physical health. I’m no stranger to the Holistic
Health Model and how mental health impacts physical health and vice versa, but
that doesn’t stop me from scratching my head with wonder why I’m depressed
every time I get a cold. Or why high levels of extended stress can result in
all kinds of illnesses, from headaches to fatigue to actual physical pain and
chronic and fatal conditions. Yet, like many of us, I try to pretend the
physical and mental are not connected and continue to consume items that
trigger mood changes (caffeine, sugar, alcohol) or find myself in the cycle of
“I’m too depressed to move my body, but I know if I move my body I’ll feel less
depressed.” Other things that sometimes get overlooked is the importance of
sleep and hydration. The first two questions I ask myself when I’m feeling
“off” is 1) how did I sleep last night and 2) when was the last time I drank
water? (and then am I PMS?)
The fourth is Intellectual Health. This could include simply
learning a new skill, informing yourself about your community, learning a new
language, seeking new insights and information in any way. This need to learn
and seek has been a cornerstone of my mental health. Challenging myself to
break habits or learn a new skill is typically my go-to when I’m feeling
“stuck.” I think we’ve all been there: nothing particularly good or bad is
happening, everything is pretty much status quo, but you’re feeling restless
and you’re not sure why, this is when I make time for learning something new OR
picking up where I left off on my last learning endeavor that might have been
cast aside because depression.
The fifth is Environmental Health. Your personal environment
(home, place of worship, job, school, camp) should all be places where you feel
seen, heard, and respected. Granted, we don’t always get that 100% of the time,
but if you are noticing one particular environment is causing undue amounts of
stress, it might be time to reevaluate. I spent 3 years attempting to make my
work environment as comfortable and “me” as possible. I kept worry beads and
crystals in my office, I had a beginning of the day ritual of spraying the four
corners of my office and asking for peace. While it worked in the beginning, as
my mental health needs changed, I realized the environment itself was
contributing to my mental illness, despite my attempts. My needs changed and so
I changed my environment.
The sixth is Boundaries. This is basically a four-letter
word to me. I’m kidding, but not really. I am a codependent person, a
people-pleaser, and someone who sees my worth only as a reflection of what I
can do for others, so boundary setting can be very scary. It IS essential.
Without boundaries, we are subject to burning ourselves out, disrespecting our
limits, and in turn becoming resentful and angry at the very people we have
been desperate to please. Boundaries are also two-fold. First, there is setting
the boundary but the most important is the second, following through with the
boundary. Even if it feels arbitrary or you’re having a good day and can commit
to more time than originally discussed, I implore you to think before breaking
your boundary, because for those people in our lives who are “give an inch take
a mile” kind of people, it will be THAT much harder to keep boundaries in the
future, if said person knows there is a chance they could “convince” (read:
bully) you into breaking those boundaries again.
And last is self-care. I’m not going to lie, you will hear
about self-care on this podcast a lot. A lot a lot. I know it’s a sexy little
buzzword now and there’s a knee jerk eye roll reaction to hearing the word
self-care, but it bears repeating: self-care is essential. We are human beings,
we are not robots. Our best one day may not be our best another, because day to
day our bodies, minds, and spirits differ – we grow and change all day
everyday, therefore our need for self-care differs. And the kind of self-care
we participate in matters as well. I love naps. I absolutely love them. I
probably would have considered naps my go-to self-care activity. What I
actually discovered was a lot of my “self-care activities” were actually compulsive
behaviors I did to avoid my feeling, so that would be naps, drinking alcohol,
binge eating, buying useless shit on Amazon, binge watching a show I’ve seen
300 times. What I now ask myself is “How would I take care of 8-year-old
Melissa?” I wouldn’t give Little Me alcohol or let her buy whatever she wanted
or eat until she was sick, I would listen to what I REALLY needed.
So what does this all really mean? In essence, it means that
we, as humans, are well-rounded individuals that require balance. Too much or
not enough will often leave us feeling off-kilter, “not myself” and can trickle
down and impact so many other areas of our lives. Think of the individual who
loves to keep their physical self strong by working out at the gym 2 hours a
day, but doesn’t set and keep boundaries with family. That person will still
experience the negative effects of not taking care of oneself, despite being in
the best physical shape of their life. Think of the individual who goes to
therapy every week, but their home life (with abuse, addiction, codependency)
never changes. This person could end up going to therapy for years, rehashing
the same scenarios over and over again, but if their home environment remains toxic
and unhealthy, that person is still going to see a impact to their mental
health.
Let me tell you a story…
For 3 years, I worked in a very high-stress, fast-paced
environment. I was a counselor in a Methadone clinic and, like my cohorts, had
many responsibilities and deadlines to contend with on a daily basis. I was
used to such an environment from my previous positions in the substance use and
mental health field, so I adjusted well … in the beginning. I had just left an
even more stressful work environment (community health where I made house calls
to folx with substance use disorders and psychotic disorders) and felt I was
getting off on the right foot by setting and keeping boundaries and making my
environment as comfortable and calming as possible. As more and more stressors
presented at work, I continued to make my environment more and more welcoming,
convincing myself all I needed to do was take breaks, use my worry beads, and
take deep breaths during the day. Then, unexpectedly, my wife’s health took a
turn and I was permitted 2 months of personal leave. When I returned to work
after 2 months off, I assumed the ambience I had created in my office (and the
time away) would be enough to challenge the triggers I was faced with when I
returned. I was so wrong. Being away for 2 months made it even HARDER to
acclimate because I now saw the dysfunction of my work environment with new
eyes. My first day back, I came home and my wife (Laura) asked how it went. I
said it went fine, because on paper it had, but observed how completely
unnatural my work environment was for me. Sitting at a computer all day,
meeting with patients one after the other for 16 minutes, answering phones,
texts, IMs, and emails. It was beyond overwhelming. Couple that with
communication breakdowns and new protocols without training and I was in full
panic mode by my second morning at work. That day, I had a panic attack at
work, in front of my colleagues. My co worker held me as I hyperventilated and
barely squeaked out “I can’t do this.” By my fourth morning, I was wishing a
car would hit me on my way into work so I wouldn’t have to face the overwhelm.
I confided in people about how I was feeling, as it wasn’t unusual for me to
experience this level of panic, but it was unusual to experience it so
intensely for days at a time and to where it was impacting my work. A friend
said something that sticks with me. She said (and I’m paraphrasing) “You can
meditate, do yoga, practice your spirituality, have crystals all you want, but
if the environment isn’t changing, it’s like putting ice cream on top of shit.”
I couldn’t “deep breathe” my way through this. My environment needed to change.
By the end of my first week back, I had written my letters of resignation,
effective immediately. I am aware not everyone has the privilege make such a
big decision so quickly, but if whatever is causing your mental health to
suffer is environment related, I encourage you to really weigh your worth and
value versus said environment. My decision did not come easy and it did not
come without consequences, but I made a change that improved my mental health
and without my mental wellness, I’m useless to my family, job, and most
importantly myself.
I used to think mental health was a destination, a place
that I strived for and once I got there, I was good. I have had that thought
about many areas of life. Once I’ve been at my job for a year, I’ll feel
more comfortable. Once I move to a new city, I’ll feel better. Once I lose 100
lbs, I’ll be my most authentic self. The truth is, wellness, in any sense,
is a lifelong process. I won’t wake up one day completely mentally well, no
need for medication, meditation, or therapy. There will be days that are easier
and days that are harder, and that does not equate to good or bad. Feelings are
neutral, how we communicate our feelings is where we have the power to make
decisions that benefit us or decisions that alienate us.
https://linktr.ee/recoveringtrashperson
Tip Jar: Venmo:
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***please note, transcripts are word docs I write before I
record and may not match my words exactly if I make a change off the cuff!***
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