How mental health can stain this time of year
The holiday season triggers memories of my worst medical trauma. But I also love the light and the cosiness. It makes this month very complicated for me.
It’s why I always cry more this month. Over the loss of more dreams, more parts of my health and what feels like most of my life.
Though before that I spent 14 years being very ill from physical illness, after that I became very mentally ill too. And my life was never the same.
Generalised anxiety disorder was always part of my life but now panic attacks joined in. Horrific, paralysing and destructive panic attacks.
If you know what I’m talking about, I am so sorry you do.
If you don’t, I truly hope you never will.
Anxiety disorder isn’t ‘being just a bit nervous’ for a presentation. It’s an all-encompassing beast of doom that lies and destroys by way of ‘protection’ when you even just want to get up from your seat.
“What if…” x billion dark thoughts.
What doesn’t help is the expectation and the desire to ‘be joyful’ around this time of year.
So this one is for you, if anxiety is with you too in bulk this month:
Anxiety is real and it isn’t to be underestimated. Those who don’t get it are lucky, but also clueless to our unimaginable suffering. Because that is what anxiety and panic are: it is a suffering of the mind. And like our chronic illnesses not so easily cured.
But boy, I tried. With eight different therapists over the course of 20 years. Medication helps, but not always and not completely. It doesn’t as I write this and I feel my nervous system fight the scary signals, or rather the ones my mind interprets as scary but are in fact not at all.
But that’s the trouble with anxiety: it doesn’t listen to my – or anyone else’s – rational voice. And this makes holidays that go with a specific date so hard: anxiety and plans do not go together very well.
So here is my message to you today if you are scared of how you will feel the next few days (or any day you have plans):
Treat your mental health like you would your physical.
In pain? Rest. Tired? Rest. Or cancel, or take your meds, or whatever it is you would normally do with your physical health.
Your mental health is not less important than your physical. Your mental health takes no backseat to it either. In many cases, a better mental health allows us to better cope with our physical pain and fatigue.
So please, treat it that way.
Or take my mum’s advice like I do these days:
“I see your mental struggles as a chronic illness too, but of your mind. So we need to treat it with the same seriousness we do your body.”
Especially in a pressure cooker of a time like these, let’s treat our mental illness as well as our physical health. Rest. Cancel. Play. Whatever it is you, and your mind and body, need.
Sandra Postma
Subscribe to my blog Lessons from a Life Shaped By Chronic Illness
Subscribe to my newsletter for writers with chronic illness
Recent Blog Posts
When Choosing Is Necessary But Feels Impossible
So many ideas, so little time & energy I admit my adhd has a part to play in this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you related to it as well: the difficulty that comes with choosing. Choosing which story to focus on. Which character to have as a protagonist. Which plot twist. Which ending.…
Modern vs Past Writers Facing Fierce Criticism
What we have in common with writers like Chaucer, Shelley and Twain is having to deal with critics Writing a book is hard. It takes a lot of time, even more energy and yet more courage to actually publish it. Because on the other side of that publish button, lies a whole jungle filled with…
What to Say to Your Imposter-Voice
We both get that nagging voice that tells us we’re no good Do you ever get hit by imposter syndrome? That feeling that you’re not good enough at something? The procrastination or paralysis that comes from that, do you recognise that? I’m almost laughing because what a stupid question, of course you do. To be…
Leave a Reply