Why is mental health so important to me?

Mental health has become the label that makes most sense to me to describe the journey to figuring out how to just be. Mental illness has been personal for me as long as I can remember. I didn’t know the words for it when I was a kid, in fact, no one talked about it. It affected members of my family too. It was close. But for so long I just thought it was how I was and that was something to accept. As an adult and looking at my life, my patterns, I began to question myself. And the hope that it was not a fatal flaw was more real and the hope that there were things that could be done to retrain my brain became alluring and inviting. I started working on it and gained understanding that has changed my patterns, much of which I have come to know is determined by thoughts and thoughts are not always facts. They can be, but you have to be able to understand them to make changes in your patterns, behaviors. And so I have come to find a mechanism for changing my thoughts, changing my bad patterns and habits but pursuing my own mental health. It is more important to me than anything. Because I have come to believe that our minds are this indescribable force behind us and the way we train our minds creates our life. And the cool part is that we can actually learn to train our minds to be healthy so that we become all that we hope and the version of ourselves that makes us feel the best, live our best and have all that we hope for in our lives. But, it is work. It’s the most important work we can and will do. Some insight on why mental health is important to me feels like it will be a set of blog posts to share my own journey so that if it connects with someone else, they will take it and use it to encourage their own journey. Here’s a bit for today…more to come.

I can remember being nervous about almost everything as a kid. We moved to St. Louis when I was eight. And I remember joining Mrs. Ray’s third grade class and trying to figure out who I could be friends with while it seemed that everyone else knew each other and had since birth. I was the outsider. I joined a softball team and started playing. I was mediocre. Every time a pop fly would be hit my way I remember sort of panicking inside because I was nervous that I would not catch it…and guess what, I didn’t. It was hard to make friends in elementary school being the new kid. It was even more difficult to find kids that were friends that didn’t cycle. I would make friends and then it seemed like people would shift without any reason or warning and suddenly not be friends with you anymore…in fact they would be your enemy all of a sudden.

As I grew up I found other friendships outside of school and better ones inside school. I was always a good student, not the best, but good. I worked hard at school and got good grades. Maybe because it was somewhat natural to me but also because it was what good girls did. I was a good girl. I didn’t boast about it but I sure did take pride in that. In fact, I earned my love that way. And as long as I was good, I knew people would love me. I didn’t get in trouble at school, I rarely missed a homework deadline, I didn’t get in trouble with teachers, they rather liked me a lot. The only exception was a teacher in late elementary school or early junior high that accused me of plagiarism. I didn’t even know what that word was yet so I am pretty sure I was not as evil as she thought I was. But I was pretty nervous about that situation.

In college, I remember feeling like it was a place where I could finally have some more freedom, some fun. I didn’t feel the need to perform…as much. I still maintained really good grades and this in spite of the fact that I had a rigorous class schedule and worked a ton of clinical hours. I also got involved in a campus ministry that I later joined the leadership team. The ministry was called Icthus. It was all student led and run. We prided ourselves in that and liked to distinguish ourselves from other student ministries by not being as rigid, always accepting people first. Then we would secretly or rather warmly sell them Jesus.

I had a good friend from Icthus that wrote me a letter once. This was before texting and way before we communicated via email except for once a semester. I kept it for some reason. I found it recently in a move. He wrote me a letter and told me how he was praying for me and hoped that I would not worry as much. He seemed to see this in me and was hoping that it would bring me relief to not have to carry the worry around like I did. It was sweet. And I obviously kept it…probably for more than the reason he gave it to me in 1998.

Nerves, worry, anxiety…they’re all the same. And I have had it all my life. As far back as I can remember. I am sure it is somewhat genetic but also widely cultural. Some of us, like me, seem to think we can avoid pain or control it or prepare for it if we are just diligent enough to be on guard and vigilant enough all the time. We walk around sort of “bowed up” and ready to deal with anything and everything that could come our way, everything that could be hard or hurt our feelings or cut us down or make us feel worse than we already did. I was one of those people. I constantly prepared for life. I learned to try to over engineer everything. I felt like I was in control that way. I planned, I anticipated, I determined who was right and who was wrong so I could feel like I was part of the right group. I worked so hard to get good grades, never got in trouble, was the good girl…so that I could avoid the pain of being told I was wrong, I was not right or bad. I wasn’t aware of it back then, but I could feel it and it worked mostly so I kept doing it. For a long, long time. It worked because our culture tells us there are so many things that are “right” and so many things that are “wrong”. Who wrote those rules anyway? And where did culture end up being the one that gets to boss us around?

This part of me carried on into adult hood. I thought I could rig the system and figure it all out. I got married because that is what a good girl does. And if I was a good girl, I wouldn’t have to hear people ask why I wasn’t in a relationship or dating…because only outcast girls or bad girls would be found alone or not in a relationship. When that didn’t work out, I took a little time and got a little wild. I dated, I moved, I took care of myself for a while. I spent time alone. The whole time I felt like I was just that…alone. I wasn’t celebrating my accomplishments or taking pride in my success and driving toward the next professional thing. I didn’t feel like I had full permission to do that. It really seemed like a more powerful force and a more important fulfillment of proving I was alright was to figure out how not be alone. So I doubled down on trying to figure that out. I also really didn’t like my job during that period of my life when I moved and was living it up a bit. I bought a condo in Kansas City in 2007 just before the market crashed even after my mom asked me several times if I just wanted to rent for a while. No, I wanted to buy because I was going to show the world I could take care of myself. I could control life. Ha! I was in the process of creating more anxiety for myself by doing that…by trying to prove and control what others thought of me, to control what I thought of me. If I could just accomplish all these things in my head that I thought were expected of adults, that would show people I was alright and loveable, especially as a female adult, then I was sure that was the path to happiness. So I did those things and all it left me feeling was how I wasn’t happy and wanting more. It left me feeling alone and unlovable, and definitely more anxious because I could not seem to figure it out.

When I finally figured out my job was not going to work out and there was an opening back in Springfield that seemed like a place where I was more happy, surrounded by friends and people I loved, I took it. And then I tried to sell that condo. My attempt to prove to everyone that I had it all under control and all figured out was met with a deficit of thousands of dollars of loss that I did not have figured out. Since I was taking a pay cut to move back which I was doing because I knew I would be happier, I decided I would figure out how to make it all work. Now, as much as I have gained anxiety from putting myself in these positions where I decide things without listening, I also was never bailed out. And at the time I would be slightly irritated there was not a simple solution for someone else to figure this out for me. But they didn’t. So, I had to. So I kept the condo and learned what it meant to be upside down on a property. And I rented it out for almost eight years. It was an adventure learning how to deal with the fun of being a landlord…like a call at 6 am from a tenant saying there was a bat flying around in the living room preventing her from getting to work…only to come to find out bats are protected species and only a certified handler could remove them. More stress. More anxiety. But I struggled through. And accomplished my goal of not having to pay out and I walked away with a whopping $1,000 when I finally sold the place 10 years after I bought it for the same amount of money I had bought it for.

I don’t know where I was taught that all of this proving was the ticket that would eventually lead to happiness, security, clarity. I am sure much of it is cultural and I was just naive enough to be clued into the key points that I wanted to make sure I accomplished, the recipe I had come up with that had me believing I would figure it out according to the ingredients listed…being successful at work, purchasing property for myself, finishing my higher level education. All good things. Although, none of them relieved my anxiety, my worry. In fact, some of these things made it worse, way worse.