When a tsunami of anxiety is washing over you, you wonder: “Why is this happening again?” A late morning turns into a missed day. When “take two” fails the next day, a sense of frustration adds to the uncertainty. Of course, I should’ve seen this coming I tell myself – my appetite had fallen off a cliff (the high stress diet is what I often refer to this as), sleeping patterns were amiss and just forming coherent sentences seemed beyond me at times.
Issues with mental health don’t start like most diagnosis – it’s often a gradual thing. It can run away from you before you begin to decipher the signal from the noise. I’m skeptical of using the term “mental” health; I prefer emotional health (living in America has finally caught up with me). I find the former term far too ambiguous. I’m not going to get deep into the etymology of the word and its connotations; but it doesn’t do much for approaching an already sensitive matter. When we talk about vital organs and bodily functions, I really think “state of mind” needs to receive more attention.
My turning point was pretty simple; I ceased to live and was instead, just existing. A sustained low period in summer 2013 brought things to a head. I had experienced these periods in the past but this one kicked me to the curb badly. A lot of unraveling happened at once, and I got slammed in the unexpectedness of it all.
Many people have there own opinion(s) on how to approach what is really a very intricate and delicate matter. I used therapy and medication and I thought they did a pretty good job. In hindsight, I might have changed some parts of this approach but you do what you can at the time. Treating a condition that affects everyone in a different way is not simple.
For some people embracing physical exercise is a great outlet and looking back I would highly encourage this. I wasn’t focusing on the most optimal approach to resolve how I was feeling– I needed to make changes, and fast. I’ve certainly got a sense that some people view taking medication as a sure fire route to defiling your body; personally I see this as naive at best and extremely irresponsible at worst. For many people who are filled with questions and very few answers the whole thing isn’t black and white.
In the end, what I found what worked best was quitting my job after a fairly soul crushing professional experience in London and deciding to embrace my creative streak and join a startup back in Boston. There was an unnecessary and unhealthy emphasis on having flaws pointed out in corporate environments; whether it was verbal communication skills or not being a sufficiently entertaining person, I really didn’t find this conducive to just being myself.
Of course, my experiences with anxiety and depression have made me appreciate the importance of empathy or what is also known as emotional intelligence. And how this extends beyond the work place and should infuse as many aspects of your life as possible.
For the third time in 16 months I’ve just moved continents / countries. This has definitely contributed to my sense of unease lately: fair to say a problem of my own making. I would never have left Boston originally had my visa not been expiring. It worries me I’ll never find a place that has captured my imagination quite like here. The decision to return home is filled with both excitement and trepidation. The ache for home lives in many of us, and this still holds true for me, as a millennial that became part of Ireland’s most recent “generation emigration.”
As “basic” as this sounds, the Irish weather is something I’m not looking forward to. Even when it was “freezing balls” over here during the winters, even when we had four epic blizzards in 3 weeks last year – blue skies were there to keep me going. However, in the end my time in Boston reached a natural conclusion. Friends left chasing the next adventure and I also realised that I wanted to see what lay beyond either side of the Charles and Atlantic. Last April when I moved to London I wasn’t ready for it, but this year I feel more certain that Dublin is the right move. All the while, I appreciate how important it is to stay on top “things”, try and prevent myself from falling into sustained low periods and just having a sense of self-awareness.
In many cases, anxiety or depression don’t have predefined life cycles. Things most certainly can get better and while they often hang around they neither define me, or my life.
There’s restlessness at 27 to know all the answers. But if the average Irish woman lives to 83 years old or 30,295 odd days well I’m not even one-third of the way there. I haven’t even reached the 10,000 days mark. If I think about the amount of bad days I’ve had even in the past 4 years, let’s say 100 combined then that’s less than three-quarters of one percent (0.07%). As someone who started out working in the data field this is very small. I don’t consider it insignificant because no one’s bad days deserve to be seen as just a statistic; but they give me perspective.
Here’s the thing – plenty of times I’ve been the author of my own disappointments; however this also presents you with a chance to inform and enlighten yourself versus constantly replaying and reflecting what’s gone wrong. A lot has changed in 4 years, and I’m tempering my excitement for some time at home with not making any firm plans as to where I see myself thereafter. Anxiety and depression can take away the enjoyment of looking ahead, but when I think of all my passions, plans and most importantly the people who knowing / unknowingly kept me afloat as I navigated troubled waters – I feel a renewed sense of urgency about all that lies ahead.
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