The Epic Highs and Lows of Mental Wellness

I like to think that my mental health journey started when I was eighteen years old.

It’s not that I hadn’t struggled with my mental health before then. I’d had some highs and some lows, but I thought I was doing alright generally. Nothing to be too concerned about.

But eighteen brought the first major low I’d ever had. Eighteen was when I thought, for the first time in my life, “I think I need help.”

And because I had wonderful, understanding parents, I got the help that I needed.

I was in therapy for the better part of three years. Along the way, I cried a lot (never during a session though) and learnt way too much about myself, frankly. But it was all worth it because I was able to get better and deal with issues beyond the depression I was initially trying to recover from.

And I had improved enough for me to take a self-imposed sabbatical from therapy in 2019. I had thought to myself, “You know, I’m doing really well! I know how to take care of myself. My mental health is well-managed. Everything will be fine.”

Everything was not fine.

Everything. Was. Not. Fine.

I was back in therapy by 2020.

In hindsight, I can say that I’m proud of myself for recognising that I needed to go back. While it was happening, though, I spent a lot of time feeling as though I had failed because I needed therapy again.

I thought I had regressed and was beating myself up for it. In my mind, I was supposed to be past all the difficulties I was facing. Been there, done that, never have to do it again.

But life does not work that way.

The journey is not linear and you can set yourself up for disappointment by expecting it to be.

Once I was able to let go of those expectations and cut myself some slack, that was when the new healing process began. I took all the energy I was wasting on being mean to myself and used it to focus on what I needed to get better.

I realised that therapy would not be enough for me this time around, so I saw a psychiatrist and started medication, which turned out to be one of the best decisions I could have ever made for myself.

Aside from the medication, I was able to build a whole arsenal of new coping techniques. I began taking care of myself in a more holistic way which improved not just my mental health, but my physical health as well.

I’m doing far better now than I ever was in 2019 when I thought I was doing the best I could ever do. And I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that.

The truth is, there will always be highs and lows. A low does not mean you’re back to square one just as a high does not mean you’re at the end of the journey. Everything moves you forward on the path but only when you’re willing to see it that way.

I’m in a high right now, and I am grateful to be doing well. But if (when) I experience a low again, when the fear that I’ve regressed starts to kick in again, I can tell myself: “You have faced a low before and won and you can do it again.

You will do it again.”

Until next time,

Siobhan K.