A love letter to mental health

 

Dear mental health,

 

Where do I even start? You’ve given me many sleepless nights, gave me many tears to cry and somehow, in a way, I still love you. Because when I listen to you, when I learn to listen to you, you tell me when I’m going downhill. You tell me when I need to take a step back, even if that is really hard for me sometimes. Like many people, I learned it the hard way.

 

So many things influence you, which in the end will influence me. The thing is, and person can try to change the surroundings and circumstances they live in, but the individual is the only one who can truly change you. A person has to learn how to deal with you, a process that will include so many setbacks and that will most likely never be truly finished. In a way that’s the beauty of life, learning something every single day even if it might be subconscious.

 

It is easy to neglect you because you are not tangible. When life gets busy and maybe even in the way, I sometimes lose track of you. I put other people and their needs before myself, don’t get me wrong, I’m pleased to do so, but for a long time I didn’t figure out that it was all about the balance. Looking after yourself isn’t a luxury. Especially your mental wellbeing should be a priority. Even though it might sound a little bit cringy, but otherwise you can’t be the best version of you to yourself and to others.

 

I’m a big advocate for seeking the help you need. It might be good to talk to a therapist for a while, just to see things from a different perspective. At least that is what helped me. For me it was especially good to see that not everything is my fault and not all the weight has to be on my shoulders. On the other hand, having great friends is worth so much more than you might think. You don’t need a hundred friends, but having a couple really good ones that know you, that see you and with whom you can be one hundred percent yourself means the world. Whatever ways you as an individual might find to help your mental health, realize that the change has to come from you. You are the one who has to make the change, the outside factors help, but you are the one who has to implement them into your life.

 

Life is hard and it definitely has its ups and downs. Especially also with the upcoming holiday season that seems to be upon us already, time just really flies. One person might look forward to it, the other might not feel it at all this year for whatever reason, and yet another person has mixed feelings about the holidays this year. All of the above are okay and you definitely shouldn’t force happiness upon yourself nor on anyone else. But in the Netherlands, we have this saying that life is a party, but (sometimes) you have to hang the garlands yourself. In a way I like to think that that is exactly what I try to do most of the time, even if it’s hard sometimes.

 

I’m still learning that a good day looks different every single day. That it is okay to say no, to set your own boundaries. I cry, sometimes out of nowhere and sometimes with a good reason. Sometimes I just want to scream, because my mind and heart don’t work together or because I just don’t know what is going on. But all those moments remind me that I’m alive and I have learned to try and look into all the little bright things of the future. Because life is short, working on yourself is important and your mental health is a very big part of your overall wellbeing. And that’s exactly why I learned to love my own mental health, even if it stabs me in the back sometimes, hurts me, but makes me better as well. The moment I try to love (or even like) it is the moment in which it gets a little bit easier to deal with.

 

All my love,

Anna