Feeling good today.
It’s World Mental Health Day today and I’d like to reflect on why mental health matters to me.
Through my 6+ plus years at UBC, my mental health has dipped, peaked, crashed, and soared, and dipped, peaked, crashed, and soared. Many times over. I’m one of the many who’s only just started deeply considering mental health. How complex it is. I mean, what else would it be, I guess? We ARE complex.
Even today, as the wind and rain whipped the leaves through my hair as I walked across campus, I thought about how strange it is that we separate physical and mental health. That we treat complications of physical health as if they have no mental or emotional or spiritual effects. And vice versa. That we treat the complications of mental health as if they have no physical effects.
I live with a few chronic “physical” conditions and believe me, they affect my mental health. I spend many a morning staring at the wall for an hour, cocooned in my duvet, wrapped tight around me, not wanting to get up. Because if I get up, I have to do stuff. Wash my face, do the dishes, go to work, write a short story for class, do all them life things. I spend the hour thinking, Maybe I won’t go to work today. No I have to go to work. No I don’t. Yes you do. No you don’t. Just say you’re sick. But you like your job. I have four. And you need the money. Well, maybe I won’t go to class then.
I feel safe in my bed. Because I feel physically good in my bed. The second I get up is the second the possibility of not feeling physically good becomes, well, a possibility. But I know that staying in bed too long actually makes me feel worse. So, I get up.
It’s a battle. But one I’m willing to wage. And one I am lucky that I can wage. I have loving friends and family. I have my social media family, a real, very special thing. I have a roof over my head. I have easy access to food, water, medical care.
Today, as I crossed UBC’s Main Mall and I looked at the wild mountains and soft metallic of the stormy sea, I saw a guy standing up on one of the ledges there, like I do, to get the best, unadulterated, huge view. I wondered what he was thinking. I wondered if he went there like I did to gain perspective, to breathe in the spiritual enormity and ancientness of this place, to remind myself I could be okay, that healing and triumph was possible.
So, today on World Mental Health Day, I invite you to start to think about what makes you feel healthy and to share it with me. What does health mean to you as a student? Where do you go on campus to feel well? What challenges have you faced and what do you need to face them? I’d love to know!
Connect with me on Twitter and Instagram and let’s talk mental health.