campus – The Graduate Experience

Today, BuzzFeed launched their own Mental Health Week starting on December 6, 2015. They acknowledged the huge role that media plays in how we see ourselves and mental health. So, they’re taking the lead and will be publishing more than 100 posts across five languages on mental health, as well as 30 videos from the Motion Pictures team, and coverage on SnapChat and the social channels on BuzzFeed Health. This is important and I expect many of us UBC students already follow BuzzFeed (I know I do) and if you don’t, you will. BF’s work especially their videos have helped me feel less alone, less scared, and less harsh on myself.

I am inspired by their big week to come, so I’ll be honouring it by having my own 7-day Mental Health Week here on my blog. Each day will contain a reflection of some kind about mental health connected to my life as a UBC grad student in the hopes that it will spark discussion, strength, love, joy, and whatever you need to understand and cope with your mental health.

Wreck Beach, where the sea is always there for you when you need it

Day 1: Take photos

This fall has been difficult for both my mental and physical health. All the high grades and positive academic feedback in the world hasn’t really helped. What has is my re-discovery of my love for photography and thanks to smartphones, you no longer need hundreds if not thousands of dollars to release your inner photographer and even pursue it has a career. Nature photography is my specialty and the UBC campus has been the perfect setting for it. My job at the UBC Botanical Garden hasn’t hurt either!

When I take photos, the search for the right light, the right colour, the unique angle, the emotion I want to capture takes me out of my own head, my own pain and sadness, even if just for the few minutes it takes to search, find, capture, and share. And that matters for my mental health. Sharing what I think is beautiful and keeping that moment and piece of work with me forever helps me express in ways that I can’t otherwise. The UBC Botanical Garden, the Nitobe Garden, the Rose Garden, and the sweeping architecture of the Nest are always there for me as subjects of profound beauty and photographic inspiration when I need them, unconditionally, in the rain, in the sun, on a good day and on my worst.

Maybe your creation will be cooking, writing, singing, painting, gardening, urban farming, or something else wonderful and personal. It’s a stressful time of year, so I encourage you to create and want you to know that our campus is an amazing place for inspiration. And it doesn’t matter what other people think of your creation because it’s yours and therefore it matters.

Connect with me on Instagram to see what I’m creating to help me with my mental health. I look forward to yours as well.

#MentalHealth

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.

The Graduate Experience

Back to school. A second time around.

Tag Archives: campus

Why I’m doing a Mental Health Week: Day 1

Why Mental Health Matters to Me