Experiencing lows in mental health can feel like a dark, lonely and unforgiving place. A low which you feel you cannot escape from is the ultimate worst. A little while ago, I experienced that low where I felt that there was no way out. I wrote about it in a previous post and since then, I’ve been feeling ok.
What I didn’t do though however was something I’ve always encouraged people to do when they have a bad spell with their mental health –
Ask for help.
I’ve always considered myself to be strong emotionally, I felt I had no choice as I have had quite a few obstacles to get past in my life and I felt like I have had to toughen up because of it. Years ago, I would never have ever considered seeking help for anything to do with my mental health. I knew that there was help out there for me. Whether that was to speak to a close and trusted friend or family member or speak professionally to the psychologist at my CF clinic, it was there at my fingertips. What I’m going to say next may sound a little outdated but – at the time I thought it was a sign of weakness to ask for help.
Years ago, when I started having bad mental health, I couldn’t open up about it and I felt that there was a stigma attached to being so open about my feelings and my overall mental health status. Nowadays, I am very open about my mental health, I want to allow people to see that it is ok to open up about their mental health and, in a way, inspire them to do so. However, I am careful in regards to how much I do share online and with others away from the online world personally.
I’m open about my mental health enough to know when I need to ask for help. I know I said before that I haven’t asked for much help with my mental health recently, but there is a reason behind it, however strange it may seem to you. It felt wrong for me to ask for help. With everything that is going on in the world, people have died from a deadly virus, people have had to put their lives on the line to keep us safe, people have had to bury loved ones and people have lost jobs, I could go on and on! It felt like an inappropriate action on my part to go to a psychologist or talk to a trusted friend to talk about how low I had been feeling considering everything that is going on in the world. But after speaking to a close friend about my mental health status, she made me realise that I needed to ask for help and speak to someone.
This blog post is aimed for me to tell you that it is ok to ask for help with your mental health. I want to make it my mission to get this message across to you. Even be one of those people who hires a plane with a banner tied to it to fly through the sky. Maybe if I win the Lottery. But seriously, I want to tell you that it is perfectly ok to ask for help, I want you to know that it is not shameful or embarrassing in any way to ask for help, whoever that may be from and no matter the circumstances.
I can only hope that one day, the stigma for mental health can disappear altogether in the future, but it’s up to us to promote speaking out and promote asking for help when needed. After all, there’s only so much we can take with our mental health, it’s important to unload all that we are feeling and get that pesky weight lifted off our shoulders when needed!
