Balancing mental health & relationships

"Be with someone that's good for your mental health. Someone who brings you inner peace..." Idil Ahmed

In March of 2021, I was diagnosed with both major depressive disorder as well as generalized anxiety disorder. My doctor gave me a long list of potential medications I could take, but we landed on Lexapro, given that this medication was the least likely to change or numb me completely. With this medication there were some changes that had to be made, so there weren't adverse effects with the medication. A few of these things was getting a healthy amount of sleep, not a lot of caffeine intake, and trying to decrease my stress levels as much as I could.

Now a little over a month ago, I started a new job. This was on top of the job I was already currently working and the 18 credits I was taking in school. As you could probably guess, these things all put together are pretty stressful, don't let me get a lot of sleep, and both my jobs consisted of me getting free caffeine. Things could go wrong right?

One day I was working the longest day I had ever worked, from 830AM-8PM, I was on my feet since I was working both jobs. From going from one workplace to the other, I had no time to get food in between jobs, so I ended up drinking about 600mg of caffeine that day. The next night, I had one of the lowest lows I have had since being on medication. I typically don't like to be vulnerable with others or share my pain with others in fear of burdening them, but my boyfriend was staying over that night, so there was no way of hiding my feelings. What started as simply saying that I was feeling sad and discouraged turned into 2 1/2 hours of many different emotions, none of them being pretty. Yet, at the end of these 2 1/2 hours that my boyfriend had sat through, I went to bed right after him telling me that I will be okay, my mental illness does not change what he thinks of me, and a big hug.

As I mentioned before, I have never been one to open up as much as I wish I could to the people around me. It could be in fear they may think differently of me, or that I have tried before and haven't gotten the response I had hoped for when opening up to people in the past. Yet, what I have learned is that those people that don't sit with you through crying spells or ranting over the phone, they are not worth being there for you for the other 21 1/2 hours of your day, when you are not at your lowest of lows.

I am not saying this is easy. It is very hard to pick apart your relationships and choose which people are there for you for your lowest and highest. Yet, in one therapy session when my therapist and I were discussing how I don't always feel like the people around me would care if I stayed or if I was gone, she told me ask myself when I am in a social setting, "am I showing up authentically without focusing on the expectations of others."

Once I began walking into social settings with no expectations, no motive, and no assumptions of what the people around me are thinking, I felt so much more free. I felt myself being open about stuff I was never able to open up about before, without worrying about what there response may be.

I have grown to learn that it is much easier to balance your mental health and your relationships, when you are able to open up about it. It is hard to manage anything if you are not able to talk about it. What I want you to consider after reading this blog, is to find those people in your life that tell you it is okay to not always feel okay, and stick with them. They are the people that will pick you up when you are bed ridden, and the same people who will cheer you on when you are at your highest.

Signed,

Ems