What to do When Your Mental Health is Suffering (Part 1)
Have you ever asked yourself the following questions…
- How do I know when my mental health is suffering?
- How do I pull myself back?
These are questions I received from a client.
Maybe this is a topic that you don’t think you need to listen to. But I'll tell you, it definitely will help you, especially if you have people around you that are suffering.
How do I know when my mental health is suffering?
The answer is: YOU KNOW. You just know. If you're asking the question, you know.
Here are some clues that your mental health is suffering that I see from my clients:
- You are irritable and get annoyed a lot faster.
- You want to isolate yourself. You don't really want to be around others.
- You feel like things are absolutely overwhelming.
- You're not yourself in some way. For example, you're normally able to be analytical and now you just can't seem to do it.
- If you’re normally on top of everything, and you start to not be able to figure things out, then potentially you are having this trouble.
Those have a lot to do with your mood and personality. Another has to do with food. You're reaching for junk food, alcohol, or more comfort foods. This is very common for my clients as they start eating their emotions. This also happened to me when my father passed away. For many people with COVID, we're calling it the COVID 19, like the freshman 15, the COVID-19, meaning you're putting on about 19 pounds.
It happens a lot because our mental health isn't as solid as we need it to be. We’re then not able to be disciplined and consistent in the type of eating that we want to have.
PAUSE
I do have to state I'm not a doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor. I'm a coach, and I'm speaking from experience of what I've seen in my clients and the work that I've done in process coaching with my clients. I'm also speaking from a place of personal experience where I haven't had the emotional bandwidth. I haven't had the emotional stamina. I have dealt with postpartum depression, not once. But twice. I have dealt with anxiety where I have no idea where it came from. My hormones have been completely off balance. I've also dealt with stress and mental health suffering because of over-exertion and stress in the amount of things I do in my life. I have also experienced this with grief.
I've got a lot of personal experience around this, but full disclosure, I have never had to get to a point of strongly medicating. So if you are at that place where your mental health is suffering, and you are suicidal, you are violent, or you are doing any other addictive or abusive behavior, or you are in a situation that is unsafe, please seek medical attention ASAP. Please tell a loved one that you trust. Please get the help that you need. That's so crucial.
BACK TO… How else could you know that you're suffering mentally?
- You're not honoring your priorities.
If your priorities are things that are important to you like emailing people back on time, getting projects completed, hanging out, or being committed to a group that you're a part of or a board that you're on, or people that you're volunteering with, those can be times when you're not honoring these things anymore. That's very strange for you.
- Your hygiene isn't as good as it used to be.
For ladies, maybe you don't care about doing your hair and makeup anymore, and that was important to you. Maybe you're not showering, doing other forms of hygiene that are important or you're not changing your clothes as often as you should.
- You're dropping the ball.
You should be picking up the kids, but you totally forgot. You're not able to get certain things done. Maybe you're at the point where you don't care. That's showing that you're mentally starting to suffer.
- You cry or get angry super easily.
In my first year of grief after my Dad passed, this was definitely something that I was having to deal with. I was short-tempered. I would raise my voice with my family. I was very quick to be frustrated. I didn't like that.
I was also quick to cry as soon as somebody showed that they cared. I also wasn’t able to have emotional stamina — the emotional stamina to be able to get through the day, to handle other people, to be around other people, or get through something that's hard.
For your situation, you have to ask yourself:
- Is this normal behavior?
- Do I just have bad habits?
- Is something really wrong?
Now, let’s go back to answer that first question that my client had, “how do you know when your mental health is starting to suffer?”
You might feel like:
- I don't feel like myself
- I just feel off.
- I don't like how I'm feeling.
- I'm different.
- I'm not myself
After speaking events, or when I’m leading one of my own events, sometimes women come up to me and share where they are at. It sounds like they’re living in black and white.
If you see the start of Wizard of Oz, it's all in black and white. It has this almost dead feeling to it. We can feel that way in life. If you are not in the right mental state, it's like you're living in black and white. It's like the color, the spirit, the joy, and the energy left you.
Later, when the movie switches to color, there's vibrancy, life, and energy that comes out - it’s the same when these women get themselves back.
In my next blog, I’ll share with you some answers on what to do when your mental health is suffering.
If you want to be around like-minded people, please join the free Dynamic Women Online Group on Facebook.
Read more of my blogs here:
1. D.R.I.V.E.: 5 Ways to Motivate Yourself