Mental Health: A Balancing Act
by Natalie Swiacki
Mental health is something that a lot of people struggle with, and most of the time they don’t even realize it. I think a lot of the time people grow up or go through life thinking that their mental situation is “normal” (more aptly healthy, but I think normalcy is how people think about it and it’s a term that makes more sense semantically for narrative’s sake) because we are taught not to talk about mental health issues and that they are embarrassing, so if we pretend they don’t exist we won’t have to deal with them.
I think for me, this point of view really stopped me from being gentle with myself. I was so strict with the routine I thought I had to follow, and that if I could “just push through it” and pretend that I didn’t need a break that it would eventually not be a problem anymore. And that was how I existed for a long time, and it worked for me better than it probably should have, but I definitely wasn’t very happy because I was constantly stressed.
It’s weird, too, because even when I thought that I was better and I was able to be more open about how I felt and my experiences, I really was just on the first step of my journey toward actually appreciating my mental health. I only realized this within the last year, and it was while I was on vacation over winter break.
It was the vacation of my dreams: I was going to Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia– places I had wanted to go to for such a long time, and I was so excited. Before I left, I was still planning on keeping up my strict workout regimen, eating healthy for almost every meal, and maybe working remotely a bit, too… Doesn’t sound like much of a vacation, right?
Well when I actually got there, all of that stuff lost its appeal (especially with my intense jetlag), so for the first time ever, I decided to give myself a break. I exercised a couple of times when I felt like it, I ate a lot of healthy food (and a lot of delicious and “unhealthy” foods!), but it was never something that I agonized over while I was there. And by the time I came back, literally nothing had changed from me not adhering to my routine and restrictions because I had just listened to what I needed physically and mentally the whole time I was there; something I had never really done.
Before, if I took a break, it didn’t feel like I was taking care of myself, but instead felt like I was losing progress on some abstract and undefined goal I had for myself to be the most perfect human being that ever existed. I understand now that just because I am capable of doing so much does not mean that I need to do it all, all of the time, and in fact I shouldn’t because it actually keeps me from my full potential.
And it has become a lot easier for me to implement that mentality in my daily life afterwards, giving myself more leniency to be kind when I needed it, especially to accomplish attainable goals I had for myself. Which was perfect timing given the fact that the pandemic life, which came only a couple months later, has made everyday things and my normal schedule feel so much harder than it did before. And I think I have continued to grow more and more lenient with myself throughout this time, and I am still learning the balance between leniency and being strict with myself when I need to be, but never when it is detrimental to my well being.