Shame in Asking for Help: 4 Mental Health Tips They Didn’t Tell you in School

If you or anyone you know is struggling with mental health, please give them lots of love and advise them to get help if possible.

I’ve never been clinically diagnosed with depression. But I’ve had my fair share of mental health blurps in my life.

The sad thing is, it’s been almost indoctrinated in me my whole life that mental health conditions weren’t actually serious, or real. I battled an eating disorder at a young age, and it took until things got really, really bad for me to receive help. And throughout the process, it still took me a while to administer the fact that I had a mental health issue.

It felt distrubing and shameful.

When I got into university, I went through seasons where I felt awful. Except, I think I hid it all away with the copious amounts of alcohol I was drinking. For the first time ever, I was at a loss with my identity. I went from the good-girl with the perfect grades, to almost flunking out of first year. What I thought I wanted to do career-wise wasn’t panning out. I still remember some nights, looking up to my ceiling in the darkness wondering why I felt so lonely, even when I was surrounded by my peers.

Throughout university, I struggled with mood swings. This became apparent in my relationships, as some seasons I would feel so much darkness all I could do was cry. But, there were also seasons where I felt explicitly joyous and full of life. Because of these contradicting moods, I never could fully accept that I had a problem. 

And that’s the problem. It’s like I was in a grey zone. I’m not suicidal, but I sometimes find myself consumed with negative thoughts. So where do I fit?

Do I deserve to get help?

There’s always been shame in asking for help, and I’m not sure where this comes from.

Perhaps, I didn’t like the feeling of weakness, hence, succumbing to the help of others made me feel less strong. Worse, the guilt. The thought that someone out there always had it worse than I had, thus my problems didn’t matter enough.

I sometimes sat through therapy, laughing to myself wondering, “why am I here?”

I’m functional, high performing, great at maintaining social relationships, and travel even amidst the pandemic. Why am I here?

 The truth is, even the highest functioning individuals, or the ones with the most dolled up instagram feeds, probably are facing challenges on a daily basis. They’re just great at hiding it.

I wish growing up, mental health was a subject that was portrayed with greater depth. Mental health problems can affect anyone from any age, background, and economic class. It’s not the washed up girl in the bathroom stall, but can look like a high functioning lawyer or a business person. Here are four things I wish they told me.

1. Healing takes a long-ass time, and when you think you’re done, you’re not.

Significant milestones are a cause of celebration. But it doesn’t mean the work is done. When I overcame one hurdle in my life, I thought that was the end. I was cured for life. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. My belief that I had “gotten it over with” was false. I still dealt with mental health issues and underlying coping mechanisms when I was stressed. I no longer battle a ED, but under extremely stressful conditions I will find myself reverting back to restrictive patterns. That’s the truth.

I battle doubts of depression. As much as I like to attribute it to PMS and SAD, it’s just something that comes up so frequently throughout the year, that I just want to address it head on.

Why? Because I know I’m capable of so much. But unfortunately, these periods of sadness take away from my ability to perform, to create and to innovate.

Going back to counselling is like opening a can of worms each time. You start to uncover pieces of yourself that can sometimes be very challenging. But also exciting, because you almost feel like a different person coming out of it. Healing only begins after we can acknolwedge what needs to be healed. Trauma can be resolved if we’re unable to identify it.

2. Therapy is going to be expensive af

Therapy was free up until the age of 18. Unfortunately, after it comes with a heavy price tag. But in my opinion, it’s a worthwhile investment. I think the best investment you can make is always in yourself. Therapy can help you overcome the deep-rooted pain and fear blocks that are preventing you from being your most vibrant self. It can help create transformative shifts in your personal and professional life, and more importantly, reset the relationship you have with yourself. Of course, be mindful this is the BEST case scenario. Some people can go to therapy for years and not have it help that much. It’s really a case by case scenario.

What I’m trying to get at is, if you can get therapy subsidized, take advanatge of it. You never know what effect it can have on your overall wellbeing and mental health.

3. Addressing the past can be painful, but incredibly powerful

Again it goes back to, “Yup I’ve been through hell, and now I’m healed. Everything’s great!”

Truth is, much of the pain I endured over a short time span in my youth. I was inexperienced, naive and self esteem wasn’t great. I let myself get reeled into relationships, both in work and my personal life that mistreated me. And I still find myself gravitating towards similar patterns.

Why? Because I’ve never fully resolved those traumas in the past. I may have recognized that I been mistreated, but to reconcile that path between then and now, has been difficult.

I also haven’t fully realized my true potential. I find myself wishing that I’ll just find it, like a genie in a bottle. But in truth, it takes work. Not just on the external front. You can become wildly successful externally— wealth, career, relationships, but you can still be completely broken inside. I’ve seen this, and I’m sure many of you have too.

Opening up the doors can be awfully terrifying. But it’s necessary for us to really create a new life for ourselves.

4.Focus on your worth— and not on external validation

We were never taught how to truly value ourselves as young people. We’ve only been taught to focus on grades, jobs, popularity and status. Unfortunately, as a result many of us grow up with a belittling sense of self esteem, that we hide with other things.

For example, no matter if I got 103% or took on greater responsibilities at work, there was always this dismissive voice in my head that forbade me from being happy for myself. It was always “it could be better.”

There’s nothing wrong with being high achieving, but over the long haul, what can this do to our self worth? Is it easier to get into negative situations because we don’t truly value ourselves? For example, I’m prone to giving a lot of my time and energy for people that don’t reciprocate it back. Burning myself out for others could become my trademark.

I wish they taught us all this self-love hoodoo when I was younger. I wonder what type of effect it might have had for me going through my adolescence, and into early adulthood.

If you’ve made it this far along the post, I’d like to thank you for reading. We only have so much time in a day, so for you to allocate even 5 minutes towards this space means a whole lot to me. If you’ve ever struggled with feeling unwell, I want to tell you that you’re not alone. And having these problems is not shameful, ingenuine or a waste of time.

You deserve to be heard, to be healed and to have a complete sense of self and love.