Do you struggle with your mental health, in any way? Do you suffer anxiety, stress, panic or depression? What do you do to cope? Do you take mental health days just to get by?
On 
this fortnight, we're holding space for people to talk about how they creatively support their mental health, and what practices help them thrive. You can read about the challenge here and EVERYONE is welcome to enter. will give you as much support as we can for your entries! Currently the prize is at 4 steem (2 x 2 winners) but I am adding an extra 3 steem for this prizepool!
The contest aims to continue the conversation started by 
We can't just survive, we need to thrive, and in doing so, help others get through.
The challenge specifically asks:
What helps you thrive?
What are the actions and pathways you walk that creatively support your mental health?
We really hope you enter as the more dialogue about mental health on the Steem blockchain, the better. One of the worse things about anxiety or depression or any other mental struggle is thinking you're alone. There's so much relief in knowing you aren't. My own personal experiences makes this challenge really close to my heart, and ever since I completely collapsed and then worked my way to recovery, I've been keen to talk about it, and I've been really aware of others and how they're travelling, and if there's anything I can do to help.
In my own response to this challenge, there's more than one answer for me. Anxiety doesn't just go away and whilst I'm good right now, I have to take precautions against it coming back - even a month ago this is what I was feeling. I've already detailed my herbal support system in this post, which nurtures and supports me, and even this post talks about the relationship between breath and anxiety, and there's other strategies I want to talk about too, but in this post, I want to talk about the importance of mental health days.
The Shame in the Struggle
The biggest impact on my mental health was an understanding workplace and a head of department that checks up on me and asks how I'm doing. Not in a condescending kind of way - like, how crazy are you this week and can we trust you to do your job? - but more a, what can we do to support you to do your job because we value you kinda way.
And this is NOT a raise awareness day, once a year, like we have here: RUOK day. RUOK day sucks for me. Because I get angry - why the FUCK are we having a bakesale and asking people if they're okay when we've been ignoring their needs all year. Sure, I get the intention, but there's a lot more that needs to be done to recognise mental health problems than this.
I think the idea of a 'mental health day is something completely invented by people who have no clue what it's like to have bad mental health' - David Levithan and John Green
Three years ago, when I had my stress breakdown, my boss at the time was not as understanding - partly because she was under pressure herself, and partly because I was unable to ask for what I needed, because I felt shame. I wasn't good enough to do what I had to do, when everyone around me seemed under control. I worried that people would complain about me, or that I'd be seen as incapable or useless, inexpert. This was far from the truth of course, but once that slippery slope happens, things get worse. I'd feel dizzy and lightheaded, sick to the stomach. My heart would race and thump, and I couldn't sleep. When I did, I'd wake myself up with my teeth grinding. I started to feel paranoid, irrational. I couldn't finish my sentences or concentrate at all. And one day, my mind just broke. I couldn't get out of bed. For a few days, I called in sick, lying about a migraine (this wasn't far from the truth - I'd been having a lot of them) until after a week, I had to ring and tell the truth - I wasn't capable of getting in front of a classroom. I had failed as a teacher. I think I cried for weeks.
There's many times that I think quitting work would be a far better option for my mental health. In fact, there's been plenty of times where J. has suggested I do so, as he's been so concerned about my anxiety. Yet even in the depth of my despair, flooded with cortisol and feeling like I was going to die from it, I knew that work gave my life value - I work with teenagers and I love this aspect of my job, and often feel energized from their beautiful, creative, inspiring and life affirming presence.
Mental Health Days as Creative Solution
I've probably taken more days off for mental health than I have for any other illness. I'm not the only one - in Australia, 1 in 5 employees report they've taken time off work because they feel mentally unwell. This costs Australian over 10 billion a year due to employee absences, loss of productivity and compensation claims.
Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions are searched for - Maya Angelou
I know one colleague who has never taken a sick day ever and has something like 275 days accrued. Me? I'm down to 16 days left. Lucky you get a few more every year - they're like game lives. We lie about it too - we say we've got gastro, a headache, a sick child. This is partly because mental health isn't seen as a 'sickness' for a sick day, and there's a stigma attached to it, too - you're seen as weak, incapable, unprofessional. Migraines get sympathy. Anxiety doesn't - especially amongst those who've never experienced this level of stress response.
There's a call for businesses to offer certain amounts of mental health days as a benefit for their staff, and this kind of thing would help normalise our pleas for time to recharge, recoup and regather in times of stress. Life exists outside work, after all - sometimes it's not even just the work itself that causes the stress - it's sick family members, relationship problems, cars breaking down - a wealth of life STUFF that gets on top of us. When our attention is going to all those infinitesimal little stresses, on top of workplace stress, our productivity can't be what it could be. In my worse moments of anxiety, I can't think let alone perform in the classroom. I can't finish sentences, let alone unpack complex problems on the board. If we're to regularly contribute quality work under high stress, we need to have flexible, paid time to contribute to our health and wellness.
Things changed with the new boss. She knows my history and understands it. She's had training in this kind of thing, and she is absolutely aware that anxiety is not a personal failing. She sees me as competent - more than competent. When Dad got sick this year, she was right on it, insisting that if I ever felt I wasn't coping, that I should let her know, and if that I needed time off, I should take it. This did me the world of good - in fact, just KNOWING that it was an option made me feel better and I think I've had less sick days because of this. I have heard wonderful stories from employees with flexible leave which say that they actually have LESS requests for leave because their staff are happier knowing they've got that option - or if they do take it, they take less and return happier and more productive.
I still take mental health days, and I'll talk about those in another post. I don't bother explaining why I'm ill or making up excuses now. I don't feel guilty about them - I work hard and I'm good at what I do. If I need some mental health space to do that, then so be it.
Creating Boundaries
When I was in the worst of it, work consumed every aspect of my life. I felt it was my entire identity, and I railed against that because I knew I was so much more than a worker in an institution. How could I reconcile all those parts of myself that were vying for space? Talk to most people recovering from mental health and they'll say they are really good at boundaries - but they've realised this the hard way. No one seems to pre-empt breakdown by setting boundaries first.
It's also easy to say 'put yourself first above every one else', but I don't believe in this at all. We live in communities and we are responsible for the well being of others as well as our own. We have to care for others or we will fall apart as a civilization, a community, a family. I'm also in a job where others depend on me.
However, there are some boundaries that are do-able, and require you being unequivocal about:
- No checking of work emails at night or on the weekends. There's no emergency that can't wait until work hours.
- Spend ten minutes debriefing at the end of your day with your partner and that's it! We tend to go over and over the same things in our mind with anxiety or stress, so there's no use giving strength and power to your upset by constantly repeating the same thing over and over. If you don't have a partner, trying writing it down.
- Holidays are for holidays, not work. I have learnt to use every minute of my blessed holidays by making sure I write myself lists of things I need to do when I get back to work and leave them on my desk. That way, I don't even think about it - I just trust my prior self to have got it sorted, and I'll willing to follow her advice when I clock back on. No use thinking of the things you can't do over holidays anyway.
- Say no to extra demands. Not the ones that are part of your job, but the ones that start with 'Does anyone want to volunteer for...'. If it was that important, they'd pay someone to do it. Figure out what you're worth and what you should be reasonably expected to do, and forget the rest.
Is it Worth the Money?
I reassessed drastically after my breakdown. I wanted to work, but I didn't think working that much was worth my life. I really thought I was going to die if I kept going. In the end I reduced my workload, by negotiating with my boss, to .8, which was 1/5 less than 1 (der, but does that make sense to you? A lot of people wonder, but that's how it works with school timetables). It was a great year and in the end I didn't even notice the pay cut. This year, I cut to .6. This is seriously spaaaace creating, and since I'm now in the lower tax bracket, I didn't notice a drop in my income much at all!
I understand I'm lucky enough to be able to do this, and lucky I was supported to do so. But there does have to come a time in everyone's life where they ask themselves 'is it worth it?' and make adjustements accordingly. I'll never go back up - I'm happy with what I'm doing now. I have space in my life nearly every day to nurture my health, and that's utterly priceless.
Having the occasional mental health day should be legitimised, as should giving people the option to have these days permanently through flexible work schedules. By reducing my work load and making permanent mental health days, I gave myself space to feel more in control - happier, clearer and more me.
And I feel like I'm living, as opposed to just surviving.
What do you do to creatively influence a better state of mental health?
Do you take mental health days?
https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmU9f4FK9j91cnUGYk9hnMXuYdAFcnF6ekkpXZ5DfiByfG
