This past Friday, Mental Health Awareness Month began.

I never really thought about my mental health. I had things I felt – anxiety, sadness, too much of this, too little of that, and I never looked further. I was too young, being organized isn’t a bad thing, eating four M&Ms at a time isn’t problematic. The list goes on, and it ranges from what sounds like nonsense to what can grow into real issues, not just for me but for the people around me. My mental health issues don’t fall into illness categories, not everyone’s issues do. Sometimes we dismiss it as idiosyncrasies, or cousin Jane is just like that, it’s a preference. Our mental health affects not only ourselves, but the people around us especially if you live with family or friends, have work colleagues, hobby partners, etc.

Again, until I became suicidal to the point that I noticed a problem and addressed it with my doctor, it was overtaking all of my thoughts. Until then, it fell into the characterization of a shrug, something I do, and something I just live with.

Once I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety, I could look back all the way to childhood and see things that I did and felt that I thought were “normal” or things that I was blowing out of proportion with no genuine reason for feeling how I felt. One example of this was when my parents were out of the house. We lived in a split level, so there was a short staircase near the front door, and I sat on those carpeted steps in a heightened state of anxiety waiting for them to get home. Was I six? Ten? No. I think I was sixteen and much too old to be in this state because I was alone in the house. I’m not even sure I was alone in the house – I have two siblings; they may have been home, but it was nighttime, and my parents were not.

I have been on medication since 2012. Medication was not the only answer, but I consider it a large part of my recovery. Medication is not a dirty word; there is nothing to be ashamed of in taking medication to regulate your brain. I take medication for my diabetes and high blood pressure, and no one questions why I take pills instead of just “feeling better” or “calming down”.

Here are five things to do right now or when you wake up or just before you go to bed or whenever you want to do them. You decide what works for you. I was on the phone with someone for my job and I had tried to say something pithy, intelligent, and comforting and what I said was whatever works for you is – *long pause*, well, it’s whatever works for you. I don’t know if it’s intelligent, but it is certainly pithy. It’s also true. I can suggest hundreds of things to do, ways to think, lists upon lists of how to get through the day, but in the end,whatever you decide works for you is what works for you.

Here are those five things that work for me:

1. Close your eyes and breathe. Through your nose and out of your mouth.
2. Read a book. Any book.
3. Color or draw. You don’t need to be an artist. Doodle. Scribble. Something mindless and colorful. Try it for five minutes.
4. Turn off social media (unless turning it off gives you more anxiety). Not permanently. Turn it off for five minutes. Maybe ten or even fifteen. There is nothing happening online that can’t wait five to fifteen minutes.
5. Drink a tall glass of iced cold water. Hydration is always the right answer.

Have a good week.

The Mental Health Monday posts for this month will also be crossposted on my Substack.