An Overview of the Month Ahead

Today is the first of May. It is the first day of Mental Health Awareness Month.

Mental Health Awareness Month has several facets. The two that I find most helpful are

1. make the outside world aware of what mental health is, what struggles we all face, what can be more difficult struggles some of us face, and letting go of the stigma, encouraging talk and sharing coping tools.
2. Make yourself aware of your own mental health. Where do you struggle? What are some of your coping plans and tools for getting through a rough patch? Or even just an annoyingly mediocre patch? What’s in your toolbox that still works for you?

In other words, assess yourself, share your struggles, challenges, and successes and be there for others in explaining mental health, coping, and the ongoing recovery. Be there for yourself and for others. Some days you can only do one of those, and that’s okay.

Beginning on Monday, I will be publishing a weekly column called Mental Health Monday. I have done many of these throughout the previous several years. Search through the tags to see older but still valuable approaches and coping tools. Sometimes, we forget and rereading and reestablishing some of them again is a valuable tool.

Reassessment in recovery, I find, is ongoing.

None of the strategies and coping tools that I post this month are intended to suggest you forego medication alternatives. I take medication – both prescription and supplemental, all with my doctor’s input and approval. I wouldn’t be here without medication. Don’t let anyone shame you for taking care of yourself. Just like getting from point A to point B, there are many different roads to travel. Very rarely is there just one way, and one (or more) of them is the right way for you. Changing direction is okay, too.

Recognizing a better way and adapting.

Just as a counter has a take a penny, leave a penny dish, in mental health, take a strategy, leave a strategy.

We are all here to help each other.

The tag “mental health monday” is your dish to choose from.

I’ve always thought of my depression, anxiety, and mental health struggles as a journey – a period of recovery with no tangible cure; only moving forward in my mental health, my mental space, my mental recovery.

This is my path and sometimes we cross paths. This is us crossing paths and offering insight, motivation, and ways to keep getting through.