I started struggling with depression and anxiety my freshman year of high school and had no idea what was going on. It was not until I was into my third year of poor mental health did I realize that I was in the pit of something bigger than what I had contributed to young teen angst. Neglecting my mental health led me to treat people as poorly as I viewed myself. I wasn’t the person I knew myself to be. I wasn’t happy and the people closest to me noticed. Yet, my mental health felt like a burden that should have weighed on only me and I, therefore, kept it to myself instead of looking for solutions.

In reality, what I was dealing with actually impacts millions of people. The ADAA reports that 6.8 million people in the U.S. struggle with general anxiety disorder, a disorder twice as likely to impact women, and that number is more than double for people struggling with major depressive disorder.

I wish I could say the culmination of negativity exploded into a moment of realization and action and that I got the professional help that I desperately needed – as I urge those struggling with mental health issues to do. At points, I did seek help but because of my resistance to being honest with my struggling, the help never struck a chord that changed how I was living.

The true moments of realization and action came when events of the universe changed my life and my perception of it to the point that I was forced to find mental sanctity or potentially lose myself all together, forever. I found my mental health healing in grieving for the person I loved following his sudden death.

The grief I felt following his death made me question who I had even been before and completely void of any idea of who I would be now.

In the aftermath of it all, I was only aware of two things:

One — I was starting from scratch. Who I had been before was stripped away right up to my core and everything that came after was going to evolve one way or another from that.

Two — I was at my absolute darkest, deepest rock bottom, further than I’d thought I could ever go. That meant I could evolve in any direction, for better or worst.

I decided, first, that I was going to be someone who was honest with herself and I started to build from there.

My sister and I call the months right after his death “the forgotten months”. I don’t remember what I did day-to-day because I had dropped my classes and had taken a leave at work. I do know I spent those months in my head, feeling everything. I’d been thinking about love, human connections, faith, time, space, identity, fate, purpose. I thought of those things and where I was in context with them. This brought out a lot of negativity and made the hard moments, harder, but instead of letting myself be consumed by them, as negative thoughts usually do, I fought them.

Each thought and feeling that came along I took the time to recognize it, but without letting it stay. Advice someone gave me in the beginning of those months pushed me forward and still helps me to this day:

Imagine you are a home with all the doors and windows open so that wind can pass through freely. The windows stay open to let the wind in but are also open to let it flow out. Recognize feelings in the same way by knowingly opening yourself up to them, letting them in and letting them go. You can’t control what wind comes in just like you can’t always control how you feel so sometimes it’s best to just let it all in until it passes. It’s better than closing all the doors and windows and stifling yourself.

After those initial months of grieving, I was still hurting and broken but I had been building. It was like I could feel there was more to myself than just my core and it was rooted in honesty and compassion. The bad mental health that had plagued me and seeped into my life and the lives of those around me hadn’t grown with me. I was becoming bigger than it. A scale had been tipped and the happy person I had always known myself to be was coming through like fresh air. I once again recognized myself like I hadn’t since I started struggling with mental health as a high school freshman. I loved her. I loved happy Liv. I wanted her to keep pushing, keep evolving. I didn’t want anything to keep her down because she had come so far from so low.

I kept thinking about bigger picture things and my place in that, but I made an effort to think about little things too; the day-to-day moments and using those with intention.

Being mindful of being present in each moment began to help me not only face my mental health but gain control over it. This took practice and patience with myself.

When I started to feel negativity or anxiety creeping into my thoughts, I remembered to breathe, which seems so simple and overstated but it’s true. Centering yourself with breathing and grounding yourself with each breath can help stop the world from spinning so fast. I also reminded myself that the one moment I was in, was only one part of a much bigger moment and that all I could do to influence the bigger one was whatever I was capable of doing with the one I was in right then. If I was doing all I could, that’s how that small moment was meant to work in the bigger. I remembered that the good and the bad things that have, and will, happen aren’t personal.

Things do just happen and that’s how it’s always going to be. We have to take each wave the universe gives us, flow with it while still doing our part to keep our head above water.

I lost a soul mate and it left me raw. But my soul was still intact and I’m doing my best to make it and keep it happy and healthy. I know I’m still not the perfect version of myself, I don’t even know what that would mean for me. I do know that if I’m going to keep positively evolving, I have to take my health seriously, mental or otherwise. We can so easily forget to keep up with ourselves when we’re just trying to make it through the day.

If I could tell my younger self one thing it would be to take my mental health, and the help I needed, seriously. I lost myself for so long and felt like no one knew what that felt like. As lonely and burdensome as I might have felt, I know there will always be people out there that can and would love to help all those that struggle with mental health. We don’t have to do this alone and, with help, honesty and self-care, we don’t have to do this forever.

http://suicidehotlines.net/michigan.html

xo, Olivia

@oliviamenchaca