Feeling like yourself instead of “acting like yourself”

I distinctly remember a moment about a month ago.  I was hanging out with someone I’d only crossed paths within the last 6 months and I randomly started singing poorly.  They looked at me with eyes wide and went “What was that?”.  I remember being confused and said “Oh my singing outbursts,  I do that a lot and by the way you’re welcome”.(and laughed)  Afterwards it dawned on me, I hadn’t been doing it A LOT or at all for that matter. I hadn’t sung or randomly popped out a dance move in so long that one of my distinct traits had never been witnessed by this individual.   What a profound slap of realisation in the face.  That even though I thought I’d been doing well to be acting chirpy previously, there were some very distinct missing pieces to my usual repertoire.  I’d not only been kidding others I’d been kidding myself.  

It’s a very strange feeling to put yourself out there and be patted on the back for sharing how you feel. When I wrote that article I felt like that was old news, I’d squared away so then to have people open up and acknowledge it, it made me feel like maybe it was still a bit more real than I’d given it credit.  The same way I can fool others, I can sometimes fool myself (academy award is only a matter of time).  I’m incredibly grateful for everyone who reached out and equally happy to have been able to open a dialogue around mental health.  With that comes a sense of responsibility to continue to share, another feeling of pressure but one I’ll get over. This week has been tough actually.  

After last week’s ConfessionMel I feel like it’s important to give some context to what was going on at the time.  This was a reflective piece.  That back at this point in time, I was NOT OK I knew I had to level up. ME. It was on ME. You must want and seek help and be ready to be able to get yourself out of a funk. You need good people around you, paid or unpaid but you have to put the work in.

I had to put the work in. I still have more work to do. I’m feeling more and more like me, instead of acting like me.

You know when you’re doing your bronze medallion at high school and the teachers tell you must tread water and keep your head above water. Well, turns out if you just tread water for hours at some point, you’ll get waterlogged, struggle hard and potentially drown.

Treading water is an effective technique short term to keep your head above water to survive. At some point though if you can’t swim, you’re going to get stuck and suffer. It starts by maybe your head dropping beneath the water and getting a mouthful in your lungs, it hurts and makes it hard to breathe. You keep treading trying hard to stabilise yourself, until you drop under again, swallowing more water. There is only so much you can take in before it does you in and you can’t get your head above again. Same token if you don’t grab onto that rope someone throws you, you can’t then blame someone else for you drowning. You also can’t expect someone to be there always to throw you that rope. You need to learn to swim eventually.  To save yourself.

I hoped by sharing I would help to create awareness around differing perceptions of what mental health can look like. That video regardless of how I felt at the time was very true to character, what I did with that Mexican crossing was very true to my usual traits.  I don’t want everyone to run on the assumption that if you see someone running around being an idiot and laughing is crying out for help. 

Our lives are a work in progress. Curve balls are thrown constantly, some may hit us and leave a mark, and some of those balls may connect with something or cause a bit more damage.  If one of those curve balls keeps tapping or hitting on the same spot. Almost like a getting a corky at footy, but this one is on your brain and you can’t see it.  Similarly, if you don’t take the appropriate steps to look after it you’ll end up back on the field with a big tender lump of scar tissue that is way more susceptible to get reinjured and take you off the field again quite quickly.  But had you taken the time to rehab properly in the first place, you’re in with much more of a fighting chance. 

By putting in the work, same as with skills training at footy we are better equipped at catching those balls and throwing them back. Sometimes regardless of the training put in we drop the ball and maybe miss the goal. That’s ok. It’s important to be aware that we don’t and won’t necessarily get a perfect run, it might be the umpires against us, the conditions or one of many other things are not favourable. We can’t control everything. We can only control what we can control.  Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

Mental health can be a bit like an old injury.  Sometimes you don’t realise that you are failing to prepare because your brain is already clouded by fog or you’ve been feeling good for a while, so you forget and get complacent about putting the work in.  You can’t not play footy for a while, take the field and be just as amazing as you were without some upkeep.

Same with physical injuries it’s important to seek knowledge and support BUT it’s on you, not anyone else, to put the work in. You must use those resources and knowledge. If it was a big corky and you want to look after it, you may need to get up every few hours and ice it. I knew I needed to change things, because I kept re-injuring myself metaphorically, the more I pushed through, the worse the injury would get and then it would get to the point where I couldn’t take the field. I was doing things that helped me take the field, but I wasn’t really being a great player on it. I was maybe filling space. Not contributing heavily but I was there. I was running through the motions, on autopilot. To a degree this works. But you won’t be winning grand finals with a team if you have a load of passengers along for the ride. 

Also, all injuries don’t heal the same. Some take longer, some take different techniques, you need to keep trying to find the right one for you. There is no quick Band-Aid fix with mental health.

Take a deep breath and fill your lungs with the motivation they need to keep progressing along, continuing to “Feel more like yourself instead of just acting like yourself”

You may lose a few battles but the war is there to be won.