Being a mental health advocate means standing firm in your experiences without shame showing others that it’s okay to ask for the support you need.
I share my story in confidence and clarity. I live every day in recovery. I love myself unapologetically and I do what I do to pave the way for others to also become advocates of their own story.
Check out the full virtual event here: https://youtu.be/MqqBQjX1YKo
The Mighty Mic was an amazing experience. I’m extremely grateful that I was able to collaborate with The Mighty to help my community as they find strength in their mental health struggles. Here are some highlights from my event and a message that I learned. I will be planning and hosting more events so stay tuned!
The rain that just passed has drenched me with growing pains as the flowers sprout from my insides out.
A messy masterpiece they called me.
Sometimes my bed arrest me
I’m in trouble from the thoughts that told on me, I broke the law
After some mighty poets and speakers shared I was compelled to share my story to them as well. I noticed a pattern in the themes that recurred in the poems and pieces everyone shared and thought I would give some advice based on what I learned.
Purpose, worth, self-talk, and identity were themes that recurred while I sat and soaked in the message of each story. While we are faced with difficulties with our mental health, it’s often due to mental conversations about those themes. As we continue on in our journey and our battle we must let go of the notion of a single purpose or single mission conforming to the standards of the society we live. Instead, we must continuously walk in our own self-fulfillment-whatever that looks like-while also navigating our peace through the opportunities we are able to take up. We live our life through how much we are filled with happiness and satisfaction with what we are doing. Let’s not waste ourselves with expecting purpose to manifest without manifesting ourselves in the process. We manifest purpose by being alive and continue fulfilling our own talents. Learn yourself, love yourself, and find peace through appreciating your life and the opportunity to live it.
Let’s not only look out for our “strong friends” in the wake of the multiple suicides that has surfaced in the past month. Let’s talk about depression wholeatically and ways that we can be helpful to one another. Let’s talk about mental illnesses and things that we can do to better the lives of the ones we see show symptoms that are obvious and not so obvious. Let’s be aware and awake for one another. Let’s be supportive, invested, and not afraid to sit and talk to each other about mental struggles we go through. Let’s look out for everyone and not just the ones we suspect are “too strong” and may be hiding depression. Let’s instead understand, learn, and gain perspective about mental illnesses and ways that we, as their loved ones, can continuously aid in their healing process. Let the ones who are struggling be comfortable enough to talk about their struggles even if it’s vague or confusing at first. Let us be authentic to one another. Let us ask questions, be present, and actively love on each other.
A brief message that you matter, your voice matters, your life matters, it’s okay to take a break, and you are a life worth living.
Stay healthy. Take care of yourself.
As I learn to explain what anxiety is to others, I have to first validate what it is in my head and love myself through it. Anxiety is something I go through everyday and by understanding where it came from, I can treat it and take steps in my healing process.
List of 14 reminders referred and read in video for self-care while you get through your days.
Take care and be safe.
This video was a requirement for a job opportunity I didn’t get, so I will be sharing it here. This is my attempt at talking about what I go through. It’s a bit vague and short, but liberating. It’s easier for me to write about what I go through than talk about it. Sometimes I can’t find the words to speak, but I can write them down. Sometimes I can create a quote or a poem, but I can’t blatantly talk about the struggles I go through. This is the first of many videos I hope to make in the future. The video quality isn’t great and it’s a bit choppy, but this is new for me. Hope you enjoy.
This is me being open and honest about my depression and anxiety. This is me not pushing my struggles under the rug or declaring what I have isn’t real. This is me facing my monsters. This is me putting myself out in the open. This is me healing.
My nerves spilled and scattered on the pavement
I couldn’t gather them as I trudged and dragged my exhaustion to class that day
Last October
I carried what I could of last night’s sleep, maybe 3 hours, and the anxiety, a monster growing in the pit of my stomach drowning me till the world seemed like a blurry smudge painting
My last year of college came to me like a ton of bricks delivered to my front doorstep
My life turned into a war since I started to worry
Every
Single
Moment
Of
Every
Single
Day
My perfectionist tendencies paired with the thoughts of deadlines…no motivation…and a fear of tomorrow. It made a nice soup ready for panic, don’t you think?
I stirred myself daily but still seemed to make it to every class, do every assignment, and manage a research project
That’s how I was last year
I sat in a office with a woman I told myself to maybe once a week hoping that my fear of living will transform into something else
That’s how I was last year
When I reminisce and think back, I feel how I felt, that numb yet nervous feeling
I can still feel it there, lingering
Last year, I didn’t want to wake up to the sun rising and I didn’t triumph for completing 3 years of college
Instead…
I dreaded the thought of every day coming, long days turning into long nights, a hungry stomach, and the quarantine I built around my sanity
That was last year
I don’t know how I seemed to make it a whole year later though
In the midst of the strains and labor pains of reality, I managed to give birth to a project
This project spiraled in me October of 2015 until it was born
I named her SparklyWarTanks
I made her to fight back
To win the war
To let my sanity free
Every time I wrote something I saved myself and I took another ingredient out of the soup
I typed, pounded my fingers on my keyboard, to explain the motive for the birth of something new in me
I wanted to save another woman’s life while saving my own too
I wanted to burst out and say:
“Take care of yourself, take care of your mind, and your body!”
“You are important and you matter.”
“You are powerful and worthy, and beautiful. You don’t need anyone to tell you.”
Of course those were messages I needed someone to tell me, but instead I became the billboard
The more I wrote, the more I felt the walls crumbling, the walls crowding and containing my sanity were falling
I found the key to the cage of my anxiety which surrounded my quarantined sanity
In october of 2016, grown into an adult, SparklyWarTanks evolved into a vision, into a foundation for women empowerment and mental health, one project exploded into a space, a place, a sanctuary to be safe
My anxiety transformed its face into the partner of ideas and the employer of a plan, it turned into passion.
So as I write, I write to the woman who hates herself and to the one with depression, I write to the woman with the eating disorder and to the ones living on the streets, I’m writing to the ones going through a midlife crisis and self-realization, I write to the mother and to the survivor, I write to the women who hurt and the ones who are stressed, I write to the powerful women and the ones making a difference, I write to the lawyers, and doctors, and writers, and motivators, and to our future
I write to support our next generation of women
That we stand up for ourselves and never hold our sanity hostage
That we declare our independence from expectation and perfectionism
That we defend ourselves and fight for our will to wake up peacefully and unafraid
If I could sum up how I’ve changed from last year to this year, I would simply say
I let my sanity free
SparklyWarTanks 