When Your Brain Is a Bad Neighborhood, Call in a Friend

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but if you’re struggling with your mental health: it’s not your fault. You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re doing the best you can right now, and your best is good enough.

Perhaps unsurprisingly after two weeks of Covid, I ended up a bit depressed. I didn’t have access to my primary tools for improving my mental health – running, baking, socializing. I wasn’t able to hug people or co-regulate in person. So, it makes sense that my mood would tank, and I would struggle to find my way back to hope and optimism. 

Hurray. I’m human! I have a range of emotions – some of which I don’t like. And most of which are decidedly beyond my control.

And yet! When this happens to me, when I end up depressed or overwhelmed or struggling with my anxiety or ADHD, I still fall into the trap of internalized stigma. My brain tries to convince me it’s my own fault that I’m feeling down or overwhelmed. I imagine that if I just did x, y, or z, I could “snap out of it.” And that’s the trap of toxic positivity talking, along with the delusion that I’m somehow in control of my own brain chemistry through will power alone. 

Sometimes Our Brains Just Fuck with Us

It’s one of those curious tricks of the brain that something up in my head tells me to have compassion and empathy and understanding for all the other people in my life who struggle with mental illness. I can be supportive and encouraging and help my friends navigate the murky waters of medication. Chemical depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, ADHD, CPTSD, bipolar… I can fully appreciate that none of that is within my friends’ control. And I can show up in ways that are loving and supportive. I don’t expect them to be able to just decide to not let it affect them.

But when it comes to myself? My brain tries to trick me into thinking all of that shit doesn’t apply to me. That mental illness is something other people can’t control, but I’m just not trying hard enough. Even though I have diagnoses, mine aren’t that bad; I shouldn’t be struggling because my life is so good on the whole. 

And that’s the bitch of mental illness. It tries to convince you that you’re somehow different, and your problems aren’t the same as other people’s. It’s the trap of terminal uniqueness. My anxiety, ADHD, CPTSD and occasional chemical depression try to convince me that I’m alone or unique in my struggle. If nobody understands me, if I’m different from everyone else, then I’m never going to really feel the connection and belonging that I so desperately crave. 

The truth is, I can’t do this alone (and by “this,” I mean practically everything). Not because I’m incompetent or incapable, but because my brain is just a dick sometimes. And I need outside perspective to recognize the shitty stories that my brain comes up with for the self-protective, ineffective coping mechanisms that they are. 

The shitty idea – that we are somehow just too different or too much or too broken, an idea picked up in childhood through bullying or abuse or neglect – takes a lot of work to dismantle. But the path to love and connection and belonging is paved with empathy, with looking for the ways in which other people do understand, can relate to our experience, and want to fully see us for the glittery little snowflake of a human that we are.

Mental health isn’t about will power. It’s not about writing more gratitude lists or meditating longer or just thinking happy thoughts. It’s about being kind to ourselves and getting the support we need – usually from other people. 

Connection Is Key, and It Takes Effort

We talk a lot in recovery about how alcoholism and addiction are diseases of isolation (and they are!), but so is modern living in general. We evolved to live in tribes, y’all! And in the western world, we’ve moved farther and farther away from a connected, community model of daily life. We stay cooped up in our houses, hundreds or thousands of miles from family, pretending that screens and text messages are adequate substitutes for meaningful connection.

We’re not wired to do life alone. We’re wired for connection, and the last few years of pandemic really did a number on our capacity to connect with each other. But it’s not like we were doing a super great job prior to that. I think Covid just brought into stark contrast how isolated and cut off we can become if we aren’t consciously choosing to cultivate connection.

But let’s all just pause and give ourselves some credit for how much effort that actually takes! Fostering connection in an increasingly fragmented world takes work. While it might seem like having friends and community is easy or effortless for other people – I don’t think that’s true. I think connection is hard for almost all of us. 

[Sidenote: I would say everyone there, but I think it’s important to avoid superlatives. Maybe there are people out there who just effortlessly fit in and have friends and feel connected and a part of and accepted for who they are… but, let’s be real, those folks probably aren’t reading this blog. And I certainly haven’t met them.]

Call a Friend – Especially If You Don’t Want to

This originally started as a post about how mental health isn’t a moral failing, how it’s not about will power, it’s not a thing that we can just decide to take charge of and magically fix – because it’s way more complicated than that. And when I’m in it, I can lose sight of that. But as is often the case with the shit I write about, this wound up being about connection. 

It always comes back to connection. Loneliness kills people, y’all. For real. Having meaningful connections in our lives is what makes life worth living. 

So, if and when you’re struggling – pick up the phone. Call someone and ask how they’re doing, or be honest about how you’re doing. Or both. That’s the moral of this story.

I called a lot of people while I was sick. I hopped on online meetings and did what I could to stay connected while quarantined. And it didn’t magically fix my feelings, didn’t save me from getting depressed. But it did help. A lot. Things would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t reached out.

We can’t wait for someone to rescue us. We can’t expect friendship and romance to just happen. We have to put in some effort. If making a call feels impossible, start with a text. We can’t think our way out of whatever funk our brains create. We have to do something, have to get outside of ourselves to break the loop. 

So, even and especially if you don’t really want to, reach out to somebody. You don’t have to do this alone (even if you do have to stay away from other people because you’re sick and quarantined and everything feels stupid and impossible). 

The cool thing about life is that it changes, and even when it feels like whatever we’re going through will never end – it will. We just gotta get through today, and calling a friend will help.