Did your mental health survive 2020?
Mental health is not just your state of mind, it’s your state of being. When quarantine first started and we were given stay at home orders, it actually felt somewhat of a novelty to me. It was terrifying and anxiety provoking since we knew so little and I was truly a little paranoid to leave my house or see anyone, but I loved the slower paced life and all the extra time with my family, especially my children. We started out doing really well. I organized weekly movie days where we would set up the projector and have popcorn and did endless amount of at home activities like crafts, obstacle courses, and glow in the dark dance parties. We even used the extra time at home, like most people did, to landscape our home, clean out the garage, and organize cabinets and our pantry. At one point I remember getting tearful thinking that I didn’t want our little family bubble to end. As an extrovert who thrives on social interaction, I was shocked how happy and content I was at home. I didn’t miss the outside world and the hustle and bustle of life as much as I thought I would. And I felt like I had won a golden parenting ticket to have the opportunity to spend so much time with my children at home instead of school as they continue to grow at lightning speed before my eyes.
Mental health is not just your state of mind, it’s your state of being.
But now let’s fast forward to the present. We are now 9 months or so into this new normal and I have been starting to unravel a little. As a licensed marriage and family therapist, I have adequate coping mechanisms, and can provide support and or advice to others all day long what they should be doing, but taking a dose of my own medicine is another question. Implementing my own self care isn’t as easy. Since my husband, kids, and I are home all day everyday, I literally have NO time to myself. I am constantly feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed, which lends me to be irritable and frustrated. I am running out of outlets and most days am running on steam (and coffee) trying to manage two jobs, a toddler, a virtual elementary school learner, being a wife, and all of my other household responsibilities. And the social isolation has started to set in. There are days where I feel like I can’t even get out of bed. My kids have called these days “mom lazy days” but little do they know how hard it’s been on a multitude of levels. I am honest with them and tell them when I am not in the best mood or when I have no energy. I tell them that it’s ok to have a bad day and that things aren’t normal right now and we are all trying to navigate the pandemic, survive. and do the best we can. They are young, but I know they cognitively understand to a certain level, and so I try to keep a positive face for their sake, even though on some days I’m falling apart on the inside. I want them to know life can be hard. I want them to also know how to be responsible and give them ways to handle life’s curve balls before the slope gets too slippery.
It’s no surprise our mental health and well-being has suffered this year, but how have you handled this year behaviorally?
It’s no surprise our mental health and well-being has suffered this year, but how have you handled this year behaviorally? Life is ultimately about choices. It’s also about our actions. And as parents, we have the responsibility to make good choices for ourselves and our children. We are their mentors and role models. That doesn’t mean we aren’t human and won’t make mistakes, but it means we have a special superpower called intentionality. We will have bad days. We will feel defeated and overwhelmed. We will be frustrated and irritable. We may get anxious and depressed. And we will certainly get overstimulated. But we also have the ability to stop and think before we act. We have the ability to cope. We have the ability to be vulnerable and talk to our children, no matter what their age, and have an honest conversation about how we feel and most importantly, how we are going to handle it. And children are perceptive. They are watching our every move and learning about how to navigate life from our behaviors, actions, and choices as early an infancy but can start making sense of it cognitively as early as toddlerhood. So it’s never too early to role model the behavior we want our children to see and have conversations with them.
Are we going to grab a bottle of wine and drink our sorrows away on sip at a time, ultimately making ourselves more anxious and depressed and model a maladaptive coping skill on how to handle stress to our children or are we going to intentionally find ways to incorporate new routines of self care and discipline that will help us grow and model a positive way to handle difficult situations? Don’t get me wrong, having a glass of wine at the end of the day to unwind after a long and hard day because you want to is fine if done responsibly. Having a glass of wine, or multiple glasses of wine, because you need to as a way to calm down and try and forget about your day, is not as responsible. According to a recent article from the Washington Post titled “The pandemic is taking a toll on parents, and it’s showing in alcohol consumption rates” highlighted some interesting, yet not surprising research done by the Research Triangle Institute International. The study found that during the pandemic, “an average person’s drinks per day increased 27 percent; the frequency of a person’s drinking that “exceeds drinking guidelines” increased 21 percent; and binge drinking increased 26 percent.”
This is why I am proud and privileged to partner with Responsibility.org this year in helping encourage parents to be responsible with their alcohol consumption and provide resources to help them make responsible decisions around alcohol. They encourage having open conversations with your children about alcohol to help prevent underage drinking and drunk driving. They even have a quiz on their website to help you determine if you are a responsible drinker. I love that their website has a multitude of resources and conversation starters for children as young as elementary school through tween and teen years and all the way to college students. In fact, Responsibility.org created “Ask, Listen, Learn”, a completely FREE digital underage drinking prevention program for kids ages 9-13 (grades 4-7) and their parents and educators with the goal to reduce underage drinking. And in regards to having conversations about alcohol with your children, according to the Responsibility.org website, from 2003 to 2016, conversations between kids and their parents increased by 73%, while underage drinking decreased by 50%.
Drinking rates are down because conversations are up – Responsibility.org
So now how can we be responsible about our mental health? It’s important for us to remember that this year was foreign to us and we are all doing the best we can to survive it, and maybe even conquer it! By nature, I’m the kind of person who likes to spin the positive in a situation, find the good, and highlight the silver lining. If we can’t sit down and process this year in it’s entirety we are doing ourselves a great disfavor. We need to look at all sides of the coin and ask questions like:
What was difficult about this year?
What do I miss the most?
What good came out of this year?
What did I gain the most?
I guarantee you can find an answer to each of these questions if you give yourself time to ponder on the answers, get super raw and real with yourself, and be vulnerable with your thoughts and emotions. The goal of this exercise is to acknowledge the negative but not focus and dwell on it. Life is about balance and we equally, if not more so, lean more on the positive side. The truth is, many of us have suffered emotionally, mentally, socially, and even financially this year. We probably had more challenges than triumphs, but if we give ourselves some grace and self-love, we will get through it. So whether it’s speaking to a therapist, implementing a new exercise routine, creating a daily mantra or a list of positive affirmations, practicing daily yoga, mindfulness, or meditation, find a way to self care. Find a way to role model self love for your children. Find a way to let the good in and try to keep the negative toxicity at bay. There are things you can do to help support and be responsible about your mental health. The important things to remember is to be proactive and intentional about taking care of yourself. Make your mental health a priority.
Here are some question starters for you on how to help manage your mental health and self care. Whether to write in a journal, talk to a loved one or a friend, or seek professional therapy, you can contemplate the answers on your own or with someone else.
How can I be more disciplined about my self care?
How can I protect my mental health more?
How have I coped in the past?
What does a good day look like for me?
What do I have control over in my life?
What is something positive I can focus on today?
The important things to remember is to be proactive and intentional about taking care of yourself.
Earlier this month I had the privilege of hearing Sonya Renee Taylor, award winning poet, speaker and author of The Body is Not an Apology, talk to me and the Responsibility.org team about concepts like radical self-love. Sonya’s 4 pillars of radical self-love include:
o Taking out the Toxic – dump the junk! Example – if your social media feed doesn’t have anything different, if everyone looks the same, it’s not a representation of the real world.
o Mind Matters – banish the binary of either/or language that erases the humanity of others.
o Unapologetic Action – consider daily practices to exercise the muscle of self-love.
o Collective Compassion – give yourself some grace – love the me that is imperfect and uncertain.
And right now, Sonya is working on her new book for children called The Book of Radical Answers and she needs your help! If you have a child between the ages of 10-14, you can submit a question from your child that she may end up featuring in her book! To submit a question, just click on the link for the book above!
This year certainly has been one for the books. We need to honor the year and highlight how we have grown and what we have learned. How will you be responsible with your mental health and actions for the rest of this year?
I am a Responsibility.org ambassador this year and was compensated to write the post but all opinions are my own. #TeamResponsibility.
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