Ever get the blues?

You know, those days when you'd rather not be around people, or get dressed or even get out of bed? I know I do.  My blues tended showed up monthly when my hormones were going nuts. Or when I'm feeling especially stressed, queue the breakouts, water weight gain and the stress eating.  

But what happens when it isn't just the blues? What if those down moments aren't attached to a feminine cycle? What if those depressed days turn into weeks or months or even years? What do you do when you've got more than just the blues?

As an African American woman who did a large portion of her growing up in the South, the answer was NOTHING.  I come from a long line of smart strong beautiful southern women who were taught to put everyone else's well being before our own.  We were too busy to be depressed. We didn't have time to get anxious.  We worked in one mode, strength. 

Why?

Why weren't we allowed to be human? Why was it so unthinkable to admit that we could suffer from mental health problems? Why was I an adult before I learned that tending to my mental well being was an actual thing? 

I posed this very question to an expert. Tierra McGlothin, MSN was gracious enough to weigh in with some very insightful information. Tierra is a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner.  In other words....girlfriend knows her stuff. (Check her out on Instagram)  In the first few minutes of our conversation I realized that even though I consider myself an educated woman, I had a lot to learn regarding mental health. 

Tierra pointed out that because Mental health issues aren't visible, they are easy to dismiss.  You can't see what depression looks like.  A person may be visibly sad, but that is not the same as when a person is depressed.  As a matter of fact, the most put together person in the room could be suffering from debilitating anxiety or depression. Mental illness is a brain disease, but If a person doesn't look sick, then they are fine, right?

That type of thinking is dangerous.  It keeps us from seeking the treatment we need to get back to being ourselves.  When Tierra mentioned that many of us take the DIY approach to healing ourselves.  I knew I was guilty.  Obstacles that I'd faced in my past left me with moments of extreme anxiety.  I just thought I was blue, or on really bad days indigo.  I attributed it my hormones.  I'd get more sleep,  I'd take a day off from work. I'd go have cocktails with my girls. 

My anxiety had to manifest itself in physical ways before I paid proper attention to it. I didn't even  realize that I had anxiety.  I was literally breaking out in rashes,  going days without sleep, binge eating or not eating at all, I was getting phantom aches in places where there shouldn't be any pain. One day I woke up lopsided, one breast was it's regular size and the other was almost 3 times bigger.  I laugh at it now, but it wasn't funny then.  I was scared. My body had to force me to listen to what my brain was trying to tell me. 

I was in my doctor's office getting treated for yet another physical ailment when the she sat me down and said "what is really going on with you?"  When I gave her a brief rundown of what I was dealing with she told me that I was suffering from anxiety and that I needed to address it before I ended up with even more serious physical issues.  All those days when I'd said "Maybe I'm just this or maybe I'm just that" I could have maybe'd myself into the hospital. I am fortunate that I didn't suffer lasting effects from diagnosing myself, but I could have.  

There is a stigma around mental health, and too often we ignorantly throw around the word "crazy".  What's crazy is not taking care of our mental selves the way we do our physical selves.  Making sure our brains and emotions are healthy is the most sane thing we can do.   

Sometimes it isn't just the blues....

Stay tuned.  We aren't finished with this topic.