It's Mental Health Action Day and I have a confession to make...
You may not know it, but today is Mental Health Action Day—a day dedicated to raising awareness, reducing stigma, promoting self-care, advocating for policy change, and fostering community support for mental health awareness.
Today I’m taking action…
because the easiest way to normalize conversations about mental health is to be open about our own. So here we go…
It’s a day when we’re encouraged to book a therapy appointment or schedule some self-care time or journal or go for a walk or connect with a friend or just take a break from trying so hard. For me, though, it means talking, very publicly, about my own relationship with mental illness. Because the easiest way to normalize conversations about mental health is to be open about our own.
So, in the spirit of taking action for the benefit of my own mental health, I’m here to make a confession… one I’ve never made publicly…
I have dark thoughts. And I’ve had them for as long as I can remember.
Would I consider myself suicidal? No. Have I ever acted on the darkness I feel in the quiet corners of my mind? No. Are my feelings constant or do I just sometimes wish I could put my brain on pause? Definitely the latter. So why, then, am I outing myself and talking about it here? Simple. Because, on some level, I think we all have dark thoughts, troubling narratives we spin in our heads that we don’t know what to do with. Moments when we’re especially down or withdrawn or feeling hopeless or unworthy and we just wish there was a way to transform those thoughts, but we can’t seem to find it. And speaking as someone who’s spent her entire life as a highly sensitive person, feeling all the feels and vibrations of the world so deeply, I can tell you it gets exhausting after a while.
I’m also a survivor of suicide loss, losing my father to mental illness when he was barely 45, so I’ve lived with the genetic code for depression all my life. And when you add my dad’s mental health with the DNA of so many of my blood relatives who’ve lived with mental illness, my genetic cocktail is a strong one, and I feel the pull from it every day. The thing is, I rarely, if ever, talk about it. Until now. And I’m intentionally talking about it here as a way of #TalkingAwayTheDark.
The irony is, in my case, like so many others I know, aside from losing my dad to suicide when I was ten, I’ve been blessed with a pretty beautiful life. I have a husband I adore who’s always supported and loved me unconditionally in every way. I have two amazing grown daughters who truly are my best friends. I have a family and friends who show up for me in every way I need them. I have my health, a comfortable home, and the flexibility to do the job I love. Yet, at the same time that I acknowledge and feel gratitude for all of those things, I also have these inexplicable feelings of sadness sometimes that I just can’t shake. Feelings that make me feel heavy and unsure of myself and, at times, empty, even though, on the surface, my life is rich and full of love and purpose and happiness. And I’m honestly not sure why. I just know the feelings are there and they worry me from time to time because my own father had them too. But I’m working on that.
The big difference between my father and me is that my dad kept his feelings in the shadows and I’m choosing to bring mine directly into the light. I’m in therapy again for the first time in over 30 years as an act of self-care and I’m intentionally attaching words to my feelings in the hopes of better understanding where they come from and how to navigate them. And I’m doing that through powerful conversations.
See, we don’t need any special training to have authentic dialogue about mental health, we just need to be willing to take what’s inside and bring it out into the open. Unapologetically. We need to acknowledge that we’re not ok. We need to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. We need to share that we’re frightened or hurting or overwhelmed or anxious. And we need to do it often and without worrying that we’re burdening the people we love. Because we’re not. That’s precisely what they’re there for.
For those without clinical depression or anxiety, those intense emotions that surface from time to time are more like a blip on our internal radar. We’re aware of them and we’re affected by them in the moment, but they tend to drift off our screen almost as quickly as they appeared with some attention and action. For others with more chronic anxiety, depression, and mental illness, they’re part of the everyday fabric of life and they can be debilitating.
But there are things we can do to help us maintain control of our emotional health, like reach out to a therapist, a counselor, a psychologist, or a friend and just start talking. It’s really that simple.
So that’s my action today. I’m reaching out with honesty and sharing that sometimes I’m just not ok. And I’m doing it because being vulnerable feels empowering. It also paves the way for others to open up and share that they’re not ok either.
So set aside a little time today to #takeaction on your own mental health. Call someone you trust and start a conversation. Let’s empower each other to prioritize our mental health and well-being because it’s an investment worth making.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, dial 988 and a trained lifeline counselor will be there to help.
Lisa Sugarman is a parenting author, a nationally syndicated columnist, a crisis counselor with The Trevor Project and Samaritans Southcoast, and an advocate for suicide prevention & awareness. She’s also a survivor of suicide loss. Lisa writes the syndicated opinion column It Is What It Is and is the author of How To Raise Perfectly Imperfect Kids And Be Ok With It, Untying Parent Anxiety, and LIFE: It Is What It Is, available on Amazon, at Barnes & Noble, and everywhere books are sold. She’s the co-host of the podcast LIFE UNfiltered, on iTunes and iHeart Radio, and a contributor to Healthline Parenthood, Grown And Flown, TODAY Parents, Thrive Global, Care.com, and LittleThings. She lives with her husband and two daughters just north of Boston. Visit her online at lisasugarman.com.