Part 2, 12 Things I Did For My Mental Health In 2022

Rest & self compassion have taken me miles further than berating myself ever did, and other things.

If you missed part one, it’s here, but you can just read it after this one if you want. They aren’t in a particular order.

I joined a fitness studio for accountability and community.

I joined my local Barre3 studio early last January. My first month was paid for by a friend, then I happily signed up to continue my monthly membership because it felt nice to have a place to be and belong. Sure, the exercise is great, too. Ending the class with meditation and breathwork is a bonus!

I shared a couple IG stories shortly into my first month at Barre3 last year about how much I was loving it, and I got a DM one day from someone who said they had followed me a long time, but they were sick of me. How dare I have a GoFundMe up and also pay for a studio membership at the same time, they wanted to know.

Initially, this really did sting. I was already struggling hard to not feel like shit for asking for and accepting financial help, and maybe she was right. Who the hell was I to use any money on such a luxury?

In fact, for 4 months last year, I paused my membership because I was so financially fucked, deep in a depression fog, unable to figure out how to get my life together. I felt like I lost all the progress I made up to that point. This lead to weeks on end of nothing to hold me accountable, few reasons to even leave my apartment when I wasn’t with my kids. I gained weight, which is not a problem in and of itself, but it was bad for my health and reflected in my cholesterol counts.

I used every penny I had to get back into the studio at the end of the summer, and immediately saw a huge improvement in my mental health. I will never not prioritize that expense going forward. I don’t go out to eat much, I rarely buy myself new clothes, don’t get my nails done. I’ll be damned if someone is ever going to make me feel bad about paying to exercise in an environment that benefits my whole health ever again.

I kept taking my meds.

Like, in general, I kept taking my meds. There were definitely stretches when I went without them, though. Perhaps my biggest accomplishment of 2022 was getting back on my meds after I ran out of them, let my depression spiral, then clawed my way back to make an appointment, attend the appointment, fill the meds, and pay for & pick up the meds.

Talk about emotional labor. Staying on my meds is sometimes the thing that takes up the most energy and space in my brain. It’s also the easiest thing to let slip that will have the largest, most detrimental impact on me.

I let myself feel everything, including despair, sadness, shame, anger, disappointment, fear.

If you’re new to the mental health online space, you may notice a seemingly ridiculous focus on “feeling your feelings.” For so long I felt like that’s the stupidest advice ever. How can you NOT feel your feelings? Why is it so groundbreaking to do that? It felt like fluff advice… until I actually realized I wasn’t feeling my feelings. Sure, maybe I was noticing them. But then I was like, ok no, bye. We will not be doing crushing sadness and despair today or ever, thank you.

Not every moment is the best moment to feel hard feelings, though. I realized that I don’t have to stop my life and fall apart every time something hard comes up for me. I will, however, have to deal with it eventually. The best example I have of this from last year was processing the heartbreak from the sudden end of my 9 month relationship with a man the year before- Jay.

You can read all about that starting with this post if you missed it.

At the beginning of 2022, I was extremely emotionally fragile. I was in therapy 3-5x a week for 4-5 hour stretches, but I wasn’t in the place to begin to touch processing that breakup experience. There was a lot of other work to do on myself first to get to a place where I could work through that in a healthy way.

I only realize this in hindsight. At the time, I thought I had dealt with it, even if not head-on. I thought that by working through the other parts of me, the other traumas, that this one was part of the package deal.

There are no discounts, no BOGOs, no package deals in processing your feelings, friends. You must pay full price for each one. If you can’t afford to now, you will probably pay even more later.

Around June of 2022, I began to have vivid dreams about Jay for the first time since our breakup. I woke up sad almost every day. My body was exhausted. I knew I was in that space of trying to dissociate and freeze to escape this unwanted feeling of deep sadness, and I had to consciously choose to let myself stay present. I did a lot of journaling and a lot of crying. I finally let myself listen to songs I knew would touch all the bruised parts of my heart.

I am shocked “All Too Well” did not end up in my top 3 on Spotify Wrapped because it was on repeat all summer.

The thing about “feeling your feelings” is it’s a mess. There’s no beginning, middle and end. It can hurt. It can take you out. It can be exhausting. It can feel scary or like we’re doing it wrong. For me, it doesn’t feel like something that can result in a positive outcome… until I get to the other side.

“All Too Well” doesn’t make me cry anymore. I don’t rage scream & sob the line “I’m a crumbled up piece of paper lying here because I remember it all too well,” in my car now. I feel at peace about how things worked out, and I can let memories come and go without running from them or suppressing the emotions they bring with them.

I held myself accountable for my actions, but with compassion, not self-loathing.

Hustle culture fucked me up, y’all.

Instead of turning me into a Boss Babe who slayed the day starting at 5 am- after washing her face, of course- because dreams don’t work unless you do, the ideals and messages taught me to work in a way that overwhelmed my nervous system and compounded shame on top of existing trauma. Hustle culture made me hate myself, and then it made me feel like a shitty loser for not being able to make money off my self loathing.

So I find it very hard to support any kind of messaging that promotes holding ourselves accountable by being an asshole to ourselves.

A popular podcast host/social media personality came across my IG reels one day, asking an audience to sit on their bed and think “What remarkably STUPID things am I doing on a regular basis to absolutely screw up my life?” And it immediately took me back to the days I was spiraling because I could see the ways I was screwing up my life, but I could not figure out how to stop. And the voice inside my head sounded just like his.

We can not get better at anything until we learn why we are not good at it in the first place. And we can not effectively improve those things by shaming ourselves. That’s just science, ask Brene Brown.

I’m all for self-improvement. I’m all for leaning into discomfort, pushing ourselves beyond points we once thought were our limits. But, I know now that rest and self-compassion has taken me miles further than talking to myself like that ever did.

I accepted that I would fail over and over, and that's not something to be ashamed of.

The thing about me that people praised me for growing up, that I grew to take so much pride in- my tenacity and ability to excel at something when I put my mind to it- became paralyzing as an adult.

I know now I’ve had ADHD my whole life, and likely anxiety and OCD, as well. What looks like diagnosis today were super powers back then because I was able to hack my way through life, channeling the positive and masking the negative. The result was a Gifted & Talented kid who needed external validation for being great at things as much as she needed oxygen.

As a child, it was a lot easier to avoid doing things I wasn’t going to excel at, like that time the varsity basketball coach tried to convince me I could be a great player. I went to one practice, struggled terribly, then told her firmly that it’s not for me. I would focus my efforts on leading my squad as head cheerleader, being the lead in school plays, and competing in speaking competitions, which I often went to state in.

I saw failure as a reflection of my worth, not a stepping stone to learning and growing.

As an adult, failure looked like - to me- a YouTube channel that never made money, a book launch that didn’t get picked up by national media, and so many aspects of parenting. My urge to protect myself from fucking those things up again made me want to stop writing, stop creating, and berate myself for any perceived failure raising children.

Over the last year, I’ve had to reframe what failure is- an opportunity for growth and often a GIFT. I’ve had to hold space for my inner child who longed to try things but didn’t because she didn’t think she could be great at it. And I’ve had to accept that failure is inevitable, and it’s never as bad as I fear it will be.

I found joy and pride in small things, tiny shifts, and incremental progress.

Just as I thought “feel your feelings” was some over-used, bullshit advice, “find joy in the small things” equally made me roll my eyes. Oh sure, I’ll enjoy the small things when all these giant ass things stop trying to take me out, I thought.

My therapist in intensive outpatient last year told us to keep really sweet gum on us, the kind you can blow bubbles with. She insisted that when we needed to ground ourselves, we could chew on a piece of gum, and take a moment to enjoy how it tasted. That we could practice intentional breathing by blowing bubbles.

And I was like, wtf. I am paying thousands of dollars for this?

Cut to a year later. I don’t chew gum as much, but I do slow down and savor the stupidest shit. I let myself take in a sunset (and even some sunrises lately!) on my patio and notice how the breeze feels, what the temperature is, the varying colors in the sky. I buy myself cheap grocery store flowers and make a whole ceremony out of arranging them and placing them around my apartment.

In those moments, I’m not just enjoying small things, I’m also recognizing progress I’ve made. A year ago, there’s no way I was waking up early enough to see a sunrise because I could hardly sleep at night. I couldn’t quiet my mind long enough to focus on arranging flowers.

Am I where I want to be in 2023 based on my 2020 expectations? No. (But who is, honestly?) I don’t have a memoir in the works, soon to be released by a big 5 publisher. I signed another year lease for my 1 bedroom apartment, not a 4 bedroom house. My inbox is still a total disaster.

I am, however, mentally and emotionally healthier than I’ve ever been, breaking generational cycles, loving my kids with heart and authenticity, showing them what it looks like to break and come back together.