See The Person, Not the Condition: Mental Health Awareness Month

If you're reading this, there's a good chance you follow me on instagram. In which case, I guarantee you there's been at least 6 moments in the time you've been following me where you thought to yourself "Wow, this BITCH is crazy." Why 6 times? I dunno, I just feel like it's definitely more than a handful of occurrences. I'm loud, outspoken, opinionated, often don't care who I hurt if I feel like I'm justified (although it's never my intention to hurt anyone), painfully transparent and sometimes an oversharer. Somewhere, somehow throughout time "crazy" came to be a way to describe negative or erratic behavior we don't agree with. It's like when for an embarrassingly too long amount of time, people used the word "gay" to describe something bad... which by the way, how DARE you? Gay only means happy and rainbows and unicorns and pretty people more stylish than me. I digress... "crazy" should not ever be used to describe those with a mental illness. Merriam-Webster's synonyms for crazy are: absurd, bizarre, fanciful, fantastic, foolish, insane, nonsensical, preposterous, unreal, wild. I'm okay with being called crazy/bizarre/unreal/wild because of my personality. However, if you or someone you love had a mental illness, I doubt you'd like them being thought of in those terms BECAUSE of their illness.

Believe it or not, my bachelor's degree is in psychology. One of the first things I learned in my classes was that people HAVE mental illnesses, but people are not to be labeled as a mental illness. Someone has schizophrenia, but calling them a schizophrenic implies that their illness means more than anything else about them. Even I make the mistake of saying I'm depressed, but really I'm still ME... I just have depression. I have trouble sleeping, but I'm more than an insomniac. I have panic attacks and am limited on the types of social occasions I can take, but I'm more than anxious. I'm thankful to be educated in a subject that ended up impacting my life so deeply, but in a way it has been harmful. I spent a lot of years being cocky and thinking that I understood too much about psychology to seek out help for mental struggles. I mean I'm just gonna say it... even now it still feels weird when a psychiatrist asks me what I studied in school and I say psychology. We both politely chuckle, but its strange having a level of knowledge (although not doctorate level) and still having to find the courage to ask for help. So how did I find myself in this position to subject myself to waving the white flag?

I've never been fully happy with myself, although I always exceed at whatever tasks are presented to me and always did wonderfully in school. As a kid, this unhappiness tends to be from superficial things...popularity, number of friends, clothing brands, looks/weight etc. At least it was for me. But you never really get down deep enough to being so upset with yourself as a person on the level of what you can achieve because you're still so young... the world is your oyster. Even if you're not 100% sure on what you wanna do for your career, you just know it's gonna work out. Until you're 27 and you realize it hasn't. My professional life has been very strange and deeply unsatisfying, although working at Disney for so many years is an experience I won't forget. Between two college programs and 3 years full time, I was a cast member for almost 5 years. However, unless you move up within the company itself or have a specific certification from college, almost all frontline roles at Disney lend themselves to placing you in the "customer service" box for your whole life. I knew I had to leave Disney for my best happiness and growth, but somehow all I was getting hired for was Customer Support outside of Disney. Let me just tell you... not making decent money and being a human punching bag for people until I die wasn't exactly my dream.

ANYWAY, I think a couple years ago I just realized that I was feeling stuck, never progressing even though I knew I could be and should be (unlucky hand at life?), and I just completely broke down. I stopped running completely. There was no mental energy to even go slow twice a week. I just stopped. I would only shower about 3 times a week. I ate... a LOT. I gained a lot of weight. I'm not super unhappy with the weight part because I know things have kinda stabilized now and I portion food better. I was single and hating it... still single now, but hate it a lot less. So I went to a psychiatrist. I wanted to be on meds. This isn't the route for everyone and if you would rather do therapy or therapy in combination with medicine, that's GREAT. I'm hoping to give therapy a try one day. It had taken me so long to talk to someone about mental health at all that I didn't want to talk about me in the way that therapy would force me to. I wanted to give a synopsis of my symptoms and receive treatment. Baby steps... and that's okay. It's working out for me.

I frequently talk about my psychiatrist appointments and show off my prescriptions when I get to go pick them up because I want so badly to normalize mental illness and receiving mental health treatment. I'm still a completely "normal," sane, functioning human. I don't lose my mind if I stop taking my meds and some days I feel like I don't need them. Mental Health isn't black and white and it's not visible. Psychiatrists have checklists of symptoms to ask you about, but have to go off of what you tell them. There's no quantitative data of measuring heart rate, blood pressure, etc. It's just you and what you feel to be best for yourself. I want everyone to do what they need to do to be their best selves without fear of stigma or suffering in silence. If you are struggling with anything at all, please remember that you are YOU. You are not your struggles or your illness.

It would mean a lot to me if you considered reading this information about stigma and taking the StigmaFree pledge with NAMI. https://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/Pledge-to-Be-StigmaFree

xx Ashley