Growing up in a South Asian household where talking about your feelings was not the norm was challenging for me. Thinking back to when I was a young child, I see myself as someone who had big emotions and tended to keep them bottled up. I always felt that I couldn’t fully express how I was feeling around my cousins and friends. Whenever I appeared emotional, they would joke around and make fun of me. There seemed to be a culture of being “tough” and showing your emotions appeared to be “weak”.
As an adult, I feel privilege to have the knowledge that I do on mental health and lived experiences to which I plan on spreading the message of how mental health is essential to living.
Even when my brother started struggling with his mental health in his early twenties, as a family we struggled with understanding the scope of it. There were two incidents before he passed away. During those incidents, we failed to see the signs of his mental health. The first time, in his early 20’s he wrote a note that we would find him in the bottom of the ocean somewhere. At that time, he was not home, immediately we started driving around town to the waterfront area to see if we could find him. No luck. We called our dad to come home and few minutes later, my brother came up the stairs. He sat down and there was just silence. In that silence I looked around at everyone’s faces. I remember just seeing relief, sadness, confusion and worry. I remember my brother sitting on the couch later that night and he was struggling to find words to share how he was feeling. The first thing that came out of his mouth was “we don’t even hug and talk” At that moment, I felt like rushing over to him and holding him tightly and telling him how much I love him. I don’t even remember doing that. I makes me feel frustrated that I can’t remember those details. The day that changed everything. So much I wanted to say back then and did not. Even then, I did not foresee what was to happen years later. I didn’t even think about it. Perhaps that was my body’s way of shutting it all out, being in denial.
Stigma. Even though we as a society are moving towards acceptance of mental health, there is still the stigma around it. I have witnessed it first hand in my previous jobs and even though corporations tend to say they are inclusive there is still many differences.
In one of my recent jobs, my boss told our team that we needed to schedule our mental health days since so many people were taking mental health days off. This was very frustrating to hear and process. I couldn’t believe how the admin team thought this was something that the staff could do. How did they expect staff to expect when they were going to feel burnt out and dysregulated. Mental health is not something you can just plan out like planning for a trip. The waves of depression and anxiety can hit anywhere from a 4.5-9.5 earthquake on any given day. Sometimes there are new triggers and we are trying to process what affected us so deeply.
Glorified overworking culture
Back in April 2019, I was working three jobs; 1 demanding full-time job, two part-time casual jobs. I was also volunteering at the community theatre couple times a month. On average, that month I remember working 70 hour weeks. My weekdays I would work Monday-Friday 8-5 at the learning centre, and then I would go to the youth centre for my restorative justice job 5:30-8:30. My weekends, I would work 1-2 8 hours shifts at my other two part time casual jobs. I would even pick up weekdays causal shifts 8:30-midnight in the shelter at the youth centre. So on average I was only getting 5 hours of sleep every night during the week as I would work on my Claro prep in the early mornings before work. Looking back now, I can see how this schedule was so unhealthy for my body and brain. I often felt like my brain was racing with so many thoughts and later on in the day. In that moment I remember feeling like I could do it all, it felt like a rush, having so many things going on, I felt productive and energetic. However, I think that damage was later felt two years later. It is interesting how the bodies can hold on to so much overtime and then completely breakdown.
It wasn’t until April 2021 when I had my own mental health breakdown, I think it was a combination of overworking my body for a couple years, processing the death of my little brother and underlying mental health concerns that erupted due to my lack of proper sleep for almost two years. In the matter of days, I felt my body shutting down, my body felt lethargic, I was having difficulty with my speech, I hadn’t slept in 72 hours. I went on a mental health leave from work,
I was keen on just getting back to work as soon as possible. I had always worked since I was in grade 9. It’s like I felt incomplete without working. I was constantly thinking about how I was letting down my students and my co-workers because I was not there. My doctor mentioned that I shouldn’t rush back to work and this would be the only time I had to focus on my mental health. I felt defeated. I wasn’t able to work at my causal job or continue my classes. I remember feeling like I had lost “everything”. It is interesting how the culture of “working” and “overworking” can be so powerful that even when my doctors and bosses were telling me to take all the time I needed to get better, it still did not feel “comfortable” for me. It wasn’t until months later that I realized that having that breakdown and being hospitalized was a blessing in disguise. After some days, I took the advice and started just slowing down. Giving rest to my body, going to sleep early without watching shows on my phone. Waking up when I felt I was ready and going for walks throughout the day, doing a puzzle, writing in my journal. Going to the temple. I think having that routine really gave me stretch, comfort and the opportunity to reflect on what had just happened.
