The antidote to overwhelm is to offload.
I daydream about what it'd be like to freeze time.
When overwhelmed by the mountain of things vying for my attention, I wish there were a pause button I could slap. Then, maybe I would exhale and get to everything at my own pace before returning to normal speed.
When I was in college, I experienced a pretty severe mental health crisis. I was completely overwhelmed and ill-equipped to get myself out of it. I didn't know how to separate the death, dependency, drama, and dysphoria that'd been ravaging my personal life from my focus on school and work. I remember withdrawing further and further from people and obligations until the only time I was leaving my room was to go out drinking.
There hadn't been a pause button to use, but slowing down the pace of stuff had eventually been helpful. I've since realized that's sort of an inevitable, yet unintentional, side-effect of isolating from everything and everyone. It can even be a sign of someone struggling with their mental health for that very reason.
All these years later, there are still chapters of life that challenge my ability to keep pace. These days, I have plenty of knowledge, tools, resources, and a strong support system... but the phrase I always come back to?
The antidote to overwhelm is to offload.
To slow down.
To get rid of stuff—things I was going to drop anyway. The relief is instant. Letting go of stuff is the best way I've found to give more of myself to fewer things. It's also a reminder I still need more often than I'd care to admit. My overwhelm doesn't get to the levels it used to, but that's because I know what to look for and I keep pretty vigilant about spotting the warning signs. I never again want to experience the kind of low like the one that led to having my life on the line.
Depression sucks. I mean, it's just awful.
I don't wish it on anyone.
This is what came to mind for me yesterday when reading a new essay from Stephanie from Note To Self. She published this last night and I've now read it a few times since. The headline's quite provocative, but it's the most honest piece of writing I've read in a very, very long time... maybe the rawest work I've come across outside of a classroom.
If you clicked the link, I feel compelled to tell you up front that she's not in imminent danger; that the essay does not describe someone's mental health crisis.
It does, however, put words to the more downtrodden chapters of life that every human will experience in some way, shape, or form yet hesitates to name or describe. I like it because it normalizes big emotions without subsequently ushering them off stage. It demands the right to take up space without yelling, and it aptly calls bullshit on the practice, however well-intentioned, of reaching too quickly for positivity during life's objectively horrid moments.
Sometimes things just suck. Stephanie does not conceal nor sequester parts of her experience in her essay.
And I quite admire that.
Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
106/365
How honest can you be with yourself? And with others?
onward.
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