#mhaw

Hey y'all! You might've seen this floating around, and if you haven't, sucks to be you, because my best friend @thelovelymachinery created it and she's awesome. I'll link her original post here, but for a quick summary of what's going on, each day leading up to and including Valentine's day we'll be talking about a new couple in one of my wips. All asks about the couple of the day will be answered no matter how spoilery they are. I'll probably be structuring mine a bit differently than hers, but she does have a template in her post if you'd like to use it.

Here's my schedule, we're doing an extra day because I somehow forgot one of my most important couples so pretend Valentine's day is the fifteenth:

Feb 6th: Aden and Arnav (WYS)

Feb 7th: Faine and Medusa (WYS)

Feb 8th: Caspian and Lucian (LAM)

Feb 9th: Viktor and Makariy (WYS)

Feb 10th: Elvina and Aradia (WYS)

Feb 11th: Chardreth and Drinios (AAD)

Feb 12th: Lance and John (NPL)

Feb 13th: Angelique and Malcolm (MHAW)

Feb 14th: Christine and Alexander (WYS)

Feb 15th: Melantha and Adrian, Alexis, August, and Brandon (WYS)

As you can see most of these are from WYS but some of them are from other projects. I haven't introduced a lot of these so this'll be your first looks at them. Hope you enjoy!

in high-pressure academic environments in particular, it's really easy to feel like you don't have time to take a day or two off on a whim or to feel expected to work 10+ hours a day - this is not true. ask for deadline extensions. give yourself permission to spend your day doing absolutely nothing; if you feel like you need external permission/validation, use this! this is me telling you not to push yourself!

i have a heck of a lot of depression + trauma rocking around my empty little head, and some days - multiple in succession last week, and i have exams in a fortnight! yay! - i just can't do anything. at all. it takes me upwards of 4-5 hours to get out of bed and make some breakfast, if i even do so at all. and on those days i feel so much added stress because i know i have deadlines and exams barrelling towards me and quite often experience guilt over not spending my energy working on either of those big things.

but at the end of the day, i know that if i force myself to work through a bad episode, i won't actually get anything out of it. i won't retain any knowledge on the topic i'm trying to revise, i won't be able to construct a good argument for my essay, anything i try to write will be garbled and incoherent and generally disappointing for both myself and my supervisor. so trying to work when i don't feel up to it is a net negative. there are no benefits. all it does it direct energy that could otherwise be spent on self-care into an exhausting activity from which no rewards can be reaped.

give yourself a damn day off.

Over the last few years I have been a bit more open about my mental health but this year especially I cannot stress the importance of taking care of your mental health.

My mental health deteriorated when I started developing symptoms of BPD which about 9 years ago now. Not knowing that I was suffering with this disorder meant that I thought that I was just a broken human being. My symptoms included depression, anxiety, an eating disorder, self harm and chronic dissociative symptoms. I had really low days but I thought that was normal for a moody teenager. Then those lows days turned into weeks, then they turned into months and then before I new it years went by and I had missed out on so many good moments of my young adulthood because I was incapsulated about how much I was eating, when I needed to exercise, if people were happy with me, if I felt in control, how to manage these intense feeling that I was feeling, dissociative symptoms... the list just goes on. 

I thought that the intense emotions I was feeling were normal. I thought that the way in which I adapted to cope was something that was going to actually help me. I believed that just powering on and putting on a brave face will make it all better and things will just sort themselves out. People told me ‘oh, you’ll just grow out of it’ but for years I kept hitting a lower rock bottom which would be triggered by little things like someone not smiling at me in the street or bigger things that I won’t share here.

In January this year, I hit my lowest of lows. I was so tired of putting on a brave face, trying so many treatment options and having them not go they way I was hoping, not having any answers from professionals to tell me what the actual fuck was going on and falling into a very messy storm of painful and agitating thought and emotions that I just couldn’t control. I ended up having to be taken to hospital twice in 72 hours because I put my body in danger. I felt the most alone in my entire life and for the first time ever, I just had no hope or energy left to fight.

BUT... I am here! :) Writing this slightly incoherent post (sorry!) four months on. After my hospital admissions, I had colleagues contact family back home in NZ who now have a much better understanding about mental health and BPD. I have been allocated a care co-ordinator that I trust, been officially diagnosed after years of not knowing what was going on and medication that is helping to help myself. I just found a therapist who I am so lucky to have found after having so many that haven’e quite been the right fit and most importantly, I am slowly healing. 

My message to YOU (yes, you) is that your mental health is worth fighting for. Family members, friends, therapists and ever doctors may not take your symptoms seriously or tell you to go do some yoga (which is amazing but not the only way to help your mental health) but ultimately if something doesn’t feel right or you notice that you aren’t coping in ways that are healthy or helpful, you don’t have to suffer in silence. Accessing services for mental health are a challenge in a lot of countries where wait lists are upwards of 9 months (!!!) or just incredibly expensive. However, there are so many ways to reach out to start the conversation. Check in with friends, gently start challenging yourself to share when you are not doing so great (as much as you are comfortable with) or make an appointment to see a mental health nurse, GP or counsellor to see what kind of professional support you can get. @katimorton is an excellent resource to start with if you would like more understanding on mental health. You’re a little legend, Kati! 

I just wanted to share my story and I hope that you take this month to reach out and start talking to someone who you trust in confidence to slowly ease the burden. Everyone has their own mental health and you do not have to go through the tricky stuff alone. 

MENTAL HEALTH IS AS IMPORTANT AS YOUR PHYSICAL HEALTH!

May you know that you are loved and supported <3