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World Mental Health Day 2022: Taking a moment to reflect on my own Mental Health

October 10th is National Mental Health Day and I think it would be a perfect moment to talk about my own mental health and how I (at least attempt to) manage my own.

Be warned. There's going to be a lot of memes shared here as I navigate and mostly ramble through my own head space, so I apologize if I get off track at various points.

Let's start at the beginning. I have dealt with crippling anxiety and social awkwardness as far back as my teenage years in middle school. Even back then, I was told by people (peers, friends, and family alike) that it was something that I would just "grow out of" in time. Truth be told, those same people were wrong. It's something that I still deal with currently late in my thirties to this day. Fortunately for me, it's much more tolerable than in my youth. I used to be subscribed medication for it while I was in college, but I have gotten to the point where I don't depend on it. I don't have as extreme case as I have seen in others where they completely shutdown mentally and physically in any sort of social situations. I have been working jobs for several years now where I deal with the public and have to be social all day. Sure, it's mentally draining and taxing at times but I have forced myself to deal with it to function in my every day life.

Not everyone else is so fortunate to overcome their anxieties like that.

I'm not perfect either. There are days and weeks where I just don't want to talk to any one and just want to "recharge" my batteries and/or tolerance/thresholds for being social to manageable levels. Sometimes that requires me being a hermit for a weekend, shutting off all of my social media and my phone to enjoy some TV and gaming time off on my lonesome. Other times, it means pushing everyone away - keeping them at arms length - and just allowing me to work this out in my head. That might take a few days. Others in a few weeks and on few rare occasions maybe a month or two.

Getting in my own head is another problem that I have, coupled with my own sporadic lack of self-confidence and self-loathing at times. I would see my peers, friends, and family doing great things with their lives or with their various endeavors, whether be with work or creative outlets - blogging, streaming, art, etc. Then those feelings start rearing their ugly heads, making me think that I'm a failure since I haven't gotten to that point with my work at this stage of my life. I know I shouldn't think like that but it's hard not to at times.

In my personal life, I try to be nice and help people out when and where I can, but at the same time, I struggle trusting people. The older I get, the more comfortable I am in my own solitude. I cherish my alone time. That's why the people I let in my social circle are far and few after being burned and stabbed in the back by people that I thought I could trust on numerous occasions.

I have had several peers that I thought I could trust take my ideas and present them as their own, only to be called a plagiarist when I challenged them on the fact. Far too many people have attempted to use my kindness as a weakness to be exploited for their own benefit.

As a result, I don't trust a lot of people - like not at all. Far too many people in my life have disappointed me or gave me numerous reasons not to trust them than not.

Then there's people who intentionally say things hoping to trigger me and/or gauge my reactions whom I will never understand why they want to watch the world burn in that regard. And people wonder why I sometimes jokingly say that my superpower is attracting the worst type of people to gravitate towards me.

I think that is where and why I shoot myself in the foot a lot when it comes to a lot of interactions with people not just online in Discord servers, various online communities, and just social circles in general. I'm naturally a forum/message board lurker as far back when I used to frequent the original GameFAQs, Caws.ws (mainly for WWE Games and wrestling chat), and 8-Way Run (Soul Calibur) forums, only chiming in when a particular topic of interest pops up that I care to offer my two cents about.

On one hand, I want to network with people with similar interests and get to know them, but at the same time, I'm not keen on lowering my defenses, only to be hurt again in the process. It's a lose-lose situation no matter how I try to slice it. When friends invite me to join their Discord servers and be a part of their communities, I'll accept and try it out. I always watch from the sidelines and merely do like how I have always done, chime in here and there, never putting myself completely out there.

However, I have absolutely no problem leaving Discord servers or any community in general for the sake of my mental health, especially when said communities are full of people who have wronged me or peers/friends in the past or have individuals that spew nothing but negativity that I don't want to see everyday in any shape nor form when I come online.

Freedom of speech goes both ways. You can say whatever you want, but at the same time, I have the choice on whether or not that I decide to indulge in it. The sheer amount of entitlement (concerning the mindsets online where a lot of the "old guard" nerds/geeks think that all of this consumable media should be made for them and only them) and hate speech thrown around in conversations about stuff I genuinely enjoy in nerd culture is a massive red flag for me too.

When those emotions consume me, my work begins to suffer and my drive to do anything creative goes along with it, hence why there are a lot of gaps in releases of content when it comes to a lot of projects that I take on.

I'll be honest. My mental health suffers whenever I'm bombarded by negativity at every turn, such as so-called friends and peers shooting down my enthusiasm out of the very few joys I have in life left to the point that they convince me that those very same joys I was looking forward to would be more disappointment before it even would transpire or the sheer amount of people who try to tell me that I'm wasting my time and effort enjoying something, whether it's my creative writing, my art, and merely a video game or TV show that I'm thoroughly entertained by while not even harming anyone else with my positivity towards it. But no, these people want me to feel as miserable as they do. Sometimes they win and make me absolutely hate the things that I love. I don't enjoy playing fighting games much anymore after that community soured me on the experience online and offline in tournaments. Between e-fedding and the online wrestling community as a whole, I've soured from enjoying a lot of professional wrestling over the years. If that wasn't enough, I got shit from countless people telling me that I was "wasting my time" playing through Horizon: Forbidden West earlier this year instead of playing Elden Ring like everyone else was. Every time I would answer people who would ask me what game(s) was I playing they would scoff at me and give me their personal 101 reasons why I shouldn't be playing that inferior game. Wow, thanks for giving me even more reasons for my anxiety can tell me that I've been wasting my life up to this point.

Shit like that I will never understand where people will go out of their way to tear down what someone else genuinely loves and cares about. It's okay not to like something but when you turn into one of these people who won't shut up about how much you hate something and want everyone else to hate it too, then I don't want anything to do with those types of people or anyone who falls into their camps. That lack of consideration for what damage that type of thinking is doing to someone else's mental health makes me lose all of my respect for those individuals.

(Laughs) There's so many of these on that list to the left that I fit the bill for that it's not even funny anymore.

During the fall/winter, I'm always wearing a hoodie anyway, so that's a given.
"Never saying anything because you're afraid of making a fool of yourself" & "overthinking about everything" are both bad traits of mine that I could list on a resume at this point. In all seriousness though, that's why I'm a habitual forum/message board/Discord server lurker. I have had far too many times where I have expressed my opinion(s) or thoughts on a subject only to get attacked from all angles since my opinions don't align with everyone else's, making me regret even bothering in the first place.
"Ignoring phone calls because of anxiety" isn't fair IMHO. Depending on what time of day it is, I'm not answering shit, especially if I'm at work or if it shows up as "potential spam" or some number I don't recognize.
"always that guy/girl who mutes their mic in discord chats" Believe it or not, but I don't like the sound of my own voice, plus I've been in more than enough online multiplayer video game lobbies with unfavorable experiences that I care not to say anything unless it's contributes to the task at hand while gaming. There are occasions where I'll turn my mic on with friends I know personally are in that voice channel or if a friend invites me to be on a panel of sorts, such as a roundtable gaming discussion I was invited to be a part of for a fellow streamer's gaming channel.

My advice to anyone dealing with similar mental health issues, with some of which I should be taking my own advice more often than not TBH:

1. Take a break.

Go outside. Take a vacation. Do anything else other than the task at hand that is causing you any mental strife.

2. Tune out the negativity on social media.

Block/mute users online who share content who affect your mental health negatively. It's not a crime to put your own mental health first and foremost over digesting toxic content daily.

3. Distance yourself from negativity.

This goes along with the previous tip. Being surrounded by people who constantly complain and whine, wanting everything and anything to cater to their demands, isn't healthy to be around. Surround yourself with people who uplift you and you uplift them with positivity and encouragement. And I don't mean "yes men/women" who will just tell you everything that you want to hear without any brutally honest constructive criticism either.

4. Ask for help.

Like my father always says, there's nothing wrong with saying, "I don't know" when it comes to how to do something or lacking knowledge. The problem is when you pretend like you have all of the answers and find yourself completely shitting the bed when push comes to shove.

Talk to someone - friends, family, whoever. Seek out professional help if that's not enough. Whatever you do, just know that you're never alone.

I should mention a sidebar to this one. I felt pretty bad after a kind individual was giving me some simple advice last week and I felt like I blew up at her for others' wrongdoings when she wasn't affiliated with them at all. Just don't make my mistake in that regard and try to recognize when people are genuinely trying to help and not looking for a favor in return.

5. Music Heals

There should be some more tips but I think this is a great one to close the book on for now. Music is a powerful thing and has ways of touching our minds and souls in ways nothing else can. I thought I would share two particular songs that mean a lot to me currently.

This song has always resonated with me since I was in high school. To be quite honest, I'm still looking for somewhere to belong after all of these years. Every time I think I found one, it's not what I imagined it to be and the search continues.

That being said, I could list at least dozen more Linkin Park songs as my go-to songs to jam out to when I'm feeling down.

I discovered this song on a whim when I left the TV on MTV for Ridiculousness reruns/marathon one random Friday night only to wake up to music videos playing one early Saturday morning. This song came up and I have played it on repeat on numerous occasions over the past year when it comes up on shuffle via my Spotify playlists.

The meme to the left is EXACTLY how I felt after my mother died last year. Hell, I still feel that way when I get an occasional person at work to ask me "How are you doing?" It takes every shred of my willpower not to blow up at that person and cuss them out. I understand that people may genuinely care, but I have never have been an open book, gushing about my feelings to complete strangers. Oh the irony of that with my readers of this blog right now, mostly complete strangers, seeing me do exactly that...

I get shit from my friends all the time that I shouldn't bottle things up inside, but that's just how I am. I don't ever want to make my problems any one else's problems. There's times where I'm internally screaming at the world but I can handle it. Whenever the day comes where I think I can't take it anymore, I know where to look to for help.

To my friends and family who constantly go out of their way to check on me, regardless of that - THANK YOU.

I hope those of you who I have shared this with and have taken the time to read this from start to finish can appreciate what it means to me to be this open and coherent with my readers/followers when I share aspects of myself like this.

We don't need a special day of the year to talk about mental health. It should be important 365 days out of the year, 24 hours of a day during every moment of our lives. That's why it pisses me off when I see people trivializing mental health until it happens it to them. Make the effort to care about it now. Help someone heal or find the means to heal yourself. Don't stand by and suffer alone. Your pain shouldn't ever be what defines your life.

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