Having mental health issues is no different to having a broken leg. You cant expect to click your fingers and be able to walk or run, you have to take the time to recover! Why should your mental health be treated any differently?
For so many years physical and mental illnesses have been treated as though they are worlds apart. You will receive sympathy and compassion if you are to, for example, have an operation, however you are more likely to be judged and ridiculed if you tell someone you feel depressed or have OCD. What is becoming more apparent is that as the years go on mental illnesses can be just as difficult and debilitating as physical ones! Both cause strain, and both require recovery. Luckily with more awareness and education the stigma around mental health is slowly changing and people are now talking and accepting mental health for what it really is.
As humans when we go through any kind of difficulty or physical problems we seek support. Lets take the example of a broken leg…typically in this case you would have been given a crutch to aid and support your movement. The crutch is not a long term solution but a temporary helping hand until your leg can support itself. So after a while there would come a time when you would be required to ditch the crutch and learn to walk without. Simple right? However, sometimes we can get stuck and we don’t always want to give up the crutch. What if it hurts to walk? What if I'm not strong enough yet? So rather than trusting our ability and addressing the issue of being scared to walk, we hold onto the crutch longer than we need it for and become reliant on it. In turn, we end up hindering our recovery, making it more difficult for ourselves in the long run - our leg muscle wouldn't get stronger, but weaker and would only give us an even longer road for recovery ahead.
I imagine right now you are thinking ‘Kirsty what the hell does a broken leg have to do with my mental health?’ Well it has a lot. The same logic I have just described of using a physical crutch can have the same impact when you apply a emotional 'crutch' or a support to mental illnesses. Let me explain…
Emotional crutches, much like a physical one, are something you rely on during a period of distress or struggle, offering you a sense of support. Sometimes your crutch can be a person who you go to in times of need, other times it can be something entirely different like an action or behaviour. The difficulty with mental illness is that there is more of a struggle to a) identify what your emotional crutch is, b) realise that your support is hindering you, and lastly c) to stop relying on it!
Take my situation for example! I have very bad OCD! I have compulsive behaviours which very much control my daily life. It is a struggle to leave my flat each morning because of the intense checking I do of all electronic appliances in my flat (my OCD stems from fire safety – but that is for a later blog). Anyways, about a year ago my OCD was getting bad and I was constantly worrying I had left something on in the flat! so I came up with a solution that once I had completed my 'checks' I would leave the room and close the door to that room. The door closing was my reassurance that I had checked everything inside and I was as sure as I could be that it was safe. By simply closing that door offered me that sense of reassurance. It stopping me worrying about everything that could be a potential fire hazard! As far as I was concerned when the door was closed the flat was 1000000% fire proof. However, that action of shutting the door became my emotional crutch.
You may think what is the problem with that! It isn’t causing me any harm? Well it did! Although this helped short term to relieve my anxiety it had a negative effect in the long term. Rather than addressing the issue at hand, my compulsive checking, by adding ‘closing the door’ to my list, only added to an already extensive list of compulsive behaviours. It gradually turned from 'I have closed the door so everything is safe' to ‘oh no, I don’t remember closing the door!!!!! That means the whole flat is going to burn to the ground’. The action I had trained myself to support me and reassure me only became one of my biggest compulsions. If I had used the door tactic for a short period it may have helped, but because I became so reliant on it it only hindered me.
Now this is just one example. Others could be turning to alcohol in a time of stress, over eating when you feel depressed, or even treating your friends like therapists. We are all guilty of something. Something we do that offers us a bit of comfort in a time of need. There is nothing wrong with that, in small doses!
Emotional crutches are both wonderful and the worst. Sometimes we just need a bit of support, but try to be aware when they are just becoming a big mask for a larger problem, and be aware of when that support is only putting you at a disadvantage. In my case what I should have done is used the door technique a few times for reassurance, but then really look to the cause of my OCD and explore what I could do to help the larger problem. Shutting that door was never going to cure my OCD and I was naive to think it would. If I'm honest I was just desperate for a sense of relief!
Usually our emotional crutches mask us and subconsciously protect us from a door that we don't always want to open. If you feel like you may have a crutch you are using, then you are already on the right path, maybe talk to a friend you trust about it, get their opinion (often an external opinion is much more objective than one you can see yourself). It is totally natural to shield ourselves from the things we deem dangerous or stressful. Being aware of it and addressing the issue at core is a difficult thing to do for anyone but it will really help you out in the long run! I promise you, running will not make it easier to overcome!
Example: If your going through a breakup and you want to just eat ice cream for months because you feel sad, that is okay! However, repressing your feelings and eating ice cream for 3 years may not be helping you. Eat some ice cream, have a good old cry, catch up with the people who will remind you why life is amazing and you will move on much quicker than simply eating ice cream for 3 years. P.S Ben an Jerry's cookie dough is the best ice cream for comfort!!
Until next week...
Kirsty x