Hello, hello! The end of the term and school year is upon us: a time that many, if not all, of us have been looking forward to. I wish you luck with the final push, but since this is my final term at UBC, this will be the last time I write to you.
It has taken four years of struggling through my depression and anxiety in my undergrad to be able to write to you as I am now: four years of unlearning, relearning, demolishing, and reconstructing myself to be able to find the voice I have been writing to you with in these past eight months. I have to be honest—if you can relate, if you feel like you have been at war with yourself forever and see no end to it, that is because the fight against mental illness does and will take its time. Your mind has no beginning and end, so don’t expect there to be a deadline or a limit on something that is always growing and changing.
However, at some point, a tiny shift will occur within you. You will notice the fight becoming more familiar, if not easier. You will learn the patterns in which you think and feel. You will notice yourself becoming more capable and better equipped to battle your inner demons. You will learn how to love and take care of yourself. You will notice that there are others struggling as you are and you will realize that this is not a fight you have to endure on your own.
It’s not a weakness to seek help. It’s not a weakness to feel as if your mind is not under your own control. It’s not a weakness to feel too much. It is a strength to look at yourself honestly, without pride and arrogance, and understand your own shortcomings—because the reality is, everyone has them. That is why, as much as we might hate to admit it, we need each other to support the parts of ourselves that might feel a little empty. Reach out to people who love and care about you. Reach out to strangers, too, if it feels right. Your mind might be endless, and sometimes it seems as if your pain is as well, but so can love and community be, if you allow them to.
So, for one final time as the writer for Mind Your Mind, I want to encourage you to not be afraid of the bad, painful aspects of life. Remind yourself that you are capable of getting through each day even if your mind weighs heavier than any of your responsibilities and duties. Don’t be afraid of the times when your mind wins and the rest of you shuts down, of feeling like you’re slowly being whittled down to nothing by your churning thoughts and emotions, of feeling like you don’t recognize yourself when you look inwards. Don’t be afraid, because it is only when you are left with nothing that you can start building yourself from the ground up. It may be a bleak time, but it is a time nonetheless for you to get to know and construct yourself the way you want to be.
Lovely reader, at times your mental illness or other people might tell you that you are lesser, that there is something wrong with you. But there is nothing wrong or lesser about feeling pain, whether it’s in your body, mind, or heart. Physical illness is not second-guessed or shamed, so do not let others shame you for a mental one they don’t understand or feel.
Thus, my time is up, but it truly has been a pleasure and a privilege to write to you through this column. I hope that my words have helped you in the way I wanted them to, and while I will no longer be writing at Mind Your Mind I can say with certainty that you will find me writing elsewhere! Thank you for giving me the time of day, and I send you my best wishes for your end-of-term madness and a cyber farewell hug.