On Extending Grace and Mental Health

It is one day more to mental health awareness month, let’s kick this off with a story about mental health and forgiveness.

In undergrad, my emotional state was very haywire. I had difficulty doing the most basic things and it was a wonder how anyone at all led normal lives. There were days where I’d be stuck in bed, sad for no apparent reason to the point of neglecting basic hygiene for days at a time. I’d burst out into tears for no reason too. Existing was hard, also because I was in school and I needed to take care of my academic work it made things even more difficult. Here I was, I couldn’t take care of myself properly, and I was supposed to take charge of my academic work. I read architecture in undergrad and if you know anything about architecture school, you know it’s different from regular university coursework. There was also a period that I dealt with body dysmorphic episodes for the entire year coupled with what I suspected to be depression. I say suspected because I was never formally diagnosed with depression but I fitted all the symptoms. There was the lethargy, I could sleep for 13 hours and still feel tired. I wouldn’t eat until it was too late or I’d binge on everything and order too much (emotional eating), there were suicidal thoughts, self-isolation, extreme sensitivity, and anxiety. My energy levels were always low and for days where I summoned the energy, it was always an overextension of myself and I knew I’d suffer for it when it came burning down. Now I don’t write this to seek out some sort of empathy or pity, I’m getting to a point, kindly follow along.

For the longest time, I didn’t open up to the people around me because I thought they wouldn’t understand. Well, they didn’t. There were days I’d summoned all the will, I had to go to class, come back and fall back to the dark hole for the next 5 days. No one understood my need to get back to my room right after class. Depression causes you to lose your will to live. You lose interest in everything that ever excited you, you question your contribution to the world in which you occupy. The first time I opened up to a friend, they replied “just try and be happy” and I got so infuriated because I have tried to try to be happy and it doesn’t work. Looking back, I should have given her more grace because depression is hard to understand. It’s not regular sadness that wears off in a matter of minutes or days. It’s more akin to grieving without losing a loved one. It eats at you for days and you are unable to function. They’re also highly functional depressive persons but in my case, the majority of the time, I couldn’t function. I only got better when the pandemic hit and I got almost a year off school to focus on healing.

I had seen people weaponize other people’s mental health against them, it had never been done to me until recently or should I say I was unaware it was happening. Mind you, I think I’m considerably better(way better actually) than I was in undergrad and as I’m currently writing this I’m in the first year, the first semester of my postgraduate. See when you’ve opened up to only 2/3 people about your mental health and it gets out, you know the sources. Rumors and gossip are always malicious to engage it no matter how insignificant the rumor is. I’d be hypocritical to say I haven’t engaged in gossip before and because of that, I’m extending grace. Recognizing that I’m human and so are they, no one is perfect and definitely to err is human. Also, I’ve come to realize that gossip is telling a story that doesn’t belong to you and because it doesn’t belong to you, you can’t retell it as it is. Your perspectives and biases color the story you are retelling and the next person does the same and it goes on.

Hearing the first time, about the retelling of my mental health was so shocking. Everything was warped, and it was shocking how far it had gotten (people who had complete school 2/3 + years ago knew about my mental health and I didn’t know them). I was being called manipulative because of my sensitivity and how easily I cried. I was told I used to psychological state to manipulate people amongst other lies. I remember shaking my head and someone was trying to establish if it was the same person they had met because the person described sounded miles apart from the person they had come to know and knew. I was so shaken for the first few days that I felt angry and betrayed and wanted to confront the people I confided in. We had grown apart as friends and I wanted to know why in the world, my story I thought only 3 people knew had gone out to the world without permission and with a sick twist. I was enraged but it was outside my control and whatever damage had been done, was done.

Moving on from things like this is always tricky because there isn’t a clear-cut way to move on. No one has written manuals on it and honestly, everyone would tell you to give it time. After all, it’s gossip and gossip dies. An overarching theme I had been learning that semester was learning to recognize that people’s actions, inactions, and words towards you have more to do with them than you. I had to realize this was all them and I couldn’t gaslight myself even to believing I was any of those things. I tried to be reflective of my actions during that period after the anger had subsided and honestly I couldn’t gaslight myself to believe any of the bullshit to be honest because when you are depressed, the very last thing on your mind is being inauthentic. For someone who was struggling to just do her basic hygiene routine, who has the time to be manipulative when you don’t even know if you want to exist anymore. I digressed.

Humans were meant to be disappointing because we are flawed and it is because of this you have to extend grace because you aren’t perfect either. The entire human condition is wrought with failing/ making mistakes, learning and moving on, and understanding this gives you peace. No one is entirely good nor bad ( except serial killers, sociopaths, psychopaths and maybe Hitler but even Hitler had a family that he was probably good to). People contain within them the equal capacity to do bad and good and as such, there isn’t a bad human or good human, just humans. In as much as time helps, extending grace, giving people the benefit of doubt, and empathizing with them helped me better because honestly it probably won’t be easy to deal with a depressed friend especially if you don’t know-how. This gave me perspective and reshaped the entire narrative around this period and allowed me to let go. Empathy can be a powerful tool because no one knows how to human, we are all just winging it. Learn to extend grace to the people who do you wrong.

Kindly seek help if you are experiencing symptoms of depression or any other mental illness. It does get better. Thank you for reading ! Kindly leave a comment, I would love to know your thoughts.