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Sharing – Are You Hypervigilant?
Sound familiar? I know, for me, this is absolutely the truth, and even though I’ve done a ton of work to overcome this, and learn how to turn off this hyper vigilance, there are still times when it kicks in, like say during a pandemic.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it here. The last 16 months have forced everyone into being hyper vigilant. How do we suddenly turn that off? How exhausted are we from spending that much time constantly on the lookout for danger, and the worst case scenario?
Personally, that exhaustion goes beyond any words I have to describe it. It reminds me very much of what it was like in my 20s when I only had the life skills I learned as a kid, which were mostly just responses to abuse, not healthy ways to live as an adult.
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Sharing – Our mental health crashed in 2020. Recovery could take years
The article below gets into a lot more of the details of how different groups have been affected in a variety of ways, but the thing that I found myself nodding along to was this idea. This is not going to go away this Summer. People you know who have struggled, and have anxiety about things opening back up again, or are dealing with grief and depression, or the aftermath of all of the trauma that we’ve borne witness to over the last couple of years, are not going to just be “back to normal” and ready to hit happy hour like nothing happened.
We’re not there. We’re not going to be there for awhile. Give those people, and yourself if that describes you, some grace and patience.
Most of all, don’t stigmatize anyone for not being OK for a bit. We’ve all been dealing with different levels of trauma and anxiety, and you likely don’t even know half of how much people around you have been dealing with.
So, just be kind, OK?
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Sharing – Lean on Your Support System When You’re Anxious
It’s grounding. It doesn’t solve the thing I’m anxious about, but it stops the cycling, and allows me to focus on the reality of the situation, which is usually not nearly as bad as I’ve made it out to be.
But, it also assumes that I have someone to talk to about it. This is really the challenge for far too many people, who don’t have anyone to talk to.
Can you be the person who just listens? I’m willing to bet someone in your life could really use that.
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Sharing – Mental health advocacy doesn’t equal visibility for everyone
Carter is writing about mental health in Canada, but I think this really applies everywhere. When we talk about Mental Health Awareness, there’s a lot of focus on people struggling with Anxiety and Depression to seek help, and let them know they aren’t alone. That’s important, but it’s just part of the story:
