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I have had some really bad days.
From the age of about sixteen I started having burnouts and bouts of anxiety to the extreme that I couldn’t leave my house, had no appetite for days at a time and couldn’t make the simplest decisions, even what film to watch, without getting heart palpitations. These days were awful to experience. I felt useless, stupid and weak. I would beat myself up for not understanding what was happening in my brain and try to run against the current, only to be even more exhausted by doing this. When I still lived at home, my family was an amazing support. They listened to me, helped me through and got me back on my feet time and time again. I was comfortable reaching out to them, but still, I didn’t think I was ‘bad enough’ to seek professional help just because my pain came in phases and wasn’t constant. I wish I could tell sixteen year old me that this is not true. If it’s causing you pain, it’s ‘bad enough’.
When I first moved to college I had bad days one after the other for several weeks. I felt so overwhelmed and confused by this new world, by Arts timetables (if you know, you know), by living alone and by the concept of having to make new friends and finding my tribe. I had great support, but felt guilty for reaching out, for ‘annoying’ them with my constant need for advice, comfort and company. I felt so helpless and afraid, and found myself one day sitting behind the Boole lecture halls crying on the phone to my mom and she reminded me of a truth I had forgotten - that asking for help is a sign of strength. I contacted UCC counselling that day.
Throughout first year I saw two therapists and worked a lot on my confidence issues, my fear of uncertainty and unfamiliarity and my relationship with work. I learnt to love downtime, and work by how much energy I had, not by the hours in the day. I began to love myself again and work through the trauma that had drilled into me that I was not working hard enough, being fun enough or smiling enough. I learned to set boundaries for myself and learnt to say ‘no’ if I had to. Counselling also taught me that having bad days is natural, and something to accept, not fight. Quite honestly, it saved me, by empowering me enough to see my worth and by helping me realise the pain I had pushed away for so long needed to see the light of day and be healed.
This year, a few days before college began, I had a really bad two days. I fell into them. I realised I had been working myself to the bone, and that I was physically and mentally run down. I reached out to my friends and family, but also used the tools I had learned to self-soothe and work through what I was feeling, learning the whole time how to avoid this next time. You see, bad days will always come again in one way or the other. We are all human, we all have complex minds and emotions and if you listen and share your experiences, you can improve. I promise you can survive whatever you are facing, just take the first step and reach out.
