This week is mental health awareness week, and coincidentally, Vilius and I recorded a podcast about mental health & impact on the people who care about us...

Trigger warning: we discuss our subjective perspectives of mental health, including suicidal ideation, panic attacks, situational depression, eating disorders, seasonal affective disorder etc. If you feel like these topics may make you feel worse rather than better, maybe give this episode a wee skip until you are ready. P.S. this is not a podcast discussing severe mental illness- i.e., cognitive impairment- where the treatment and discussion would be completely different. 

I have wanted to record this podcast for a long time. I finally feel ready to hear Vilius’s truth without guilt or defensiveness bubbling up inside me.

It is wonderful that we are opening up about how we feel globally. The stigma around mental health/illness is slowly but surely breaking away. We still have a long way to go, especially around severe mental illness - i.e. Schizophrenia and treatment but things are in a much better place in comparison to even just five years ago. However, one thing I think is sometimes missing from the conversation is the impact on the people around the person who is struggling with their mental health. How does depression impact the people who are around the person? How does a partner, friend, or family member feel when they are helpless seeing someone they love to suffer?

As I describe in this episode, I felt guilt and shame for along time after my first period of deep depression. I felt guilty that Vilius had to go through it too. The pain of seeing someone you care about so much go through such a challenging time, the helplessness you feel because you can’t do anything to elevate or change how they feel and the energy impact - how does being around someone who feels low impact your mental state?!

I wanted to have an open and honest conversation with Vilius about his experience of the time I was depressed. How did it impact him? how did he feel and how does he feel now? I think I share the story of that time more than I thought I would in this episode, however, I still love hearing our different perspectives of the same time and think it is really important.

If you or someone you love is struggling with their mental health, know that you are not alone. When you are in the sticky dark mud of depression and despair, it is soooooo challenging to hear that it will get better, you will feel the brightness again, you will be able to appreciate your existence and have hope again. “Sometimes you have to lose yourself to FIND yourself”.