You Take The Same Brain With You Wherever You Go
My head has overfilled again. It is fit to bursting. There are far too many thoughts in there. They have become so tightly packed that I can’t view each one on its own.
Not only have my thoughts multiplied, but they have inflated and deflated too. Enormous worries were only tiny yesterday. They are blocking my view of all of the goodness that must still be in there somewhere.
This over-filled brain is weighing me down. Lugging it around is making me feel tired and irritable.
In other words: I’m having a bad mental health day today.
When the computer inside my head goes into overdrive and overheats, I know how to perform the maintenance it requires. It is not quite as easy as switching it off and on again, but simple things like making time for a walk or some rest truly can make all the difference. Techniques which help empty my head of some of the thoughts inside - like a conversation with a good friend or a spot of journaling - tend to be the most effective for me.
Sometimes the mouse needs to spin its rainbow wheel for a few seconds and on other occasions a full-blown reboot is necessary. The first step is always identifying the issue. To get your mental health back on track, you have to acknowledge something is wrong and permit yourself to seek out the help you need. I know this is true but recently self-acceptance is the step I have been struggling with the most.
Just over a year ago, I moved from my hometown of Glasgow to Birmingham. Getting into better habits, overcoming some anxieties and generally improving the relationship I have with my brain were all on the list of post-move goals. Building a happier life is always the objective when finding somewhere new to call home and I am pleased to say I have been able to do just that. I feel so much more fulfilled, inspired and joyful than I did before.
I’ve been on much better terms with my brain since I relocated but we still fall out from time to time. Ever since moving, I feel oddly guilty whenever I have even a moment of poor mental health. There’s this voice in my head that says: you chose to move here - you can’t be sad. If you can’t be happy here, where can you?
Logically, I know this is nonsense. A single bad day doesn’t negate any of the goodness in my life. However, when the scale of my thoughts is off-kilter, that anxious voice manages to shout above the logic. It makes me hesitant to admit that there is anything wrong - to myself or to anyone else - as I do not want to seem ungrateful.
On days like today, when I don’t feel quite right, I find it helpful to read other people’s mental health stories to remind myself how common it is to be confused by your own brain. This time around, I’ve been reading stories which use a ‘bad wolf’ to represent depression, anxiety and negative thoughts. A key part of this metaphor is that you can’t ignore the wolf. You must acknowledge it and even feed it if you hope to keep it at bay. I need to look my wolf right in the eye and have a word with it.
I woke up to the weight of you lying heavy on my chest. You’ve followed me around all day distracting me. You may viciously attack me any second or disappear as silently as you enter. I know you’ll be back but, at least for now, please f*ck off.
When I was younger, I used to be convinced that the bad wolf would never leave me alone. It visits me much less often than it has done in the past but still knows where I live. The wolf would find me at any postcode on the planet. It would follow me to the moon and back.
Wherever I moved to, I’d still have days when I struggled with my mental health. It’s due to brain chemistry not a lack of gratitude.
This is the same brain I had growing up in Glasgow having never heard of ‘mental health’. It’s the same one I had when I started working on my anxiety while in Barcelona with two dear, equally anxious friends. It’s the brain I brought with me to Dundee when I moved to embrace my queerness and creativity as a form of therapy.
You take the same brain with you wherever you go. And that’s not a bad thing. While you might sometimes wish you could trade your brain in for a newer model which is less prone to malfunctioning, there is an upside to being stuck with the one you’ve got. The longer you live with it, the more you get to know it. Each day - whether good or bad, up or down - you can learn a little bit more about how your brain works.
I learn new things about my brain all the time. About what makes it feel so heavy and how to lighten the load; what overwhelms it and what soothes it. While this doesn’t stop the bad wolf from visiting, it makes me feel calmer when I realise it has arrived.
The wolf will leave. My head will empty. My brain and I will become friends again. We always do.