May is Mental Health Awareness Month
My first instinct was to begin this newsletter with a self-deprecating dig at myself for not faithfully getting a newsletter out once a month.
But you know what? It’s Mental Health Awareness Month and I choose to treat myself kinder than that!
Life’s busy. I absolutely love writing, and I just don’t have enough time to do it regularly. I really want to be consistent with the newsletter because I hope to keep growing my readership, and I think I might have undiagnosed ADHD (like for real) so follow-through is NOT my strong suit. That doesn’t make me a bad person.
I don’t need to make a joke at my own expense as a way to apologize for my imperfection.
Whew. Let’s start again.
How’s everyone doing? Are you sleeping enough? Eating well? Drinking lots of water? Getting plenty of exercise? Keeping your therapy appointments? Remembering to take your meds? No? Me either! 🤦♀️ I am trying though and I’m pretty sure that’s what counts.
When I was a classroom teacher, I used to do this thing where I’d occasionally have my students “teach” lessons to each other - sometimes it was sections of the the novel we were reading, sometimes it tied into grammar or poetical devices. I could employ this learning technique with nearly every part of the curriculum. And I do consider this a learning technique, because it is proven that when you have to teach something to someone else, you are in fact learning about whatever topic you are teaching in a deeper more meaningful way than if you had just listened to a lecture about it.
And so this month I’ve been creating a lot of social media content that revolves around mental health and I think that may be because I’m trying to remind myself to take care of myself. Not that I don’t…but you know…motherhood. It’s a grind. I certainly don’t put myself first. Some people in my life may see the content and worry about me or think that some of the goofier posts (because most of us who live with mental illness also laugh at mental illness) mean I’ve completely lost my mind. That doesn’t bother me. I’m just being true to who I am.
Who am I? Well I really want to be a person who gets enough sleep, eats well, drinks water, exercises, goes to therapy, takes her meds, you know basically takes care of her physical and mental health AND helps others find the motivation and courage to take care of themselves too AND makes people laugh AND makes time to write AND is true to herself.
What’s my purpose? “I think it might be to model what it means to take care of yourself and to be true to yourself so that Katherine grows up to do both,” I say as I sip my water and write.
XOXO,
Ari