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Run to the Cure

Through the Pull of Emotions

By Chelise KingPublished 5 years ago 7 min read
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I wish with every fiber of my being that there was a cure. It often times seems as though the most painful diseases and illnesses in our world are the ones that are left incurable. When someone breaks a bone, they are put into a cast. When someone is diagnosed with cancer, they are hospitalized. Yet, when someone is diagnosed with a mental illness, they are sent back home to carry out the tasks of their daily life. They are sent back to work, school, and responsibility after responsibility. The person sitting next to you at this very moment may be suffering with the most severe depression. Your best friend at school might be crumbling under the mental demands of his OCD.

The painful truth of the matter is that we, will never know. I refer to mental illnesses as mental cancers. These illnesses are extremely life changing and life challenging. Just by looking at a person, you cannot tell if there is a chemical imbalance in their brain that is restraining them from being happy, thinking clearly, or being their true self. These mental cancers are terrifying. These mental cancers are incurable. These mental cancers are often times fatal. But worst of all, these mental cancers go unseen.

Through my experiences with anxiety and panic disorder, I have researched time and again for a cure. I have never intended to cure the nation from every possible mental illness, but I first wanted to cure myself. The truth is, it is not possible to decide to cure your mental cancer, but it is possible to decide to cope with your mental cancer.

I have seen a mental health counselor for the past year to help me learn and implement coping strategies to help me complete daily tasks and responsibilities regardless of my anxiety. Although these coping strategies have been useful, they never take away the anxiety. Coping strategies are used to help one shift their mindset from an anxious or depressed state to a more positive and coherent state.

I have tried about every coping strategy in the books, but after my experiences and research, I have come to the answer for all mental cancers. The answer lies within the power of emotions. The emotions of a person with a disorder are so real, yet so irrational. It is said that most people who struggle are very aware that the thoughts they are having are not supported by actual evidence, yet they still feel that certain way. Those with depression could tell you that it isn’t that an event or circumstance made them feel depressed. That is why it is extremely hard to treat disorders, even with therapy, because there isn’t always an obvious root to the emotion. When someone’s dog passes away, they will inevitably feel different. Common emotions to a situation as such are sadness and depression. For someone who is clinically diagnosed with chronic depression, they might feel as though they are just as sad and depressed as the person who lost the companionship of their dog, yet no circumstance occurred that would justify why they felt this way. The solution is to ignore your emotions.

Emotions are a human’s most vulnerable power. The way we feel contributes so much to our personality and our actions. It is common to believe that when men cry it makes them less manly. This is because vulnerability is often times seen as a bad thing, when truthfully it is the greatest thing. When we feel emotions, we are allowing sensations to come to the surface and affect us in ways that we may be comfortable with, or not, but these feelings are essentially there for our benefit. Never be ashamed to feel an emotion. For me, when I noticed my anxiety getting progressively worse, I was terrified to tell anyone because they would have to see a side of me that I was so protective over. My reputation was at stake and my ego was speaking louder than my heart. Even to this day it is difficult for me to fully verbalize the way that anxiety can make a person feel, but when I do, I can allow others to see me for my authentic self, the self that we should all be striving to uncover. If you have sought out help for your mental illness you might agree that explaining how you are feeling to a psychologist, psychiatrist, or doctor is probably the most challenging aspect of your disorder. Even now, when I am finally becoming familiar with my own anxiety, I still get nervous and frustrated when I have to relay the way that I feel to another person. A mental illness is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain, but the symptoms are often times projected through emotions. Never be ashamed to show emotions.

Now, ignoring your emotions is COMPLETELY easier said than done and has taken me years to learn how to do, and I am still no expert. The key to ignoring your emotions is not never feeling them in the first place. Now you may be reading this, whether you can relate to the example above or not, and be questioning my credibility because of how inaccurate yet simple this sounds.

Emotions are inevitable, you will feel them. Just because you experience an emotion, does not mean that you must be defined it. Feel the emotion, take it in, and let it pass through. You MUST acknowledge what you are feeling, don’t completely ignore it. Once you acknowledge your emotion, such as sadness, let it pass through your mind. It may stay within you for hours, days, weeks, and maybe even months. There isn’t always anything you can do to kick it out, but there is something you can do to ignore it after it has overstayed its welcome.

I know when I start feeling anxious, I panic because I don’t want to feel that way. I am no longer in control. “I have to go to work, I can’t have anxiety today.” “I have a test at school, this can’t be happening now.” This is where the work begins. I must accept the way that I feel, welcome the emotion into my mind, allow myself to FEEL it. Not only acknowledging that it is there, but really FEELING it. Once it is felt to its fullest extent in that situation, release it. You will be aware that the emotion is still within you, but you no longer have to feel it. How freeing this can be. The process is to acknowledge, feel, and reveal. Acknowledge your feeling and what you recognize it to be. Feel it, in its complete fullness, no matter how uncomfortable that state may be. Finally, reveal why you had to feel the way that you did and think about a way to avoid being put in a similar situation again, or reveal what you can do next time to feel more comfortable when confronting your emotions.

There is a difference between living with a mental illness and being a mental illness. Before my anxiety became serious, I loved running. When I first started noticing my anxiety, I would come home from school and run a mile each day. This run not only caused my body to release endorphins which boosted my mood, but It caused me to learn about myself. I forced myself to run a mile without stopping. I would time myself each day and work to improve my speed. Towards the end of the mile, my calves burned, my face would sometimes sweat, and my heart rate accelerated as I gasped for full breaths of air. This was the most painful part of the mile, but it was the most important. The whole mile came down to the last two minutes. If I slowed down, my time would dramatically increase, but if I sped up, I would potentially beat my previous times. Through the pain and discomfort, I would always force myself to sprint.

As you struggle with a mental illness, don’t give up. It is extremely hard to accept a mental disorder. It is life changing. Take your pain and run with it. It is okay to be within you. When you feel like you are at your very worst, don’t slow down. Sprint.

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