Cry more, apologise better: 7 tips to improve your life from mental health advocates
Crying in the bathroom at work may not be so bad after all
My feelings towards social media, and the internet world as a whole, are best described by Bo Burnham in his song ‘Welcome to the Internet’ from his comedy special Inside. “Could I interest you in everything, all of the time? A little bit of everything, all of the time. Apathy’s a tragedy and boredom is a crime. Anything and everything. All of the time.” I sound like a boomer complaining about the internet. But I’m a millennial boomer (a moomer?). So, for me, it’s more about the anxiety of having endless options and the fact that social media can quickly turn from inspiration for my next crochet project to a cesspool of problems and body image issues.
I avoided posting on social media successfully. My last Instagram post from 2018 is a video of a lighter that has a picture of Shah Rukh Khan on it, and honestly, how can I ever top that? I re-entered social media after the first year of my hiatus because I had to post for work purposes. Under that pretence, I continue lurking.
I’ve come to realise that a lot of my dislike for social media was due to the digital environment I had created for myself. Mass-unfollowing the people I would hate-watch and envy, I surrounded my digital self with positive influencers instead.
While countless experts say that social media is detrimental to our mental health, it’s also given us access to professionals around the world like never before.
A growing number of psychotherapists, psychiatrists and mental health advocates are using their platforms to raise awareness and bust misconceptions about living with mental illnesses and daily stressors. They’re also more inclusive in their approach to what is a ‘valid problem’ .
Ever since I’ve started following these mental health advocates online, I’ve come to recognise the gaps in my own understanding of my behaviours, disorders and actions that could be detrimental to my mental peace. Here’s what I’ve learnt.
What mental health advocates want you to know about your own behaviour
Freezing in stressful situations is natural, and often uncontrollable
“Why didn’t you do anything, fight back or run?”
A common statement hurled at people who go through traumatic experiences. Bordering on victim-blaming, if I may say so. Mental health advocates like clinical psychologist Divija Bhasin say that it’s not inaction by choice, but your natural stress response kicking in.
We have three stress responses: fight, flight and freeze. The body’s reaction begins in the amygdala, which signals the hypothalamus to stimulate the autonomic nervous system. This is divided into the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The latter directs the freezing/blanking response while the sympathetic nervous system controls fight or flight.
We don’t get to pick which one we want to activate, as our body starts flooding our system with adrenaline and cortisol, the stress hormone.
“Not many people know about blanking out or freezing. So when that happens, they feel bad and blame themselves for not doing anything. It’s a very normal human reaction. You didn’t do it on purpose,” says Bhasin, using the example of stress while writing an exam and a hilarious reenactment of a lizard.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ is not a real apology
It took me a long time to realise what is and isn’t an apology. You’ll find a lot of people, perhaps even yourself at some point, saying “I’m sorry you were hurt” and “I’m sorry, but“.
According to mental health advocates like psychotherapist Sara Kubric, known by her Instagram moniker the Millennial Therapist, statements like that are a non-apology.
You’re putting the onus on the other person for being affected by what you did. It’s not acknowledging that your action in that situation was the problem, not their reaction. And I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of such statements, unaware of the repercussions.
Seeking forgiveness isn’t only about the words being spoken. It’s a two-step process. The first is taking accountability and acknowledging what we did wrong. We have to spell out what we did wrong. It shows admittance, that you understand what it was about your actions/words that affected them.
The second is a change in behaviour and committing to improving. According to economists Ben Ho and John List, the act of reparations optimises your apologies and makes them more effective.
It could be your time, money, reputation, attention, even something mildly inconvenient, to show you’re willing to take a hit to make it up to the person you’ve hurt.
A bad apology is probably worse than no apology at all. Recognising that can help us be better at seeking forgiveness and keeping serial apologisers at arm’s length.
There’s no right way to grieve
If there’s one word that sums up the past two years, it’s grief. We’ve all grieved. Losing loved ones, jobs, homes… It’s come with anger and frustration at the lack of control over what’s happening in our lives and all around us.
But there’s no ‘right way’ to grieve, says Dr Courtney Tracy. “Grief is not something you overcome. It’s something you manage.”
No two people react to loss in the same way. Someone may mourn for weeks after it happens, cry and shut themselves in a room. Another person may have no outwardly emotional reaction, remaining composed and calm throughout.
But we all have to learn to live with the loss in our life. “Don’t expect yourself to heal quickly or ever, or return to the same that you were before because as we experience things in our lives, we grow and change. It’s not ideal to go back to the way we were before because we need to try to take time to find who we will become after we have experienced this loss,” says Tracy.
Having tough conversations doesn’t need to send us over the edge
There are some things we’re not comfortable talking about. Whether it’s opening up about mental health to the ones we love, talking to our spouses about certain issues, drawing boundaries with people and speaking up at work to aggressive bosses.
As the pressure cooker seeti finally goes off, bottling up our emotions and burying them inside takes a deep toll on our mental as well as physical health. Keeping this anger and fear to ourselves can lead to depression and anxiety, and studies have also linked it to high blood pressure and heart disease.
Psychotherapist Esther Perel says that we can alleviate some of the stress that comes with approaching difficult topics of discussion if we go in with kind of a pre-decided game plan.
Some of the tips she suggests are:
– Sticking to one issue
– Make an appointment and set a time limit: “Can we take a 15-minute walk tonight to talk?”
– Don’t compete by upstaging their grievances with your own. Ask them to do the same.
– Listening doesn’t mean agreeing. Remind yourself and them of this.
– Acknowledging another person’s experience doesn’t invalidate your own.
Perel adds that just this one conversation may not resolve the issue at hand, but it’s a good place to start. And if it’s just too challenging to communicate verbally, try writing to each other.
You will love this
Sometimes you need to set boundaries with yourself
“Just as we have perimeters with others, we must have boundaries for ourselves,” writers therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab. Several mental health advocates, along with Tawwab, say that setting boundaries, with others and with yourself, is a form of self-care. Personal boundaries set limits for others, on what you will and will not tolerate.
We need to apply the same when it comes to ourselves, for the sake of our own mental health. As they say, we can be our own worst enemies.
These boundaries are helpful especially when we’re trying to change and break out of bad habits. Whether it’s trying to reduce screen time by making the bedroom a no phone zone, or replacing the urge to binge eat when we’re stressed/emotional with a healthier habit, like journaling about our feelings.
It’s not easy, I know. But with practice, we can break the chains pulling us down and make healthier habits.
Don’t feel bad about crying
You’re finally having that fight with your partner that you were too tired to have for the last three weeks. You have it all planned in your head. You rehearsed it even. Just as you’re about to make your point, the tears of frustration well up. It’s out of your control. The worst part? The other person thinks you’re upset, not angry.
Or you’re biting your tongue to avoid snapping at a superior at work who is constantly bogging you down with extra work while criticising you all the way. You slink off to the loo and finally let the tears rain down in the privacy of the bathroom stall.
People will tell you that crying at work is unprofessional, but if you’re doing it responsibly by yourself in the corner, then what’s the problem? Moreover, Dr Caroline Leaf, neuroscientist, mental health and mind expert, and author, says we shouldn’t hold back or feel bad (and make others feel bad) for crying. It’s one of the quickest and easiest ways to release stress and tension.
“Prolactin is one of the main chemicals that is released when we cry. Although prolactin is released when breastfeeding, it is also released in both males and females in response to negative and positive stress and may help us manage our stress response. Other chemicals related to crying are oxytocin, vasopressin, and endogenous opioids, all of which can make us feel calm and more in control when released,” writes Leaf.
Mental health advocates say that crying is a method of self-soothing, biologically built into us. It helps us manage our emotional reactions, forces us to breathe deeply and calms our heart rate when it’s bouncing off the walls under stress and tension. A good cry can be a cathartic and de-stressing end to a bad day. So, let yourself cry, reflect on your emotions and process the triggering experience so you can then let it go and move on.
Your mental illness/disorder could come with positive traits
I was a bit confused when a friend sent me Dr Brendan Nierenberg’s video. I saw the thumbnail text, which stated “Positive aspects about people with bipolar I & II disorder you may not know”. As someone with the diagnosis, I was thoroughly confused.
After watching his videos covering other disorders/illnesses in a similar way, like OCD, depression and ADHD, I got past my knee-jerk reaction to understand what he meant and where he was coming from. Initially I thought, what could possibly be positive about people trying to manage and cope with mental illnesses, many of them incurable? Then I realised that he wasn’t talking about the people themselves, but the perception that others have about these illnesses and the behaviours they cause
Mental illnesses can be complex to understand and live with, and it also makes others think that people who are going through such a thing would be ‘too much to handle’.
What Nierenberg’s trying to raise awareness about is that, yes, sometimes certain illness present themselves with behaviours that you could call… challenging. But there also exists, as a result of said challenges, positive traits.
People who have/are struggling with depression may have a greater affinity for empathy. A person with OCD can be more resilient during high stress, detail-oriented tasks. So, what we see or think are negative aspects traits or aspects of our illness could possibly be turned into positives and helpful habits.
A note of caution: This story is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any mental health or medical issues. Please consult a trained professional to seek help.