This post is part of a series to foster understanding about depression.
Other posts in this series include the following:
11/08/2023 – Part 1: Challenges to Understanding
11/15/2023 – Part 2: The Internal Cacophony
11/22/2023 –Part 3: Fighting Back

When was the last time you played tug of war?

Maybe it was in school. Maybe for you, it was a college intramurals or some team-building activity for work. Then again, maybe you are a part of the Tug of War competition at the International World Games. Regardless, you only need to witness the game once to understand the objective.

In tug of war, two teams line up on opposite sides of a rope, and — using leverage, strength, coordination, and determination — try to pull the other team to your side of the playing area. It’s an example of tension and opposing forces playing out before you in real-time.

And…tug of war is the best illustration I can offer as to why some people overlook or ignore their mental health issues for so long.

You see, within the mind of someone who struggles with mental health is a tug of war happening between LOGIC and EMOTIONS.

On one side, the logical facet of one’s brain says that we should talk to someone about what we are feeling. Logic tells us that we are not weak, we should talk to a doctor, lots of others deal with this and we are not alone.

But one tricky aspect of mental health is that diseases like depression, anxiety, and more will push back and use emotions to convince us differently. Depression will use emotions so that messages like, “You ARE alone. No one understands. You don’t DESERVE to have anyone listen to you about how you feel! You DESERVE to feel miserable. Maybe if you weren’t so WEAK you wouldn’t feel this way.”

You see…it’s not that the person struggling with mental health doesn’t want to feel better. It’s just that the internal tug of war is currently telling them they don’t deserve to feel better or it is impossible to feel better. This is also why someone who wrestles with mental health may be the life of the party one moment and feel dejected and miserable the next.

It can be immensely frustrating, from both the inside and the outside, to navigate the fluctuating emotions that can come with mental health struggles. Unfortunately, there is also currently no cure-all answer that works for every person in every situation with every diagnosis.

So the question for both those wrestling with mental health and those supporting them is, What can we do? How do we best navigate all of these complexities when so much of the struggle is unseen?

The best advice I can give you is to shift the tug-of-war balance as much as possible in your favor. Then, even if the struggle never entirely goes away, more often than not you are in a winning position.

How do you shift the odds in your favor? I wrote about this last week in my article about how I fight back against depression. Perhaps some of those recommendations will be beneficial for you. Perhaps the best step you can take is to get on medication, double down on your commitment to good sleep, get into talk therapy, or just begin a daily check-in with a trusted friend that you will be honest with about how you feel. Ask around or do an internet search to learn about some new coping mechanisms you might be able to experiment with.

Whatever you do, recognize that this moment is not all there is and the internal struggle will continue. So do whatever you can to shift the balance in your favor.

For mental health resources in your area visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

If you know of someone who struggles with suicidal thoughts, encourage them to text HOME to 741741.
A trained volunteer at the National Crisis Text Line will anonymously help navigate whatever crisis they are going through.