‘Mental Health is a Cycle’ | Your Story

Your Story is a series in which you, the reader, are invited to be a guest writer on Your Friend Jane and share your own story, relating to mental health and personal growth.

Michael Delasandro

Can you imagine someone just straight up telling you that you may be one of the unluckiest people alive? Unfortunately, I have, and I wish it was a joke.

I was told that by at least five of my peers and co-workers the weekend after I found out that I wouldn’t be transferring to my four year university due to financial reasons. It was good for laughs and all, but it really was a difficult thing to go through. It started a long dangerous trend of believing I was plagued by misfortune. I can speak from experience that most people probably don’t ever want to think like that.

Think about that time you didn’t do something because you were afraid of the potential negative outcome. Let’s say it was asking for a raise, making that big purchase or even something as small talking to that person at the bar. Every single choice, totally overshadowed by some often far-fetched reality that I was worried about, which ultimately limited a great deal of how I lived. I lived entire days inside my head trying to see why I was doing this to myself, thinking it was my job(s), maybe it was outside stress, maybe I wasn’t exercising enough. Unfortunately, I only made things worse for myself as everything snowballed.

In my mind, all I wanted was to go one day without having second thoughts about any possible decision I made. It got to a point where I would need to drink a bit before making any even relatively minor choices, just to kind of ease myself into doing things. It really was a bit of a terrible situation, because I felt so in a corner and unable to really do anything about things. 

I have spent the better part of the last four months dreading having to make any choices, and I would be lying if I really had any way to get over the anxiety around making decisions, whether its out of fear that it would be the wrong choice, fear that the improbable would occur, or any other circumstance. 

Personally, I think mental health works cyclically with highs, lows and anything in-between, and how it’s handled comes down to the individual. I think what works best for me is to rationalize my choices as much as I can before making one, but also on the same token not always going with what I am comfortable with. Leaving my realm of security and making choices that I would want someone else to make. 

If you are ever in a situation where you are unable to rationalize something, think what someone else would tell you to do.