Mental Health And A Global Pandemic

It is been a long time since I have posted on this blog. My mental health took a drop in the last couple of months and now that I am in a position to talk about it, I wanted to share my experience. I started working from home in March 2020. It was really exciting initially because I could spend time with my family for an extended period. But as time went on, the lines between personal and professional aspects of my life got blurred. There were days in which I used to work for 14 hours straight. It had a serious impact on my sleep and eating habits. I knew I was in a stressful situation but kept on going without a break.

There’s a concept called spoon theory regarding your mental health. We have 3 pieces of cutlery – spoons, forks, and knives. Spoons represent the energy you can expend today, forks represent the stressors or things that take up your energy and knives represent the energy you have saved up for tomorrow. As the days went on, the number of spoons I had kept on decreasing. When you do not have enough spoons, you start using your knives. One fine day, I was out of spoons and knives and I had my first anxiety attack. The feeling of helplessness and inability to breathe was one of the worst things I have experienced in my life. I knew I could not do it on my own anymore and I reached out for help. I started seeing a therapist.

Stress

I remember a sentence that was shared by a professor, a few years back. He used to tell us interesting facts and historical stories every day for at least 10 minutes.

“I never said she stole my money”.

Now, try reading this statement stressing one word at a time.

➟ I never said she stole my money – Someone else could have said it.

➟ I never said she stole my money – I didn’t say that she stole.

➟ I never said she stole my money – I only implied it or witnessed it.