Struggling Internally

It's about 4:15pm on Tuesday of this previous week.

The sun is out, and it's relatively warm out for early February.

I struggled to get a workout in the previous day and I haven't done any physical activity this day yet. I have my entrepreneurial class at 5pm, but am really struggling with a desire to participate.

Hazel is in her second week of day camp, so I don't have a walking companion around.

"Whatever", I say to myself and head out the door.

As I walk outside our neighborhood and through our old neighborhood, the one we moved away from just a little over two years ago, I'm deep in thought about life, mainly the continued unknowns.

My market research has gone about as well as I figured it would.

"Well" in this case being not enough information that I need if I'm ever going to gain any traction in forming a platform where people within the mental health community and the general public at large would come together to share their stories on mental health.

Unless you've been living under a rock or in a coma in the last 12 months, the state of mental health really will be at a crossroad once this pandemic is under better control.

Anyway, as I'm about to head back over to our neighborhood to finish up my walk, my partner and her mother spot me and honk as they go to pick up Hazel from camp.

It's almost 5pm at this time, but I've decided already that I'm not logging onto my Zoom class tonight and may not anymore.

While the class is condensed for the eight weeks and keeps moving on, beyond the various speakers that present for the first half of the 90 minute class, I'm really not getting much out of it.

I don't feel connected to the other members really.

Everyone is at different stages in their business start-up and/or concept.

You have everything from a yoga instructor and travel agency to cooking designer and a group that's doing some sort of permaculture organic farming.

Yeah, not exactly a whole lot of common connection to mental health. The yoga instructor is probably the closest and she nicely reached out to me. Maybe in the future I will try to connect with her on something with exercise/mental health.

I'm not upset with the non-profit that runs the class. Honestly, they're doing a lot of good things for the community and for different populations.

I just don't feel connected to the class and I believe that mental health marketing would be better completed by talking to people in person. It's a very personal thing. I'm not saying that doing a surgery of your favorite type of beer isn't, but people generally aren't too gun shy about that.

As of this past Friday, I finally reached out to This Is My Brave, the organization that has created theater shows as their storytelling platform for mental illness. Who knows if I will hear back, but trying is better than nothing.

The real honest truth of it all, is that I'm tired, especially mentally. Thinking and advocating about mental health all the time is exhausting. It's especially exhausting when you feel that all you're doing is going in circles.

I just want to get back to being a human being; going on trips, working for a cause in person that gives me joy, and connecting better with others.

This pandemic has lingered on for so long and the vaccines for me and my partner seem so far away. My parents are still trying to get in as they're over 65.

My dad is slowly losing more of who he use to be. I need to still have a serious talk with my mom about how she needs to work on her own mental health, for me and dad's sake.

The fatigue just drags on and on.

I often feel alone in this journey.

As I recently just read in another guy's blog writings, I feel that few people take me seriously. It's almost as if people don't even believe I have a mental illness to begin with.

There's also the added stigma against men compared to women.

That's another topic for another day, though.

I'm beginning to wonder if people think those with mental illnesses are only to be seen, as well, unseen. That those with mental illnesses are not strong enough to advocate for themselves. Or only the "craziest" of the crazy with mental illnesses are real, because they belong in psych wards.

It's all incredibly frustrating and then you find out that many don't even want to talk about their mental health.

While I will always respect personal privacy, I do feel it does a big dis-service to the mental health field. The last thing we need is to keep mental illness in the dark.

True be told, humans don't seem to change unless a gun is pointed at them.

Now, I'm definitely not saying we need to point guns or even fingers. That's not a kind or even humane way to go about it.

So, yeah, I'm just really struggling internally with wanting to continue on this journey. I feel like I have little life outside it.

All I want to do is just sit down with someone face to face and talk. Well, I want to talk to someone who is well-verse in the mental health field and see if this platform concept is even something really worth pursuing.

I want to be my own boss. Something I've wanted for the last 15 years.

I need better support and feel I shouldn't have to beg for it.

Seriously, when are things going to go my way?