I’ve Always Wanted To Say This:
Taking care of your mental health is not aesthetic morning routines, journaling in your garden, matcha or coffee, going to the gym in your new gear & dainty lunches with your friends.
Social media has been powerful in shedding light on mental health but it is now seeming “trendy” to lead a certain lifestyle that supposedly portrays taking care of your mental health.
Similarly, everyone is now an expert on “narcissists”, “gaslighting”, “love – bombing”, “red-flags”, “self-love”, “people-pleasing” & the list goes on. It’s very important to build your mental health goals on guidance provided by a professional psychologist. Sessions with therapists are always tailored to an individual’s needs and not a general diagnosis.
Not only does all of this add to your anxiety around what healing should look like, but it creates a very black & white thinking around human behaviours.
I’m here to tell you that healing is not always aesthetic, it is messy, it is ugly & it is challenging. The human mind is also complex & intricate. It cannot always be boxed into red-flags & the cure to it all is not self-love.
This is all pseudo-healing. A trendy fad that is shown off as “working on myself” but not actually doing the real, difficult work that does not look aesthetic enough to be posted on social media. This is just another form of avoiding the actual healing that needs to happen. We can engage in meditation, mindfulness, journaling, “insta-therapy” etc, but are you really working on your unresolved issues?