Be kind to your MIND

Asurvey conducted by Girl Guiding found that 58 per cent of girls aged between 13 and 21 believed mental health in young women was a serious concern. Seventy-five per cent of responders said self-harming was a major health matter and 62 per cent had known a girl who had experienced a mental-health problem. Yet these issues are often overlooked or dismissed as girls simply being dramatic or overwrought. The survey also found that 82 per cent of girls believed the adults around them ‘didn’t recognise the pressure they were under’.

My battle with mental illness partially manifests itself in an existential crisis. In its grip, I’m unable to understand how and why I am me. I can’t connect with the world but am still aware enough to pretend that all is fine. It has been hard, and I suspect it will continue to take me down dark paths for the rest of my life.

There’s a lack of understanding and, perhaps, even interest in the mental issues of girls. The ways in which we cope (which can include hurting ourselves) are more hidden: solitude, addictions, self-loathing, irrationalities. And aren’t women supposed to be these things anyway? We have been imagined as irrational creatures from the beginning, our pain and suffering dismissed as overreactions or grabs for attention. We are hysterical she-demons, governed by the mystical movements of the moon; unknowable and dangerous to others.

Remembering to be kind to yourself can be the hardest thing. I seek help from a number of sources now – audiobooks of novels I’ve already read and walks where I’m reminded that life is just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. My childhood was defined by eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive behaviour, emotional instability and poor physical self-esteem. But I now realise we live in a world that seeks to control women and speak for and to us as if we’re children, forever reminding us that we are unreliable witnesses to our own lives.