Mental Health Week 2016

It's Mental Health Week this week.  Before the week started I had plans to do some research, to be active, to share my story, to participate.  Then, a major natural disaster and human tragedy happened in my province.  A major wildfire that caused the evacuation of Fort McMurray.  And I had to rethink what my week would be.

I am a sensitive person/empath.  This means that I take in a lot of the emotions of those around me.  I watched a whole city evacuated, watched  videos of people literally driving through the fire to get to safety, heard stories of people seeing their house catch fire in the rear view mirror as they drove away, heard of people having to flee on foot because the roads were not big enough to get everyone out in the time they had.  And I felt the fear, the stress, the anxiety, the sadness.

These are not my emotions to feel, this is not my tragedy, and yet empathy and compassion run deep with me.  And so, I needed to  find ways to take care of myself, to do what I need to for my own mental health.  It meant at some point taking a break from the news and social media, it meant talking to people about my emotions, it meant taking time to figure out, once again which emotions are mine and which are other peoples.  And it meant knowing that that was more important right now than all the things I would have liked to do for Mental Health Week.

Working for a end to stigma will still be there when I am able to work to that end again.  And by the sheer fact that I am writing this blog post, I am getting there again.

And so, for Mental Health Week I ask you, what are you doing  today to take care of your mental health?