These days, I’ve been coming across posts that talk about mental illnesses like ADHD, DID, Depression, and so on. It’s been really eye-opening, and I’ve realized that while some of us may relate to certain symptoms, the intensity and inconvenience with which people who truly have these conditions live is highly sorrowful.
Lately, I’ve been in a never-ending rollercoaster of bad moods. I couldn’t tell where one emotion began and the others ended. But despite this chaos, I find peace and sanity in the fact that I understand the cause and triggers of my mood swings. At least, I can identify every emotion I feel.
Basically, I’m at that stage of life where I’m supposed to make decisions that will determine what shape or path my entire existence takes, yet it also feels like the decision is totally out of my hands as there are multiple limiting factors.
Let's say I want to get a job, where is the job? The rate of unemployment is not only alarming but genuinely a reason to be worried. If I consider going back for a Master’s degree, where’s the money for self-sponsorship? And then there’s the question of what to even study. Should I pursue my Master's degree in line with my chemistry degree, or pivot to something that supports my passion?
In fact, let me throw this out there, if you were in my shoes, what master’s degree would you consider that merges chemistry with public speaking, lecturing, leadership, or training? I could really use insights from people’s experiences right now.
Oh, there’s also the talk of starting a business. What people don’t understand is, there’s always a need for a backup capital to support your start-up capital. I've read enough business and financial books to know that it is wrong to start a business on a foundation of using its profits to support my lifestyle or basic needs. It just doesn’t work that way. A business needs time to grow, at least five years of consistent effort, before it can even become sustainable. And let’s be honest, nobody wants to be five years deep into something only to realize it’s not working out. I don't like the idea of starting a business to cover my daily needs, it can drain the business real quick.
So you see, despite the mental clutter in my head, at least I know why it’s there. And I’m grateful for that. It means I can choose not to dwell on it all the time. Sometimes, I just distract myself with movies or food. Like yesterday, I made a low-budget salad and mixed it with Peak Yoghurt, my mum calls it a strange combination, but I actually like it, lol. I also went on YouTube to watch some music videos of one of my favorite artists. Singing along helped me momentarily forget all my worries.
Unlike depression or ADHD, I am aware of my mood shifts and thought patterns. Sometimes, I even manage to snap out of it and regain control. I’ve learned that this isn’t something people with these actual illnesses can do. Depression, they say, is like living with a large open wound inside you without ever being able to locate where the wound is. You know it’s there, you feel the pain, but when you reach out to touch it, there’s nothing.
Now, I know for a certain that I have never, not even once thought I might be suffering depression, but sometimes, sadness runs so deep that one can't help but compare. And somehow, I kept seeing videos on these conditions, almost as if the universe was whispering, "Trust me, daughter, you’re perfectly okay. You’re just going through a phase."
And as for ADHD, The perfect picture painted in one of the videos I watched described it as being in a massive, cluttered room where every single corner is filled with unarranged items; books, clothes and so on. And then there’s four different speakers in the room, each blasting different songs. You have two computers in front of you, each with at least, ten open tabs and you’re just sitting there, on a pile of clothes, trying to remember what you were just doing while your brain is already thinking about the next thing.
I could almost relate, but while ADHD keeps the control away from you, I have control. I can shut it all down when I want to. And in my head, rather than a chaotic mess, it’s pretty organized in there, different shelves for different concerns, each one labeled. I imagine it smells fresh too, maybe some lavender vanilla with a hint of mint, lol.
It is easy to get lost in emotions, just as easy as it is to feel the weight of a single worry, it almost feels impossible to walk straight. But through all these, I’m grateful that at least, I’m not out there diagnosing myself with depression or ADHD, because these are serious conditions. If those who actually suffer from them had a choice, they probably wouldn’t choose
(On a side note, I find it unfair and insensitive that today's woke culture has downplayed the heaviness and seriousness of these conditions. Now, a regular teenager who loves tidy spaces will casually claim they have OCD; no diagnosis, just the random "I have OCD, so please arrange my plates to the left, it gives me the ick when they're arranged to the right." The wokeness in this makes absolutely no sense, but that’s a discussion for another day)
At the end of the day, life is a journey, and traveling light means knowing that I am human. Sometimes, the road will get rough, confusing, and exhausting. But at least, I can still put one foot in front of the other, and that’s something.
In response to 👇
Travel-light Tuesday
All images are mine.
Thank you for reading! :)