Becoming Aware of My Mental Health & Well-Being

Quinj Catabui
Mar 19, 2021
2 min read

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The term “Mental Health” has been tossed around quite frequently. The amount of self-awareness has increased, a lot of campaigns started, and the word has got out that the majority of us, sadly, have a terrible sense of well-being and poor mental health.

Being a teen, our personal problems have amplified the emotional aspects of our lives, it’s no lie that we've become more sensitive and definitely responsive to have better well-being and mental status to control our emotional reactions, whether its depression, denial, trauma or just plain day-to-day inconvenience.

In my life, mental health has always been a priority. This is mainly due to emotional inconvenience, not trauma – there’s a humungous difference –, just the occasional situational depression. I’ve always been able to control what I think and feel, and I matured at an early age. But it wasn’t a good development as time passed by.

Because of my practice to ignore what I feel, I didn’t know I was slowly transforming it into a massive bottle of emotions and thoughts, which gave me no chance of moving on but enter a cycle of self-inflicted hatred, lack of self-esteem and confidence. And because of that, I went into another habit of under-eating (physical health), and distancing from friends because of overthinking.

So as I grew older, I wanted to, of course, change, but it was difficult going from a pessimistic mindset to an objective one.

However, slowly but surely, there were changes.

I slowly started to cope through social media, which helped me get some level of confidence to talk to my friends and connect with others. [p.s. my only social media was Facebook - which I wasn’t active on - until 2017, then I started Instagram the following few months].

And it got better to some extent, but I ... needed more. My third place, where I could relax and really gather my thoughts always had to be a place close to the waters, where I could silently sit still immersed by the sounds of water.

By the time I entered college, it was a total complete new vibe.

And I was in for it.

Nobody knew me, I could be a different person, and that’s what I took as leverage. And finally, I could balance my mental health, split it accordingly, and give me a better view of what I could do to improve (check below!).

This module helped me reflect on my past, which I can improve on now, and do even way better in the future. Thankfully, I have a better strategy now.

So, to improve,

- I vow to myself to reduce my stress