I’ve struggled with my mental health (what’s up my anxious buddies and depressed friends struggling to get out of bed and face the world?!) for a very long time now.
It has been therapists, general practitioners, running, vitamins, essential oils, yoga, herbal remedies, and what can feel like a new diagnosis for every day of the week. Ultimately, some things help but nothing has or can rid me of my anxiety and depression. It’s something that I will always have to work through and while I thank you, world and well-meaning companions, for your prayers and well-wishes please stop telling me you hope I get better or are praying I overcome this. It does nothing more than make me feel as though somehow I could be trying harder or even worse that I am broken.
I digress.
I’ll save the rest of that rant for my next therapist, I think the point was made. I have mental health issues and only douchebags will try to tell me how to fix myself. Thank you for being so understanding.
Now, I know what you’re probably thinking…
“Wait, I thought this was a travel blog?”
It certainly is but there’s a problem. I love to travel but nothing leaves me more drained, anxious, and out of balance. I have a wonderful opportunity to go and see so much of this world but so often I’m unable. And it makes me feel awful and guilty.
Sometimes, I fear that wanderlust has truly met its match in my anxiety. I’ve cancelled multiple trips because I simply couldn’t get out of bed to go to the airport or because my thought spiral went on an unearthly rampage the week leading up to the plane ride telling me all the ways things could go wrong and all the reasons why the people I would be with or visiting didn’t actually want me around.
How do I explain to those around me that I can’t get out of bed and so I won’t be making that Florida trip? How do I apologize for not crashing the layover of my sister who has kindly listed me as her companion so I can have these insane flight benefits? How do I not waste the time I have to see the world while still taking care of myself and knowing when to say no, even if it means disappointing others?
It’s hell. But I’m trying.
so.
Here I am. Hi again. It’s nice to be honest and open with one another. Scary but wonderful. I have a good feeling about this.
This is me. I’m figuring it out and I’m seeing the world. And I’m not here to say that every person with depression or any of the other million and one mental illnesses can travel. Nope. That’s not the story I’m selling. I’m just here to say this is who I am and this is what I’m trying to do and maybe we can help each other out along the way. Maybe we can make a place in this world of travel blogs where mental health isn’t just a topic brought up to see products deemed worthy of a “self-care” day. Maybe. Maybe not.
I’m just a girl…
Looking for a place to talk about the places I’m privileged enough to see without sugarcoating the anxiety felt or the times I can’t do anything other than sit in bed watching the same twenty romantic-comedies (a highly underrated genre, but that’s for another post).
Let’s do this.
My name is Emma-Thomas and it’s nice to meet you.
The Depressed Traveler 