The terms “mental health” and “self-care” are gaining increased visibility and validation lately, as more popular media outlets and powerful culture influencers embrace these subjects as important, necessary topics.
But these topics, although crucial to understand and nurture, can sometimes feel incredibly abstract. What constitutes “good” mental health? Am I mentally healthy? Are my thoughts, feelings, fears, habits normal or concerning? How does my mental health compare to everyone else’s?
One of my personal go-to’s, when I get caught up in one of these self-doubt cycles, is perhaps the least beneficial thing I could do: compare myself to others.
“Is she getting more sleep than me? Is that why she always seems happier? How does he do so well in school without having to meditate every night? How does she avoid depression and self-consciousness without working out every day?” — thoughts like these are always running through my mind when I witness what appears to be people’s successes and failures.
My insecurity about my mental well-being often manifests itself as a constant game of “spot the difference” between myself and another person, until I’m too confused to know anything for certain. We often seek ostensible, outward signs of supposed happiness. This mindset rings true not only to me — or to UW-Madison — though; Kati Tuemmler, freshman at Scripps University, knows this phenomenon well.
“If someone has a cute outfit on or is physically fit, [people] assume that they are more mentally healthy,” Tuemmler says.
Many of us fall into these visual, arbitrary comparison traps as well. I trick myself into believing that one glimpse of someone in a classroom or dining hall is enough to understand the extent to which they suffer. Moreover, I do that to see how well I’m doing in comparison, depending on how I measure up against my incognizant competitor.
It’s as if I’m trying to make mental health like an all-levels yoga class. When I misstep, fall out of a pose or feel lost and overwhelmed, all I have to do is glance up, observe the people around me and copy their form exactly. Mental health is obviously far too complex to work so simplistically; but in its confusion, my mind scrambles for a sense of natural balance by doing what it has been trained to do — compare.
But, when we find ourselves in a self-constructed wellness competition, we must remember that we all exist on our individual spectrums when it comes to mental health. Of course, certain habits and thoughts are proven to be more productive than others; but ultimately, only we can gauge what is healthy to us. Only we can distinguish whether lying in bed and bingeing on old movies are recharging mechanisms or indications of our need to address feelings that have been festering under the surface. Jordan Hardwick, freshman at the University of Pittsburgh, has battled similar issues.
“Don’t compare yourself to others,” Hardwick says. “Because you’ll either feel like you’re lazy, or you’ll feel like you’re doing too much. Either way, you’re going to be negatively impacted, so just listen to what your body needs and balance that with what you need to do.”
There is no winning if you’re constantly up against unwilling and unknowable opponents, so why set yourself up for failure? You know who you are, what you need and how you feel; you know what is a good use of your time, what’s worth contemplating and what makes you feel unproductively upset. So, remind yourself often that only you know what you like to do, that only you know what’s important and holds value to you. Don’t sacrifice the power of that knowledge out of self-doubt. Do whatever it takes to convince yourself that, at the end of the day, only you know what’s best for you.