Metaphorical Crutches: Not Being Ashamed of my Mental/ Emotional Health Strategies

I have been thinking about the metaphor of the crutch. People talk about crutches as if they are something bad. If something is someone's crutch it's a thing that they cling to in order to avoid the responsibility of independence, but the thing is that we aren't independent. We are interdependent. We are all messed up and need help, but we have different problems and different gifts and we can lean on each other and help each other out. Crutches don't keep an injured man injured forever, they help him be able to keep waking even while his injury is still healing!

I have been thinking about the comparison between depression and cancer. This is a useful comparison to show people that things that eat away at us on a mental and emotional level are just as real and serious as physical illnesses. We cannot wake up and overpower the darkness inside of us armed only with positive thinking and sheer will power any more than a cancer patient could.

However, many of us do not struggle with mental and emotional problems resembling cancer, but more like something resembling diabetes or some other illness that probably won't kill me (if I deal with it properly), but may never go away. Just as people with long term injuries, illnesses, and people born with different abilities (like blindness or deafness) require different tools and different life strategies, many people are not in danger of suicide or completely giving up but every day they have to figure out how to live with self hatred, anxiety, and sadness.

I was thinking about this today because one thing I have to live with is that I get overwhelmed really easily. If I have too much on my plate (too many thoughts in my head) it can lead to an intense anxiety. One tool I have used forever is talking to my mom. To get all my thoughts out of my head and not just on paper but actually given to someone else who can help me work through them helps me let go of each little thing which relieves the big ball of anxiety that is created when all the little things add up. Because of this, I literally talk to my mom for hours everyday about every little thing. Sometimes I worry that this means I'm not a good adult and anyways, what am I going to do when my mom dies? My mom (practical as ever) said I'll just have to find someone else to talk to when she dies because that is a strategy that works for me, and I realised that I don't have to be ashamed of this crutch because I need it to be able to walk through my everyday life, so as long as I haven't fallen into a heap on the floor its all good. So figure out what works for you and don't be ashamed if you don't do things the way others do!