Healing Your Headspace

The following post is sponsored by BetterHelp, an online professional therapy service. Please know, though, that if you or someone you know is in need of psychiatric resources, there are many other well-qualified services available, a few to be mentioned at the end of this post. If you are a student, feel free to consider consulting your Student Health for resources and support. If you or someone you know is thinking of harming themselves or others, please call 911 for emergency services.

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Happy Mental Health Awareness Month! I hope you all are doing well and are finding time for anxiety reducers and serotonin producers. I was answering blog suggestions recently and came across this question:

“Could you talk about studying while having sick family members (with physical illness or mental illness)? Because it really makes it difficult and makes you feel helpless at times.”

First of all, my thoughts and prayers are with you. That is no easy task. I hope that your situation has been resolved or is in the process of resolving well. This question spoke to me not only because it’s mental health awareness month, but I’ve unfortunately had some personal experience in this matter. So, I’d like to talk a little bit about this question, the state of mental health in medicine, and the importance of healing your headspace as you move forward in your career and in your life.

Medical School is an uphill climb whose slope steepens the further you go. It makes the little things in life harder to manage: managing finances, groceries, exercising, even finding time to see friends. Having to go through it with any additional mental barrier in the way makes the whole lot all the more cumbersome. Having to go through it with a sick family member by your side makes it damn near impossible.

I spoke about it a bit recently in a post paying tribute to our music video, but near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, my grandmother’s cancer resurfaced. My family was having a difficult time taking care of her while also protecting themselves with in-person work, so I would travel back and forth from school to lend a hand. Finding the time to do this with a full Medical School schedule was no simple task. To say it was a trying time for my family would be an understatement: we were always running on empty. The entire experience did a real number on our collective psyche, and many of the mental health issues we had struggled with individually resurfaced, which I’ll go into later. Keeping my mind focused on school and studying for exams during this time was a tall order. I would try to compartmentalize, to pretend my family didn’t exist while sitting at the computer. I would try to use my time traveling to squeeze in some extra medical podcasts or listen to audio lectures. Nothing really worked. I was always thinking of my family. And I hate to say it, but when I was them, I was always thinking of school. The only thing that did help was confiding in my closest friends and venting to them about my family’s struggles. They were truly a godsend, helping me study virtually when I was with family and then allowing me to open up and break down when I returned to them in person. They were the reason I was even fractionally surviving that time, and I owe them more than I could ever repay.

I would love to say my biggest advice is to just be open about your struggles and mental concerns, but I know it’s not as simple as that. I certainly haven’t always been open about my own. While there has been a significant push for emphasizing mental health in our society, workers within the medical field haven't necessarily felt this push. Many providers and students alike have felt pressure to keep mental illness quiet rather than seeking help and treatment. It’s really a travesty. The reason is multifactorial. It could absolutely be argued there still remains a culture within aspects of medicine that you need to push down your problems and “fight through” your emotions. I also know many physicians and students have faced feelings of inadequacy for their mental struggles and have chosen to keep those silent out of fear of being viewed “less capable.” It’s an exceptionally vulnerable task to divulge that part of your life, regardless of your given profession. As I can only speak on behalf of my personal experience, I thought it would be best to seek out the words and wisdom of one actually dedicating their life to the field of Psychiatry.

Lucas Ribbens, M.D., PGY-1 at MUSC Health University Medical Center

@ribbenslt

Tyler: Why did you decide to pursue Psychiatry?

Lucas: As med school progressed, I found that I really enjoyed working with longitudinal relationships and continuity of care. There was a time when I was really split between a few different specialties, but what they all had in common was an emphasis on the patient relationship. And thank god there is a specialty that entirely focuses on that in Psych. Once I had decided, I began to see how ubiquitous it was across medicine and how often it was overlooked. So many patients admitted for a chief reason other than Psych struggle mentally during their stay, and that affects their overall health and recovery. That’s the aspect of medicine that called to me. I love the ambiguity, the gray areas, and the melding of diagnostic approach and longitudinal care.

Tyler: In my experience, there’s been some difficulty within the medical community in professionals and students talking about their own mental health. Maybe it’s fear of seeming “less capable” compared to their peers with all the stigmas associated with mental health, or maybe it’s more multifactorial, but what are your thoughts about the view of mental health within the professional community?

Lucas: One of the major issues is that there is a lot of pressure on physicians to seem like they really have everything together. It takes a level of vulnerability to speak on mental health struggles as many problems are quite difficult to disclose. I think about singing as an instrument compared to playing piano or a guitar. If you play a wrong note on the guitar, people think, “Oh, you just pressed the wrong fret. That happens.” But if you sing the wrong note, since the instrument is more intimately you, people interpret that as more embarrassing, like there is something wrong with you. In a similar manner, if there is an issue with one’s physical health, people think “Oh, your body is just breaking down for whatever reason.’ But if there is an issue with your mental state, for some reason our society views that as a reflection of your personal worth. So many struggle with their mental health today. I really believe we are not built for this modern world. Our evolutionary biology has not kept up with technology. Even as ubiquitous as it is, people still often view it as a weakness, especially in higher-up positions like physicians.

Tyler: What are some actions that we as the future of medicine (pre-meds and med students alike) can take to cultivate the importance and care for mental health both now and in the future?

Lucas: When I first started medical school, I did horribly in the first few modules. I had a moment where I was like, “Well, I guess I’m heading out of here.” I was studying 10-12 hours a day. I wasn’t eating well because I needed to study. I wasn’t working out because I needed to study. I wasn’t sleeping because I needed to study. The crazy thing is, once I prioritized sleep, everything changed. Sleep is so important not just for physical rehabilitation but for memory consolidation and emotional stability. So first piece of advice, if you’re not prioritizing sleep, that’s a great place to start. You also can’t emphasize diet and exercise enough. I found that I really needed to take a mental break every day, and that came in the form of exercise. Make sure to keep up with the hobbies that keep your drive going. More abstractly, learning to be comfortable with adversity, whether it’s trying a new hobby or putting yourself in an uncomfortable situation. Learning to be comfortable with being uncomfortable is a life-long process that we all could benefit from doing more of. Next, I think developing some form of meditation, mindfulness, or non-sleep deep rest protocol and taking time to be with yourself is super important. We have so many voices in our heads (imposter syndrome, feelings of inadequacy), and learning to quiet those is key. A major last point of suggestion would be to learn how to detach yourself from comparing yourself to others. I know I had high expectations for myself for certain scores, and it led me to a really dark place. I never really did as well as I thought I would, and people around me were exceeding my standards. It’s hard to remember but everyone is on their own journey. Everyone has different gifts, and comparisons can be poison. It’s exceptionally difficult in such a competitive field, but we all need to practice being at peace with ourselves.

Be sure to check out MAPS: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Click here for more info!

Back to our main question, how do you focus when you’re faced with major life stressors? For the first two years of medical school, I worked as a coordinator for our local Free Mental Health Clinic. I can’t tell you how many times patients would come in with brain fog, fatigue, and irritability around or caused by a key stressor that would keep them from living their best lives. And yes, often removing the source of the stressor did wonders on their lives, but sometimes the stressor couldn’t be removed at their stage in life, which required us to figure out how to live with the stressor. All of those same symptoms are a product of depression. So to all, the key is to heal your headspace first before trying anything else. Take time and care to your mind. It’s like if you’re trying to pedal a bike with a stick in the spokes. You could try to pedal harder through the stick and get frustrated and more exhausted with each attempt. Or you could stop and take the stick out. How you go about removing your metaphorical stick is entirely dependent on your situation. I’ve found recently that stopping work an hour before I go to sleep has made a huge difference. Before, I would work until the late of night and go to sleep when I was too tired to continue, but I would wake up stressed. Now, I’ve started to wake refreshed and ready to keep going. What I’m trying to do now is take Lucas’s words to heart and actively pursue mindfulness. I’ve stopped grabbing my phone first thing in the morning and rather sit in my thoughts with my morning coffee. I’m trying to do better in not comparing myself to others. Even doing this, writing for you all, has been an incredible exercise in mental wellness for me. My goal here is to take a step in making a more open platform for those inside the medical community and out to speak on their own struggles. So, to any reading whom this may help: My name is Tyler Beauchamp. I’ve struggled with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-harming behavior. I am in the process of healing, and wherever you are in your process, you are not alone.

If you are not in a position where you feel you can speak openly about your mental health, I completely understand. Never feel pressured to do so. But conversely, I truly hope you do not feel pressured to stay silent either. Wherever you are on your personal mental health journey, please remember to always take care of yourself. There are so many resources out there dedicated to helping those across a wide array of mental health concerns. I will post a few at the end of this piece. If you or anyone you know is struggling, please seek help and guidance. Know you are loved and know you are not alone.

MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES:

• Better Help: online private therapy. Click here for more.

• Cerebral: online private therapy. Click here for more.

• Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255. Click here for more.

• Helping out others: How to recognize the warning signs of mental health illness

• The Mental Health Free Clinic (Augusta, GA): free mental health services for those below Poverty line

Instagram: @tyler.bochamp

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