100 Voices: USI President Síona Cahill on Mental Health: #NowWereTalking

“You’re doing great!” I’m told. Sometimes, while I nod and thank whoever is saying it, I feel awfully ashamed. Like to be fair, I’m rarely not looking absolutely DELIGHTED in photos, to the point that people remark on the ‘laugh’ I have in them and how happy and positive I always come across. And I’m always up to something, because I have an incredible job, and I know I’m lucky.

Yet, what people probably don’t know is how often anxiety consumes my life - so much sometimes that I can barely move. Because of my position, a lot of what I do is pretty public, or I track it on social media myself to communicate what I’m up to, and I love sharing my life online with others. But I rarely, if ever, show people when I’m not doing so great – like when getting to the shower in the morning is a gagantuan struggle, or I’m not sure how I’ll face the day at all, or how I run to stand in an empty toilet cubicle to get my breathing level, and how much of the time my urge is to hide and curl up and not talk to anyone, even though I absolutely love what I do.

Instead, I guess like most people, I share the wins, the successes, and the funny escapes and awkward situations – and you know what? We spend our whole time, particularly online, comparing ourselves with others, and most of the time it’s so subconscious we don’t realise we’re doing it; nor how we are damaging ourselves and each other when we focus our lives on responding to that.

For years, I’ve had to battle on and off with what feels like a bag of sugar pressing down on my chest, and it’s only recently that I’ve started to name it, to flag it with friends and colleagues, and to try and deal with how ashamed I was of my mental health being a weakness or a flaw, rather than part of me, a part of me I will always have to work on, and sometimes need help with.

No one is a machine, no matter how much perceived pressure they’re under, what work they’re doing or at what level. We’re human, and we can suffer with stuff and through stuff, and no one is more deserving than any other of anxiety, or sadness, or depression. You’re not alone, and your mental state doesn’t own you, but you have to curate it, and respond to its needs. And when you need to, reach out for help. That’s how I do it, and I know I’m a work in progress.

When I talk about Mental Health in terms of a ‘battle’, nothing about the day to day living of that actually feels ‘epic’ per se, because so much of the time spent constrained by anxiety or sadness feels like as if you’re losing. But that’s the thing. By recognising it, and running against that urge to curl up, you’re winning. Bit by bit, day after day, facing the world, you’re winning, because you are also a work in progress – and that’s worth fighting for, every damn day.

100 Voices was published in the Hot Press Mental Health Special in conjunction with Lyons Tea and Pieta House as part of the Now We're Talking Campaign. For more please visit hotpress.com/now-were-talking/