Ask the Expert: All About Mental Health

SINCE OUR ASK THE EXPERT SESSIONS ON MENTAL HEALTH ARE SO POPULAR, WE INVITED PARENTING EXPERT JANNA COMRIE TO ANSWER SOME ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS.

* PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL USER PARTICIPATION IS ANONYMOUS.

Question:

I am resisting the “return to normal” everyone seems to be seeking and I am avoiding any type of socialization for fear of Covid. I would be perfectly happy isolating, maintaining distance and reduced occupancy, and wearing masks indefinitely, but I am afraid I may be alienating close friends and family. I need some tips on positive thinking to help manage my fear and balance my life.

Janna Comrie:

Hi there. Your statement about being “perfectly happy isolating and maintaining distance and reduced occupancy and wearing masks indefinitely” has me wondering a couple of things…  Why is this the case for you?  Did you not enjoy socializing pre-Covid and if so, why not? Do you feel that the people around you are judgmental or intrusive in any way? Are you afraid of getting ill? I think understanding why you feel this way would be really helpful. It’s good to “stay positive”, but if there is something under these feelings, staying positive and not respecting your feelings may only make it feel worse. I would suggest attending even a handful of sessions with a mental health professional to help you understand why you feel this way and how to establish healthy boundaries that help you to move forward and still respect your own personal feelings.

Question:

I just came back home from the worst Thanksgiving holiday I have ever experienced. I have two little ones who are not vaccinated against Covid. We live a very conscientious lifestyle during the pandemic, respecting all safety measures. My family (in-law) invited friends and strangers to our Thanksgiving family dinner. I expressed my concern about the safety of my kids. They disregarded my concerns and went ahead and let all these additional people come into the house (note that there is a one extra household rule right now in some health regions). We had 22 people from 9 different households. The kids and I stayed in the basement all evening. I cried all night after the day was done. I cried for so many different reasons, from fear of my kids getting Covid to the blatant disrespect I experienced by that family. How do I move on? I think about this event every waking hour.

Janna Comrie:

It’s unfortunate how much Covid has created situations within many families with some feeling one way and not respecting others who feel differently. When you are saying “move on”, I’m assuming the question means how do I engage in the next holiday with your in-laws? For you, I think recognizing that if you’re in someone else’s home all you can control is you. If they are not considering your feelings, then perhaps you don’t go when you know the crowd is there, and arrange another day to spend time together. Or perhaps stay for a short period of time and wear your masks, but leave before the meal. Or perhaps you go, and if there are more there than you are comfortable with, you pre-arrange an exit strategy with your partner. Or, perhaps you decide that you’re just not going again. We can’t control how others think or feel. We can only control how we think and what we do. It’s important that you always have a way out of a potentially bad situation for you – whether it’s physically bad, psychologically bad, or emotionally bad. Have a list of what you can do with as many options as possible. Talk that list over with your partner if possible and see if they can think of anything that you haven’t. Be creative! Then, you will have options and can decide which one is the best one for you and your family should a similar situation arise again.

Question:

My daughter is going through a difficult time in her personal relationship and she relies on me for support, so she shares all the details with me. It causes me tremendous anxiety that I cannot help her fix the problem, and I constantly think of ways I could help her or what I can do, and I feel I am so involved in it that it consumes me to an unhealthy extent. What can I do to relieve this anxiety?

Janna Comrie:

It can be so hard to watch a child go through something difficult no matter how old they are. As parents, we spend a lot of time teaching our children everything from life lessons to manners. At some point, we have to trust them to be able to figure things out for themselves or to get help from a professional to figure things out. If this is consuming you, it sounds like she should be talking to a professional. You may want to try explaining to her that you love her and want the best for her, but that this is just too much for you and is creating anxiety for you. Perhaps it’s time to recommend that she seek professional help. You could even do some of the leg work by searching for some mental health providers in her area. Then, if she starts talking to you about it again, you can ask, “Have you called the professional(s)?”, or say, “I don’t know what to do for you here but a professional would be able to help”. This is a gentle way of maintaining a boundary where you can listen, but this removes the expectation for both of you, that you are somehow going to know how to fix her problem.

Question:

My partner is going through a hard time, a time of transition that is career-related, and he’s struggling with a big decision. That decision impacts me as well. I want him to be happy, but this change might make me unhappy. That sounds selfish, but if he makes the wrong choice, it can’t be undone. I want to be supportive, but I’m afraid of the unknown, I guess.

Janna Comrie:

Fear of the unknown is very common! It can be really hard to start something new while not knowing how it will feel, or if it will be successful and fulfilling. Without more details, it’s very hard to provide very specific strategies for your situation. So, I’ll provide some general things to consider. Often, when we think about the future or something that we’re afraid of, we get stuck at some point and think to ourselves, “Well, if that happens, we’re in trouble”. Go there! What would you guys do if it turns out to be the wrong decision? How would he handle it? How would you guys handle it as a couple? What would you do to right or offset the situation? If he couldn’t go back, could he go somewhere else in a lateral-type move? Are his skills transferable? Answering these questions often takes you past the stuck point of “we’re in trouble”. You may also want to examine how important happiness is to you both. How is that achieved for each of you? Are there ways in which both of you can find happiness while feeling safe and secure? What might they be? Be creative in problem-solving. In my experience when one partner sacrifices their happiness for the other’s, often resentment follows and completely undermines the relationship.

Question:

Hello Janna, occasionally (irregular intervals) I get very sad. So sad that it would take a blink of an eye for me to start crying. All the sad and stressful situations I went through years and years back, come all at once to my mind, combined with the recent stress and anxiety from the past 2 years. Sometimes it takes hours or even days to get out from that cloud. At work, I manage to put a “happy face mask” on, but when I leave my work environment, the repressed thoughts and emotions catch up with me. Any tips on how to improve your state of the mind and emotional (im)balance? Thank you.

Janna Comrie:

It sounds like you are really good at putting that mask on! Given what you have said though, it sounds like perhaps you need to do some processing of those events in the past and truly leave them behind you. Any tips that I would give you to help mask your sadness wouldn’t address the underlying issues that sound like have been with you for much longer than necessary. I would suggest that you speak with a mental health professional to address these things and leave them in the past so that the mask is no longer required. This is always easiest to do when you are in a better place and harder to do when you are just holding it together. So, I’m going to further suggest that in your next “up”, you book an appointment and reach out. I hope it goes well!

Question:

How do you know when it’s time to step away from work and take a leave so you can reset? I want to do this but don’t know if my claim would be considered legitimate and how I would be perceived if I asked.

Janna Comrie:

Hi there! Often you know it’s time to step away from work when your life outside of work is being significantly impacted and your work is starting to suffer as well. Clients often present with a myriad of difficulties that range from emotional dysregulation to trouble sleeping, to difficulties in interactions with those closest to them. I think most people know when their physical and emotional health are not good. And without these, it’s very hard to function well in any aspect of your life! It might be helpful to speak to a mental health professional about your unique situation and difficulties; they can often provide guidance and strategies to help.

Question:

How would you support a colleague when they are having an anxiety or panic attack at work?

Janna Comrie:

Hi there! Great question! If it’s someone you know who has panic attacks, you want to ask them what strategies they use to bring themselves down. People don’t all use the same strategies, so knowing in advance makes it easier. The trick is to help them focus on something other than the terrible feelings associated with a panic attack. If it’s the first time, I often encourage my clients to move – get up and walk, dance around the room, do jumping jacks, or even arm circles and squats. Getting them moving gets the cardiovascular system to kick in and often will slow the panic attack down. You could have them breathe with you or even sing. A lot of the time they don’t want to do this in the moment but be gentle and encouraging (i.e. “you can do this!”), and often they come down much faster.

Question:

Any tips or resources or books you recommend to deal with health anxiety and how to overcome it? It’s not Covid pandemic specific. I’ve suffered from this anxiety for years.

Janna Comrie:

Health anxiety can be a tricky one, especially if you have a family history of health issues or are in the middle of a pandemic! The fear of illness can be paralyzing. There are many great resources out there for anxiety in general. Two books that I have found my clients have done well with are Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life by Steven Hayes, and the other is by Owens and Antony and is simply titled Overcoming Health Anxiety. These books will help you to look at your anxiety around your health differently so that you can be reasonably concerned without the anxious thoughts taking over. I also encourage clients to do some work on where the issue is coming from? What might have contributed to their fear of illness? And how is the body’s natural or physiological response to worry contributing to or exacerbating that fear? By understanding these things, one can often move through this fear and bring health-related worry into balance.

Question:

How do you overcome the fear of failing so that it doesn’t impact moving forward in job, relationships, and life.

Janna Comrie:

This is such a common struggle that people have. Often, people have been taught that not doing something perfectly is a failure and that if you fail it’s because “you weren’t smart enough”, “you didn’t try hard enough”, or “you weren’t good enough”. Failure is such an important part of learning. As human beings, generally, we learn things through repetition and practice. Think of learning to ride a bike or ice skate – we don’t often do well at these on our first attempts. But, with each attempt, we learn what we did “wrong” or what to focus on so that we might do it “right”. Being afraid of doing it “wrong” makes you more anxious and makes it more likely that you won’t be able to do something – because you’re anxious! One way to overcome the fear of failure is to set reasonable expectations with yourself when you’re learning something new. Things that you hope you will know after the first day, week, and month. At the end of each day and week, instead of focusing on what you haven’t yet learned, ask, what did I learn? What did I practice? What am I a little more comfortable with?  When you realize that you’re learning, the fear of failing tends to be lessened.

Question:

When dealing with past trauma, there are many layers – if I am seeing a professional and actively working on bettering myself, do you have any tips for healing that deal with the roots of trauma?

Janna Comrie:

I’m very glad to hear that you’re working with a professional! It’s very hard to speak on dealing with the roots of the trauma as every trauma is different and experienced differently by the individual. That said, I think that there is a lot of value in understanding the way that the body and mind try to protect you when you have experienced a traumatic event.  Physiologically, your body changes after the incident(s) to try to ensure that you never experience that thing/those things again. Understanding that your body reads a situation as a life or death moment, and that your body is trying to protect you when you are having a panic attack or flashback, for example, helps you to not be as afraid when feeling certain things physically. Not feeling so afraid of what your body is doing makes it easier to process the experience(s) that you have had.