Dealing with your mental health issues on your year abroad

So this topic is going to get a little deep, but I feel it is important to talk about how we all cope with different situations and feelings. When you are on your year abroad it can be harder to express the things you are feeling or going through due to a language barrier which can lead to heightened symptoms of anxiety or depression, the best and most important thing for you to do is to talk about it to people. 

In my personal experience, I have a few bizarre behaviours that make certain things difficult to adapt to on my year abroad. 

Firstly I have a weird obsession with cleanliness, it isn't an OCD as it is not a behaviour that I recognise to be repetitive and doesn't limit my day to day life but for example, If I am going to pour myself a drink I check the cup for dust and dirt and probably rinse it out a few times and then examine the drink once I've poured it to make sure nothing is floating in it. I recognise this to be very weird and somewhat time-consuming but I just have this weird thing about hair or dirt or even fluff making its way into my mouth. When I see food being dried outside or kimchi being made in a big bowl with rubber gloves I wish I could feel okay with it, but I cannot adapt my mindset.

My room in Korea is infinitely dustier then anywhere I have lived before despite daily cleaning and so this has made me more conscious of leaving my drink on the side and returning to it as it's almost always had dust land in it. When I was younger and I tried something I didn't like I wasn't very good at either just swallowing it or spitting it out it often ended in me throwing it up, so it has limited my ability to try new foods in public, because I just couldn't face the humiliation of feeling ill at the table in a restaurant in Korea if I didn't like what I just started to eat. Therefore I stick to what I know and that can seem like I'm not involving myself well in the culture it isn't that I don't wish to though.

The best way to deal with it is just open up to your friends on your year abroad about foods that you don't like or suggest going to a quieter restaurant and sharing some dishes so you have the opportunity to try small amounts of something new.

I am also very open about my social anxiety and always have been, the reason I am so open about it is that it is hard otherwise to explain my behaviour. People see me as this out-going, sure of herself, fairly confident person which is true I am but it then makes it hard for people to take seriously that I have anxiety because I just don't fit the stereotype. I convince myself daily that people dislike me, my mind makes up elaborate situations in which people plot against me, talk about me and put me down and this has made it quite difficult for me to trust people. In Korea when I hear people laugh on the streets and talk to themselves my mind tells me they are laughing at me, that I have something on my clothes or my face or I am just ugly to them... of course this is ridiculous. However, the thing with anxiety is you can't just "relax" or "don't worry about it" if it were that easy... then my life wouldn't be this way.

The best way to deal with this is to try to speak to your friends about your concerns, if you cannot do it in person then text them, tell them how you are feeling and they can help put your mind at ease.

Panic attacks have been something I have suffered with since I was about 22 I would say, once I started working and being faced with people who were angry at me, but not me at the company I represented I found it difficult to disassociate myself with the criticism. My panic attacks are brought on by stressful situations and sometimes they can happen for no reason at all, I have found a correlation with lack of food as there is a heightened chance of panic attacks when I haven't eaten well (which is odd). Bright lights in dark places like clubs and bars are also triggers. This has kind of made me avoid clubs as much as I can unless I am drunk enough to be in a relaxed state, however, I quickly sober up and panic again normally. This limits my scope for socialising in Korea too as I don't wish my first meeting with people to end in a panic attack, so I have kept to myself a fair amount.

For me, yoga, and other calm exercises like walks near bodies of water, a stream or a lake and some herbal supplements such as rescue remedy or Kalms help me with this, consider bringing them on your year abroad if you suffer like me.

Lastly depression, I think in modern day society there are few people who can say they have never dealt with depression, mine centres mainly around loneliness. It isn't a desire to kill myself or hurt myself although I have been known to do that in the past. My depression is based around that same feeling of needing validity and friendship when I am alone I cannot stop myself from spending all day in bed and feeling no desire to do anything with my day because I have no one to share it with, that in my opinion is depression.

Drawing, watching movies, making plans with friends for future days and calling home can help relieve some of these feelings.

Anyway, the point of this post was to share my own experiences because I wanted to let whoever is reading this know that all their quirks and issues are not something they have to hide or deal with alone. Know that everyone out there has problems of some scale and writing a blog like this is therapeutic to me, other things may work better for you but it is important when you are living abroad to not distance yourself from your support group, talk to your friends and family back home, go outside, do something even if you might hate it (I went on a cable car and I am terrified of heights). Just, make the most of your time on your year abroad and don't let the darkness plague you alone, even I am always here for you.

London Nuna x