Sarah Collins

“I combat stigma with unapologetic transparency. I’m not a magical being. And I’m not especially strong. I feel. I bleed. I get tired. I get sunburned. I’m not always available. I need space sometimes. I can’t do it all and I don’t want to. I’m honest about that and open about identifying my boundaries and respectfully maintaining them.”

NAMI: Have you ever had any mental health struggles?

SC: I struggled with my mental health before I even had the language, agency or capability to express the feelings of darkness, heaviness, self-hatred, shame and racing, chaotic thoughts. I remember having thoughts such as, “My family would be better off without me” as a toddler. I didn’t start experiencing relief from suicidal ideation until I was about 30 and made my third attempt at therapy. At that point, I realized that I wasn’t going to find the answers within myself, because I was my problem. I was skewed towards self-destructive. So no amount of self-help, self-actualization, self-love or self-anything was going to help. Help was going to come from outside of myself.

NAMI: How have you healed and grown from your experiences?

SC: Perhaps this is controversial, and perhaps it isn’t. But I wouldn’t change anything about my journey. Yes, that includes all the Big-T-trauma. Now, being on the other side of it, I have such a deep and profound appreciation for every minute of my life. It’s bred a lot of resilience, empathy, joy and peace. I delight in all life’s simple pleasures, even the rain and the cold. And as a creative professional, allowing myself to feel a breadth and depth of emotion in a healthy and constructive way helps me do what I do best. Pressing into those highs and lows, peaks and valleys, brings a distinct authenticity to my work. It’s cathartic.

SC: And honestly, I cannot speak about my mental health journey without speaking about my faith as a Christian, because that’s where it all began. For most of my life, I hated God and was totally against organized religion, and by that I meant Christianity. In fact, I was literally triggered and offended by the name Jesus. But I had a radical conversion experience when I came to the end of myself and cried out to Him in a moment of desperation. All that to say that having somewhere to lay my head, to plant my feet, and build my life, has helped me heal, grow and recover. Knowing that I have value, purpose and dignity just because I exist has been integral to my recovery. Talk about deconstruction, it’s helped me reject societal trends, pressures and beliefs about who I am and should be as a Black woman.

NAMI: What forms of mental health-related stigma have you observed or run into personally? How do you combat stigma?

SC: As a second generation American, I grew up in a culture where mental illness was simply not discussed. And if it was, it was in a negative sense and was seen as shameful in some circumstances. There’s no judgment or resentment here whatsoever. In addition, I believe there’s still lingering beliefs that perhaps Black people don’t experience anxiety and depression. Silly, I know. But the idea of the “strong Black woman” and “#BlackGirlMagic” have contributed to making Black pain invisible, even though they were meant to celebrate Black strength and talent. So, I combat stigma with unapologetic transparency. I’m not a magical being. And I’m not especially strong. I feel. I bleed. I get tired. I get sunburned. I’m not always available. I need space sometimes. I can’t do it all and I don’t want to. I’m honest about that and open about identifying my boundaries and respectfully maintaining them.

SC: Not everyone will get it, and that’s ok. And sometimes I don’t feel like explaining it or defending my “no.” I also don’t demand or expect everyone to understand or empathize with me. I’m not waiting for anyone to validate my experience or give me permission to exist. I simply draw the lines. There’s also the stigma of being reduced to or defined by your diagnoses. I’d like for folks to see me as a whole person, not my diagnoses or my trauma resume. Yes, I live with anxiety, depression and PTSD. But I’m not those things. There’s more to my life.

NAMI: What has been your experience when you’ve sought mental health support and/or treatment?

SC: I first sought help when I was a freshman in high school with the school counselor. I didn’t find it especially beneficial, however in all fairness, I found it difficult to open up. I didn’t feel safe in my own mind, and I found it challenging to articulate that and trust the process. Fast forward 10 years later, I sought help again with a psychiatrist. Same challenges, new setting. The medication helped to a point, however nothing about my lifestyle or environment had changed. In many ways, I felt as though I was just venting and being validated, instead of being graciously challenged and helped. I wasn’t protected from what I wanted.

SC: The third time was the charm. Roughly five years later, I had fully admitted that my life had become completely unmanageable, and I was willing to do whatever it took to be well. As I built trust with my therapist, a clinical psychologist, I laid it out all. I spoke the unspeakable, and it was a game changer. We started with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and we’re currently doing Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), and I’m so grateful to be at this point in my mental health journey. I considered myself both healed and healing. Because the first two attempts didn’t work as I’d hoped, I thought that I was too broken for therapy. Beyond repair. I think a lot of folks might also feel that way, but it’s not true. There’s help. There’s hope.

NAMI: How do you protect your mental health? What forms of self-care do you practice? What keeps you balanced?

SC: I like to keep it simple. Back to basics. Limit screen time. Prioritize outside time. People time. Quiet time. I’m careful about the media I consume and I’m not active on social media. I don’t watch, listen to or read anything that isn’t uplifting or edifying in some way. That means nothing violent, dark, disturbing, or otherwise charged in some way. That doesn’t mean that I keep my head in the sand, but I also don’t doom scroll or doom watch. It’s all about balance.

SC: As for self-care, I have nothing against the usual — taking a hot bath, doing your nails, maybe just unwinding. But for me, financial self-care has been especially beneficial and empowering. Planning for my future. Getting my affairs in order. Getting my home order. Getting rid of stuff. Doing all the hard things I used to be afraid of or said “someday.” There’s two f’s that keep me balanced — faith and fitness. Church and the gym or the golf course or the slopes or the mountains. Moving my body and moving my heart in worship to God. These two things are invaluable to me, and I wouldn’t be who or where I am without them.

NAMI: You just published your first book of poems, “Recovering from Unusual Attitudes.” Tell us about it! What is it about? How did you decide to write it? What has been your experience since you published it?

SC: Using various stages of flight as a metaphor, from a crash landing to preparing to land, “Recovery From Unusual Attitudes” details my mental health recovery and radical conversion to Christianity. The first few chapters were written in a haze of anxiety, depression and suicidality, and often when I was under the influence. It’s the unraveling of myself, the realization that I was wrong about myself and God. That I wasn’t going to find the answers within myself, or another self-help book, or another challenge. That God didn’t hate me and I needed Him. It’s heavy at first, but it ends on a healing high note. I decided to write it because of my husband’s encouragement. His sobriety journey, which happened long before we got married, was really inspiring. I had no intentions of sharing my story and I didn’t care to. But as continued in therapy and my faith journey, I released a lot of shame. And I didn’t want to shrink back or play small anymore.

SC: Also, I believe that when we heal, we create space for others to do the same. The creative process is spiritual as it is mental and emotional. My book is an invitation into that process, and therefore an invitation to stop running and start healing, even though it hurts. Publishing it was a wonderfully difficult experience because it forced me to flex outside of all of my comfort zones. The reception has been great, and I’m so grateful that it has resonated with folks across all kinds of backgrounds, life experiences, identities, ages, etc. Trauma, shame and stigma threatened to silence me. At first it was terrifying to publish my collection, because everyone would know that I had a mental breakdown and have been living with this “thing.” Now, I find it freeing.

NAMI: What keeps you hopeful?

SC: Gaining momentum across my journey, clinically, physically and spiritually. Sometimes you feel like you’re not going anywhere. Like you’re not making any progress. And suddenly, there you are. Keeping journals and seeing where and who I used to be gives me hope to keep going.