How's your Brain doing?

Old Habit

I remember walking in a park with someone while we were sharing stories about our life experiences. I told this person that at some phase or some moment of someone's life, people could really feel down, traumatized, or depressed that it would change the way they live for the rest of their life. Sometimes the events could be really traumatic that it may disturb their mental health.

Then I shared a story when I was only 15, the age of teenagers who live in confusion, struggling to understand the world that seems dont understand them.

I have always been a person who overthink everything, I have a brain that really love to talk inside my head. But before entering high school, my mind were filled with negatives thought and I would spend most of my time alone. Not that because I didnt have friends. Some of them were really great indeed. But I just more prefer to be alone. That time my brain could really be a jerk and think of everything like hell I couldn't control it somehow. 

I became a really depressed teenager as I saw changes in my home that my parents might have problems that I didn't know since they seldom talk to each other again. That saddened me even more. At that moment I tend to overthink the problems and got really hurt by it and I could feel that pain in my heart. That was an unbearable pain for me that I started to cut myself. I remember the feeling of getting cut; the real pain I feel would ease the pain in my heart. By cutting and give myself a real pain, I feel like I was in control of myself. And that would calm me down.

I developed the habit but stop after I graduate university. I try to overcome the thought and tendencies to cut myself by thinking I'm not alone, that I'm able to control my own life. I sometimes think that how could I do this? How could my brain allows me to do self-harm though I know exactly that those aren't the right thing to do? How could the brain has full-control of the body, though the body sometimes reject it?

Have you ever imagined how your brain could be a jerk sometimes. Everything that makes you suffer come from what your brain and what you perceived. I always tend to think I have two different person within me, the me and the brain. I think of it as different person inside me, because I feel like I can't get a full control of my brain.

Well, first of all, I don't have a multiple personality disorder or dissociative disorder (Tho, I sometimes thought so) But really though, let's say I have some sort of disorder, but imagined people with mental illness. Sometimes maybe they know it's a disease, that something is wrong with them, but they just couldn't stop it. They lose control of what the brain does.

Marina Joyce 

For some of you who loves to watch Youtube may recognize Marina Joyce and what happened to her recently. About 2 weeks ago, people were speculating that Marina Joyce, a 19 years old Youtuber who posts videos about her life and make up tutorial were being kidnapped by somebody or some group (some of them even say that she had been kidnapped by ISIS). People started spreading the rumor after watching her videos and making some interaction with her via twitter.

So being all curious about this, I watched her Youtube videos and found that there are several strange things going on in her videos. I can see changes of behavior between her old videos and recent videos from March or April this year. From what I saw, Marina tend to talk fast and but not clear. Before she was really confident and a bit more relax but then suddenly I feel like she's become a little awkward.

People make speculation and think that maybe Marina were being held and forced to record videos for their own sake. You can see from the video that she is anxious and tensed and even got bruise here and there, seemed like she's under someone's pressure. People also try to contact her through twitter and say things like, #savemarinajoyce, 'Marina, if you need help, show some sign'. Marina liked all these tweets and responded by clearly showing some sign that people asked her to do. 

The police also come to her house and check if she was okay, and they reported that nothing dangerous happened to Marina Joyce. But all the evidences showed by people who try to analyze it has gotten everybody agree on one conclusion that Marina Joyce is not okay.

The one and only complete explanation, that might be true, came from another Youtuber. She said that Marina Joyce might suffer from Schizophrenia. In her videos she show us evidences and explanation about what might happen to her. You can watch the video here.

Anna Campbell works at mental psychiatric hospital as a mental specialist. She meet and deal everyday with people who suffer from mental illness. She said that Marina somehow show the same behavior as the patients she's dealing with everyday. 

Long story short, Marina Joyce might suffer from it, haven't realized anything about it, and we, who don't get to deal with people suffer from mental illness, become a witness of changing behavior through her videos. Whether it is right or wrong, Marina Joyce or her family should find out for themselves and seek help if it is right. I just hope Marina will do fine.

But then the story of Marina and what happened to me when I was 15 years old, and maybe to some of the teenagers makes me think of what our brain capable of doing.

How normal are you?

To what extend do people can be define as normal? How normal is normal?

According to what I have read, our brain has the job to maintain our mental health. The mental health itself is the ability to work and cope with stress and daily life including the way we feel, think, act, and how we relate to others. Our brain and body are filled with organic chemical that may affect our behavior. The organic chemical in our brain is called chemical messengers also known as neurotransmitter. It helps spreading messages through neurons or brain cells in our brain. The imbalance of chemical messengers in our brain may cause mental illness. Click here for further and clearer explanation.

Scientifically speaking, to define 'normal' is when we always have enough numbers of chemical messengers in our brain so that our brain function normally. Now people with mental illness are those whose brain can't function right. But this process are not visible to us, so how do we define normal. And how do we know that we perceive what normal people perceived.

To some people, depression and stress are common in human beings. We are faced with problems and issues in our life that sometimes cause depression and stress. We always think that all human beings should be able to cope with stress. Let's take an example from teenagers in their awkward phase in their life. All people go through this phase and through the same confusion that would lead to some stress. People always say, you'll get through it like coping with stress is as easy as holding your breath.

But people would go through different and several life-changing events that would affect their life in some way. And therefore, we are all to some degree are crazy beyond normal.

People suffer from mental illness look normal just as we are, means anybody around us that look pretty normal maybe have mental illness. And not all people who suffer from it would be like those depicted in the movie about inmates in psychiatry hospital. They don't have to be tied and strangled. Mental illness in fact could happen to all of us.

I watched even more scary videos about terrifying mental illness. Click here 

How's your brain doing?

Now, how's that little jerk in your head doing? 

I used to think that human have spirit that one day will leave its physical body and go somewhere once the body is dead. Then I speculate that maybe our spirit is in fact the brain. But then, I'd like to think that everyone is bigger than their brain, means we have to be able to control ourselves, our organs, by taking a good care of them.

While we maintain to keep our physical body healthy by doing exercise or eating healthy food and keep a healthy habit, we also have to remember that our brain also need to be healthy. I've been told many times, as person who easily suffer from stress and depression, that what's make us physically sick is triggered from what we are thinking. It all started with the brain.

Some articles tell us what cause mental illness such as: family history, traumatic life events, brain injury, hormones, health problems, and addiction. Well, some things are avoidable, but as a human, we all given the chance to do our best to cope with them.

So here are some things you can do for your mental health

1. Value yourself, and value those people who look up to you.

Be positive and don't be too hard on yourself. I've been told many times by my boyfriend to stop overthink. I mean, I got a little bit sad because sometimes I just can't stop to think. But I try to know when to stop and when to control my brain. Do something you love despite the fact you're caught up in everyday routines. You have to do something that triggered you to smile and be happy. Take a break once in a while won't hurt, you need it!

And value those people who look up to you. Your kids, your pupils, your fans maybe, your employee, Don't be a jerk to those people. You're mean so much to them, try to be nice and take care of those who look up to you. Some friends I know, whose parents weren't so nice to them when they're teenagers so that would cause a trauma. Just try to be nice.

2. Take a good care of your body

Now you know any kind of addiction can cause mental illness. Try to be less addicted to something. You're the one who know when to stop, so stop before it get too far. Treat yourself better by consuming more healthy food. Tho unhealthy food is so tempting, just try to keep balancing the diets. 

Do a routine exercise both physical exercise or exercise for brain. Just think exercise as a fun thing to do and you should spend your times to have fun.

3. Learn how to deal with stress

Any painful life-events are avoidable. You can't expect everyone will treat you nicely, they will hurt you sometimes. Some problems also could be really stressful. Well, try to deal with it, I know it's very very hard to do.

For me, writing really helps. Take your time to write down your problems, issues that bother you. To some people, writing could help them being systematic and sometimes they will find the answer of what they wanna do by writing the problems down, it helps people to analyze things that happened to them. 

Don't run from the problems, be honest at least to yourself. The very first thing to solve it is to recognize what's the problem. By being honest, you're being more introspective while trying to figure out the solution. Talk to someone you trust, or sometimes strangers would help, if you really don't know how to start.

Take a break to find new perspectives in life. You will learn to see yourself and the problems from different angles. Spend times with your loved ones to ease the stress. 

4. Set goals

I am surprised that setting goals is one of the way to keep our mind healthy. I never realized how important it is to have goals in life. 

I dream big but never forced my dreams. I just think it's one of the way to keep yourself on track, and everyday, you know what to do. It helps you decide what's important in life. Plus, the sense of accomplishment and self-worth as you progress toward your own goals will make yourself happy.

5. Get help if you need it

Don't be shy to get help once you realized something is wrong with you. It clearly doesn't show weakness, it shows that you value yourself and you still want to take control of your life by taking care of it. 

Either you suffer from serious mental illness or maybe you get depressed easily, you can ask for help. And you can also help people, friends, family, relatives that maybe suffer from it. Sometimes treatment from professionals really help.  

The brain maybe a jerk, but love your brain and treat it better, it deserves a good treatment.