God Bless Mental Health Days

God bless Mental Health Days—the days that when you have the most to do, and you feel the least able to do them. Instead of working through a check list, and slowly chipping away at a multitude of tasks, your brain stops dead in its tracks.

According to Ellen Hendriksen, a clinical professor at Boston University, this happens to mostly everyone. Rather than face a to-do list, some people go to the movies and immerse themselves in a box of popcorn; others take a mile-long walk in the park, a 10 mile bike ride, or do 20 laps in the pool; still others go shopping to buy something they don’t

need, have a Large Latte at Starbuck’s, or have lunch out with a mid-day cocktail. Yet others clean the house, weed the garden, go to the dentist, get a haircut, plan vacations—catching up on things that are difficult to do during a regular work day.

Me, I stay in bed all day.

My mother never would have let me take a mental health day, even though those words did not even occur to me back then because they didn’t even exist. If I wanted to stay home from school for a day, it had to be for a good reason: a cold, a cough, or a fever. On those days, I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, listen to the radio, or talk to my friends on the phone. I could read or draw in bed; that was it.

Except one time. I had just finished taking my high school entrance exams and I had no get-up-and-go. My mother called our family doctor. “Let Lorraine rest for a day” he said, “and let her eat all the chocolates she wants!” Reluctantly, Mom did what the doctor ordered and went out to buy me some M&Ms and Clark Bars, and it worked.

Now, mental health days are accepted and seem more essential than daring. I take a day, every other month or so, to stay in bed. I stare at the four walls, or put my head under the covers, or binge on Netflix with a bowl of gummy bears. I give myself permission to do nothing by saying, “I am special just because I’m me, not because of what I can do.” That’s thanks to “Mr. Rogers” and his TV show back in the seventies. Sitting alongside my two kids, Mr. Rogers taught the three of us the value of just being ourselves.

On a few occasions back, when my kids told me they didn’t feel well and wanted to stay home from school, I said, “Ok,” giving them the benefit of the doubt. I knew they were testing me to see if I’d stay home from work. Luckily, letting them spend a boring day at home squelched their desire to do it again.

Professor Hendriksen also believes that mental health days are taken most by those who are perfectionists. I’ve never wanted to think of myself as a perfectionist…but I was. I often found myself in a quandary, especially in school. If I got an B+, that was bad. If I didn’t get an A, I had failed. That went on thru college and, though I was proud to graduate Phi Beta Kappa, success had taken its toll.

Instead of treating mistakes as learning opportunities, I saw them as failures. The idea of trying something new stopped me cold—a new haircut, a different job, learning to play tennis—what if I didn’t like it or didn’t do well? I avoided stress at all costs. It took two years of therapy to understand my all-or-nothing behavior and why I shouldn’t impose that kind of compulsion on my kids.

I started taking mental health days when I had a 9:00-5:00 job. At first I didn’t tell anyone and made up plausible excuses—I had a dental appointment, or I had to take my child to the doctor’s. I didn’t want my colleagues to think I had some sort of mental problem. I also feared that if I stayed in bed for a day, I’d have a harder time getting back to work the next morning. But it was just the opposite: I’d wake up refreshed and recharged, ready to get back to the office and tackle my list of tasks.

It took a while for mental health days to become acceptable—as long as you didn’t take too many! Now that I’m retired, they’re are easier to take. Just last week, the morning after I led a zoom meeting that ran from 8:00-10:00pm, I woke up needing mental health time. As it turned out, I didn’t need to stay in bed a whole day: By 1:00, I was ready to reply to phone calls and emails. The following morning, I was up-and-at-‘em at 8:00.

Even though I’m no longer working 9:00 to 5:00, I feel the stress of living up to my many commitments. I’ve had to learn and appreciate that, as a volunteer, I can work at my own pace and take breaks whenever I need them. I’ve learned to say, “Sorry, not today,” and “How about tomorrow.”

Just yesterday, I was reading about the newly appointed, brilliant, 40 year old conductor to the NY Philharmonic, Gustavo Dudamel. This is what he attributes to his success: “To be afraid or worried about the risk of making mistakes is not in my head. Never! Because I think risk is a part of living.”

Wish I had known that a lot earlier but, as I’ve discovered, it’s never too late to learn.