Saavin is a second year student in the Sauder School of Business, hoping to pursue a career in consulting. She is currently working as a Research Assistant for the Marketing & Behavioral Science Division at Sauder, as well as the Dhillon Center for Business Ethics. She’s also involved with the UBC Marketing Association and the Real Estate Club. She runs a blog where she publishes short essays on a variety of topics. We spoke to Saavin about how friends, family, and leading a very busy life affect her mental health.
Q: Why is mental health important to you?
Mental health is important to me because I've unfortunately experienced a lot of the stigma associated with mental health firsthand, and I've seen a lot of people I care about deal with mental illness. I guess on a daily basis I've noticed that if I'm not in an ongoing, healthy conversation with myself, and checking in with how I feel, I'm not myself.
Q: What is the relationship between your mental health and the culture/environment that you were raised in?
Well, I'm really fortunate in that I have a super loving and supportive family that loves me so much that it hurts them to see me not be myself. I'm an empath, which means I feel other people's pain pretty strongly. And I think because my family has been like that and they unfortunately don't really know how to have this conversation about mental health and they haven't supported me in that way, they don't realize that they should ask me how I'm feeling instead of telling me how seeing me that way makes them feel. Because of this I’ve always just internalized a lot of burdens and anything that I'm feeling. And I think how this comes into play in my daily life is that if I'm ever having a bad day, I'm usually pretty good at asking people for help. But there's some days where I don't want to explicitly say it. I'm hoping someone else will reach out to me because they've noticed that something's wrong. And it makes me really frustrated, upset when I feel like I'm giving off these clues that I'm not feeling well and something's wrong and nobody else is noticing. It makes me so mad and so sad. That I think that I'm giving off those clues but really, I'm so good at hiding my emotions that I'm probably not acting significantly different from how I normally act. And that's why people can’t tell.
Q: How do you manage your mental health while having so many commitments?
This is a question I get asked a lot and I don't always know how to respond because I think it's something that's very unique and individual to me, as it seems to work for me and I don't know how to explain it to other people, but I mean, without a doubt, being in two clubs, having two jobs, a full course load, and having a lot of side passion projects does get to be a lot. I would say that what motivates me to do all these things is that I really do love them all. But no doubt that having all these activities can be stressful. I think what it came down to is really reflecting on what type of behavior was leading me into these vicious feedback cycles where I felt upset, unmotivated, and stressed out. Once I was able to identify those stressors, I've been able to come up with strategies to manage those. I'm so happy and proud to say that this year I haven't really experienced those stressors and I've been able to manage all my commitments way better than I ever have before. I think it all comes down to just really reflecting and thinking about what was causing some of the pain earlier. And I think also I've learned how to say no to whatever I want to say no to without feeling guilty, so kind of “Marie Kondo’ing” my life.
Q:How has the environment/atmosphere in Sauder affected your mental health and how have you adjusted since entering Sauder?
I think that within Sauder especially, it's really hard to not get caught up in what so-and-so is doing and this other opportunity so-and-so is taking. I think everybody is always comparing each other to other people and I've personally found that I'm a lot happier if I focus on my own individual progress, both in terms of my academic progress, my employment progress, I guess you could say, and also maintaining my mental health because I know I have a lot of friends who are also always very stressed out. I'm really happy to say that this year I've managed it in a way where I don't necessarily feel the stress as much and I'm doing so many more things. It all comes down to just really focusing and monitoring how I'm feeling and appreciating the small wins on a daily basis. Also, I would say that within Sauder I feel a great sense of community. I think it's really nice that on a given day I can walk into the Sauder Building and run into someone and ask them anything I need to ask. I'm really fortunate to have a lot of older friends who give great advice.
Q: How important are your friends in helping to improve your mental health? Have you ever had any problems opening up? And if so, what did you do to adjust?
Like I said, I internalize a lot of my feelings and emotions, and that makes it definitely more difficult, I think, for my friends to help me out because I think I'm giving off these clues as in something's wrong, but I must not actually be. And they must be very minor and subtle and it's hard to pick up on. That makes me feel like I want to close myself off from them even more. So I feel like they don't care, but I'm just kind of putting that in my own head. I've worked on not trying to do that and being more explicit when I do need help. That being said, I tend to deal with a lot of things on my own. I find that sometimes talking to just anyone about it doesn't always help. So that's why I have a few trusted friends I know I can always count on and who understand me, because that's also a big component. I guess my thought process is pretty unique and difficult to understand, so I have a couple of very trusted friends that I can always count on and I appreciate their support and advice. I only trust them with telling them some of the things that I find really difficult to talk about or things that are really bothering me. I guess you could say they do play a pretty big role because otherwise I don't have anybody else that I would tell.
Read more from Saavin at her blog www.findingergon.com