mental health two words that many people seem to be frightened to speak about
mental health and travel is a whole different matter that I very rarely hear
people speak about on YouTube today Wednesday October the 10th is World
Mental Health Day so I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to sit down and
talk about some of my experiences with mental health quite personally quite
candidly prior to travel and also now currently while traveling if you're new
to this channel I'm David I've been travelling long term for the last two
years and I've been working online for a significant amount of that time and I
wanted to just address why I'm doing this video there's a few reasons really
three I would say so firstly as I said at the beginning people too frightened
to speak about mental health for some reason it's 2018 I think we should be
able and comfortable to speak about our mental health just as we weren't about
our physical health simple period okay the second one is the I've spoken about
recently a lot of videos that this channel isn't just about travel it's not
just about going to a destination and showing you some of the things to do
it's also about me believe it or not I really would like you to get to know me
better and in terms of my personality and things about me that sometimes I may
show in videos in terms of my emotion and things like that so this video is
slightly connected to a video I did recently in Guanajuato when I was going
from one with horror to Guanajuato I've had an awful travel day and experienced
a range of emotions and I've said since that video that I'm going to address
some of that in this video okay thirdly and primarily it's about helping
people who are watching this video okay so I've been traveling on and off for
about 18 years and I remember what it was like the first time I went on
holiday with my mates or the first time I did a backpacking trip to Southeast
Asia and the east coast of Australia when I was 19 and I remember what it was
like when I left the UK two years ago to do this by myself it's nerve-wracking
it's it's frightening it requires a lot of
bravery and courage so how do you do that when you experience mental health
issues in your life it's a great question so hopefully I'm going to
address that in this video and hopefully this will help some of you out that
perhaps looking to do something similar with your life before I go on I just
want to clarify that I am NOT a medical health professional of any kind I
totally understand that with mental health issues everyone is different
everyone's experience is different and everyone's symptoms are different in
this video I'm clearly going to explain my experience yeah so let's get going
this video is going to be in two parts so first I'm gonna talk about my
experience then I'm going to go on to five things that I do to help myself
with travel if you want to go straight to that point I will put the time index
down the bottom of the screen so you don't have to hear the first part okay
five years ago in 2013 I was diagnosed with a mental health condition called
borderline personality disorder or otherwise known as BPD for sure or
emotionally unstable personality disorder it sounds quite scary and
firstly I just want to eliminate one of the misconceptions about this so BPD is
often misdiagnosed as either clinical depression or bipolar disorder I can
understand why this happens because BPD and bipolar and depression do share some
similarities but fundamentally they are completely different can of fish okay
they're different disorders okay which I'll go into a bit now so I'll say the
symptoms are different for everyone so there's three words I wanna mention to
start off with those are isolation rejection and abandonment which are
three key words when it comes to BPD which hopefully you'll understand a bit
more about quite soon and there's other symptoms as well so the first one I'll
say about is impulsive and reckless and self-destructive behavior for example
things such as alcohol abuse drug addiction self-harm eating disorders
suicidal thoughts and reckless behavior like reckless driving reckless shopping
sex reckless sex reckless unprotected sex now all of those things we
the exception of alcohol abuse I've experienced okay and I don't mind saying
that because it's it's something that we shouldn't be ashamed of or embarrassed
to be talking about everyone's got a past everyone's experienced something
yeah and the other key point about BPD is mood swings
now with bipolar it's generally about depression extreme depression and
extreme mania and those periods of unstable moods can occur for a long
period and there might be times where you don't have any mood issues and
you're you're behaving perfectly normally and largely with bipolar I
believe that those mood changes uncontrollable they just happen but with
BPD very much those mood swings are triggered by certain events at least in
my experience so something will happen that will make you extremely angry
extreme anger something might happen that will make you extremely depressed
okay and that's what BPD is about it rapid frequent mood changes sometimes in
the space of 24 hours which is hell on earth
trust me and one thing I would say about these mood swings that is again a
difference between bipolar and BPD is the fact that with BPD is less about the
mania some people will disagree with that and say that yes you do experience
mania with BPD and I would say that I have done in the past to a certain
degree so an example of that might be so in Colombia I have a lot of stuff going
on okay and I was quite depressed for a lot of the time I didn't upload any
videos I did some but not many other times in my youtube life I will upload
four videos a week and they will be ridiculously creative I will be
ridiculously productive I'll be doing 25 English lessons a week and for YouTube
videos barely sleeping I won't need sleep things like that so there is an
element of mania that I do experience and the thing about that is that it's
not just happiness it's happiness on a different level
again extreme mood swings and it gets to the point where you don't feel
comfortable it's not natural happiness and when you get like that
that's when you can do those on those behaviors that reckless impulsive
behavior that kind of gets your mood back to normal at least that's what I
used to do okay so that's my experience with mental health prior to traveling
does it still affect me now yes of course it does I've never had any
medication I've never had any therapy it's something that I've very much
learned to live with I've become a lot better at judging when those mood issues
are about to happen and sometimes it's uncontrollable in terms of I can't do
anything to get out of that pit of despair when I'm depressed I can't do
anything to bring my mood back down to normal and it's really difficult at
times and especially when traveling by myself
solo isolated and yeah by myself basically and one other thing worse
about rejection and abandonment I don't deal with rejection and abandonment very
well I'm awful at relationships I can become an ability of obsessive jealous
absolutely crazy but I don't mean to I don't intends to be like that I can't
control it and then inevitably when it does end the level of abandonment and
rejection just sent me into a downward spiral that's why I'm single I'm still
working on that point of my life by the way so on to five things that I do to
help myself when long-term traveling in terms of my mental health
some of these might sound ridiculous but actually for me they really work so
firstly hostels stay in hostels no matter what anyone says oh yeah you can
stay in an air B&B you can go traveling and stay in hotels forget about that if
you are someone that experiences mental health issues particularly if you're
socially anxious you're quiet introvert things like that it can be really
difficult when you go travelling and thinking oh god I've got to stay in a
hostel with all these people I don't know and you know be drinking with them
and having a laugh but come out of your comfort zone do it it's quite possibly
the best thing you could ever do when travelling I'm the biggest advocate for
hostels I've stayed in hostels for absolutely years and yet you will have
amazing times of those people some of the best
people I've met in my life of people that I have met in hostels and equally
you can have horrendous times when traveling and having that support
network of people around you yeah you might not know them very well but they
are going through the same thing as you never think that all this really
confident extrovert Australian guy in the hostel doesn't have any problems
because more often than not he's experiencing the same things as you are
so yeah stay in hostels it's the best thing you can do
the second thing again is about accommodation so if you are gonna stay
in an air B&B I plead with you to stay in an air B&B with a local person so a
shared apartment a private room in a shared apartment with a local because it
can make you feel so much more comfortable having someone there who
lives in that country that's a native they can for you make you feel so much
more comfortable they can be someone that you can speak to you know imagine
you're just sitting in an air B&B by yourself you're isolated you're again
slightly abandoned and rejected you will feel like that especially if you have
those kind of health issues and again it might be scary staying with some random
that you've never met from Airbnb but I've never had a bad experience okay
maybe I have done in Colombia but that was nothing to do with the person it was
more to do with Airbnb but yeah that's not a second point the third point is
hugely important this for me is probably the biggest one that has made such a
difference to me when traveling and that's to do with language and clothing
which might sound ridiculous as I said but learning a language or at least the
basics of a language and dressing like the locals makes you feel so much more
welcomed makes you feel so much more comfortable in a different country that
you've never been to before yeah so make an effort to learn hello goodbye thank
you how do I get this can I have this become more comfortable having those
conversations even if you just go to the shop and get a drink you know you can
have a laugh and a joke with the shopkeeper I've had times where I feel
unbelievably alone when I wake up and depressed and just being able to go out
and feeling to have those conversations and not
being stared at because you dress completely different from the locals
making you feel like a local make such a difference so I plead with you learn the
language the fourth point is don't be afraid of keeping in contact with
friends from back home keeping in contact with your family I know that
most of you will do that anyway but sometimes you can feel like you just
apart from people back home especially when you travel for longer and longer
you know naturally people grow apart but many people are homesick I don't really
get homesick but I understand that some of you probably will and having that
again support network like I said before making you have that feeling of I'm not
alone can can make such a difference so don't be afraid of keeping in contact
with people from back home the fifth and final point is a very important one and
it's relating to two words bravery and courage travel in general can make you
the bravest and the most courageous person in the world a type of person
that you never thought would exist a type of person that you never thought
was possible so push yourself come out of your comfort zone do things that you
never thought you would do before because it will make you realize that
you're capable of so much more in life and coupled with that it can really help
your mental health issues in terms of your nervousness your anxiety your
shyness and your worry and concern and your depression and your mood issues the
list goes on so be brave be courageous forget about what everyone else says to
you that you can't do things that you'll never cope screw them you can do it
that's my motivational thing to end this video so I hope you have found this
video useful if you are a traveler a long-term traveler or maybe you're just
starting out on your traveling journey in life I would love to hear your
feedback below and your experience it would be great to hear about your
experience of mental health as well do you think it's a great thing to talk
about in terms of being open and honest about it
because I do thanks for watching there are a lot more videos coming from Mexico
coming up don't forget to subscribe leave a like and as I said leave a
comment thanks for watching and I'll catch you later