Signs your Mental Health might be Deteriorating

It takes a lot of self-awareness to know which direction our mental health is going in. The fast pace of life can mean when we start rolling downhill we don’t always notice until we crash and become paralysed, unable to keep up with our usual routine and responsibilities. Being able to pick up on the signs that things are deteriorating is the first step towards looking after yourself. You can then make a plan to protect your wellbeing and prevent things from getting worse. This post primarily focuses on depression and low mood, although can be applicable to many types of mental health difficulties. Let’s go through a little list of indicators to look out for…

1. Becoming Avoidant

This is a sure sign that you’re beginning to feel overwhelmed and your resources are depleting. Your mind and body may start to shut down, turn off and reject the thought of exerting themselves any further. This can manifest in different ways such as avoiding social contact, taking time off work, not participating in activities you would usually enjoy and shunning responsibilities. A common symptom of depression is low energy and loss of interest which inevitably makes all of the above more challenging and in turn fuels avoidance.

2. Everything Seems Harder

When things start to get bad it can feel like the brain has been surrounded by a fog, making concentrating and remembering more difficult. This lack of clarity might lead to critical thoughts of yourself and cause irritation when struggling to make simple decisions or forgetting things you’d usually remember. Keeping up with the fast pace of life can be challenging at the best of times but if it’s starting to feel especially difficult or that your brain is constantly stuttering, it may be a sign your mental health is declining.

3. Changes in Sleep

Sleep is an important function in maintaining wellbeing and is an incredibly complex topic deserving a post of it’s own. In the context of your mental health declining what you’ll want to look out for is any change to your ability to fall asleep, length of time asleep, waking throughout the night or waking up unusually early. Regarding length of time, this can be both not getting enough sleep or sleeping excessively.

4. Lack of Motivation

This ties in strongly with being avoidant. You might be wondering what the point is anymore which makes it difficult to gain the momentum to accomplish anything or tend to daily tasks. Perhaps everything is starting to feel overwhelming and you’re not sure what’s worth the effort anymore. This might include aspects you’d usually take pride in such as your appearance and hygiene that you no longer feel are worth doing.

5. Irritability

Some say that depression is ‘anger turned inward’ but when you’re feeling depleted and struggling to cope, it becomes easier to become angry or irritated by things going on around you. It could be that others expect your usual level of functioning and don’t understand that everything has become much harder, making demands of you that you just can’t meet right now. External stimuli like excessive noise or being around of lot of people may feel like it’s pushing you over the edge as your mind is not coping. Your ability to rationalise can become impaired as it becomes harder to regulate your emotions leading to irritability.

6. Increased negative thoughts

Depression and low mood often lead to a shift in thinking where the negatives in life become far more dominant and the centre focus. This is part of a downward spiral where you might feel yourself becoming more pessimistic whilst simultaneously struggling to see the good in anything. This maintains your low mood and ultimately decreases it even further. Cognitive distortions such as catastrophising (expecting the worst case scenario) and personalisation (everything is my fault and relates to me) may be common and contributing to poor wellbeing. If you notice that the majority of your thoughts are tainted with negativity, it’s likely a sign your mental health is declining.

The first step to getting yourself feeling better is recognising that you’re not in a good place mentally. If you’ve had periods or cycles of low mood before it’s important to make a plan and act at this stage before it begins to paralyse you and have a severe impact on your quality of life. A lot of these signs may even indicate that it has reached that point already.

If you are having suicidal thoughts please reach out to someone you trust, a medical professional or a dedicated phone line for your area that specialises in this, these are thankfully pretty common now. The most important thing is realising you are not alone and many many people make it through depressive episodes. While you’re alive there is always hope that things can get better.

Check out my instagram tosavesanity for a post on what to do when you feel your mental health slipping. A full dedicated more in-depth post will be coming to this blog soon.

Thank you for reading,

Liv