Coping with Mental Illness as an Entrepreneur
Photo by Rachel Renee from my RV home | October 2019
Are you a small business owner who struggles with mental health from time to time? This message is for you.
What do I know about mental health in business?
I’ve been running a heart-centered marketing business for creative entrepreneurs for about four years now (and blogging here at TSL since 2014) and balancing my work with my physical and mental health needs has been the most difficult part.
If you’ve been around for a while, you know I didn’t have the most functional family growing up - and my childhood was full of trauma… so as an adult, I made a point to create a life that was stable, independent, and honest. I didn’t want to live the way I’d watched my parents live. I've been in therapy on and off since I was about 12 years old, and until very recently I thought all of the little inconsistencies, things that felt extra scary or difficult (I called it “resistance,” which I learned from the life coaches I followed and worked with in the beginning of my business) were just self-worth issues I needed to overcome from my past.
But even as my lifestyle became more stable and sustainable, the low points I experienced were becoming more terrifying and frequent - to the point that in March of 2021, I nearly committed suicide at a farm in North Carolina. It was a freezing cold wake up call.
I flew home to my family in Idaho the next day, and by July, I had myself a shiny new diagnosis. Three actually.
Bipolar disorder.
Agorophobia.
And, shocker, PTSD.
Honestly, the diagnoses were such a relief!
I’d been blaming myself and feeling so frustrated that, even after two or three really fantastic weeks with a beautiful mindset and really taking care of myself, doing well in my business, keeping in touch with friends and family… I’d still have setbacks where I essentially set my whole life on fire. It made no sense, it was never something I planned or intended, and even as it was happening and I felt completely out of control, I couldn’t make it stop.
When I met with the psychiatrist and got my bipolar diagnosis, she described it like “you are building this incredible, beautiful life… and your illness is one step behind you, unraveling it as you go. That is not you. That is a disease, and we can treat it.”
I know that my case is extreme and unusual (though not as unusual as you’d think! Check out this list of famous folks with bipolar disorder), but I wanted to share it with everyone who struggles with mental health battles alongside the personal development wormhole (or tornado, you pick) that is entrepreneurship, because I know how easy it is to get lost in comparison and where-I-wanna-be-isms…
We see these inspiring speeches and hear epic stories of phenomenal creators and how things were really dark for them, but they persevered and they made it through! And that gives us hope and strength to push on. But the biggest lesson I know as a creator?
Rest, and let it be enough.
Not all the time, of course. But often. Much, much more often than we feel comfortable doing. Because to rest and let it be enough is really hard - especially if you are struggling financially, and pushing through this endeavor into the financial well-being you hope it brings feels like the only hope. You’re so eager to get to the light at the end of that tunnel, and if you could just plow through, you’d be happy to rest at the end, right?
The problem is… that leads to burnout so quickly.
For me, that level of pushing very nearly cost me my life. It also put years of my life on hold and I missed precious moments with the people I love most in the world because I was so sure that if I worked through that one weekend or a couple more hours, it’d finally be my big break and I’d be free, financially independent, stable, and I could resume my beautiful, present, restful, easeful life as planned.
It’s that cliche we see in all those get-rich-quick-scheme movies, where the man just needs one more teensy thing to fall into place for his big break and all of that amazing possibility to fall into place!
But what happens in those movies, every time?
He crashes and burns, baby! He burns his partner, disappoints his children, lets his parents down, sometimes even loses a loved one forever, hits rock bottom, and if he does succeed in the end, it’s only because he’s finally surrendered to the process and started actually living his life and allowed the growth to happen one little step at a time.
That’s almost as frustrating to live as the starving artist cliche. (Which partly fuels a lot of us to push through, too, right? We want to disprove the starving artist story by showing that we can, in fact, earn a livable income from our art without having to do things that feel like selling our soul to make it work.)
Anyway, what I really want to share with you today is permission to recognize that there is duality in life, and also that you have nothing to prove.
It is not a hit on your pride if your creative work takes time to take off, or if you go through struggles in your business - especially struggles with consistency, communication, and sustaining your energy. Not because these aren’t important in business, of course they are. But rather, because these are issues that all of us struggle with now and then, and if you are the one and only person in your business, it’s not fair to expect it to be a smooth ride all the time. You can do your very best, and at the end of the day, that’s all you can do.
I want to challenge you to live right where you are in your journey, writing rest into the schedule, and owning the fact that as one single human being, there are limits you cannot and should not overcome. Release yourself from this prison of needing push so hard and so far in a very short amount of time, and instead, allow yourself to settle into the present moment (afterall, it’s all you’ve got). You don’t have to keep going, you are choosing to. And you can choose to push forward in whatever way you want to. I know it doesn’t always feel like it, but it’s true.
Sometimes, the consequences of a prolonging a certain discomfort for a while are well worth it…
Think of the time you’d spend with a loved one (or nurturing a precious part of yourself that is dying inside from neglect and pressure placed on it - read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert if you relate to this) if you weren’t stuck in tunnel-vision mode with the problem at hand.
Allow yourself to recognize that, as much as you hunger for the solution to the problem in front of you… if you weren’t able to solve it in the next 90 days, life would go on. You’d still be living. You’d find another way. The puzzles we’re solving as entrepreneurs, creators, and dreamers seem like the most important thing in the world, until you’ve solved so many of them that you finally realize there is always going to be another one to pop up in its place.
There’s something in your life more precious than the solution to the problem you are solving. Don’t miss it.
And don’t be ashamed of not choosing to improve in every area as quickly as possible. Revel in slow and steady change. That takes more strength, power, and grace than pushing through every hurdle in the journey.
Whatever your journey, I hope you know that you’ve got this. You’re allowed to rest. You’re doing so very much, even (especially?) if the majority of the work is mental. The battles we fight inside our heads, the way we have to fight for stability and consistency, the doubts we have to overcome and the way they try to swallow us right back up the moment we try to do something amazing… those are massive endeavors. It’s heavy, hard work - and it’s work a lot of the world doesn’t recognize or understand, which adds the burden of loneliness if you don’t have a strong creative community to lean into.
Know that you’re not alone, even if it feels like it. And if this is you, come say hi. Let’s be friends. I don’t bite. I’m on Instagram @serendipitybird. I try to share the tough spots too, so you’ll know you aren’t alone.
here are a few resources For rest and nurturing
If you love to listen, here are some podcasts:
I am a Creator by Convertkit
Deeper Life Podcast with Alexis Teichmiller
The Things That Keep Us Up At Night by Abby Desjardien
The CoCreate Podcast by Nicole Salvatore
If you love to read, here are some books and blogs:
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Phosphorescence by Julia Baird (A Memoir of Finding Joy When Your World Goes Dark)
#KeepGoingClub with Isa Adney*
And, of course, my books Raped, Not Ruined and Embrace Yourself
*Isa is the storyteller who interviewed me in the podcast up above, and her email list is an amazing place to be. She just wrote a book based on hundreds of interviews with all sorts of creators, specifically looking at what got them through what she calls “the bathroom floor moments.”
And if you’d rather watch, check out the I Am a Creator DocuSeries by ConvertKit. (This isn’t sponsored, I just adore ConvertKit. They’re a beautiful company with an amazing culture that supports creators on a whole new level. Their work has saved me many times.)
