The Upside of Being Down How Mental Health Struggles Led to My Greatest Successes in Work and Life - Jen Gotch Page 0,1
a lot of hard work and self-reflection. Developing an appreciation for the importance of being mentally healthy has helped me run a company that encourages emotions in the workplace (wild concept, right?) and that operates as a group of humans rather than a corporate conglomerate. Ban.do’s tagline is “We exist to help you be your best” and that’s the mission that drives the company. Learning about mental health has taught me that living your life with hope, optimism, lightheartedness, and humor (lots and lots of humor) is a tremendous gift you can give yourself. I know now that you can suffer from mental illness and still maintain good mental health, and that the reverse is also true. You can have zero diagnosed mental illnesses, but if you ignore your emotional well-being, you will never be mentally strong and you’ll also miss out on a lot of the joy that comes with being human.
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Fifteen(ish) years ago, I was sitting on the couch during a therapy appointment, and my long-standing psychologist predicted I would become a mental health advocate.
“How would I do that?” I asked. “No one knows who I am—how would they even find me?” This was well before Instagram, and probably even before Myspace.
“I could see you speaking at conferences, sharing your struggles and successes,” she said.
The thought of speaking in front of more than three people instantly made me want to turn to dust, yet her prediction wedged itself into the back of my mind. It sounded scary and embarrassing, but then over a decade later, I started expressing myself. First, at small conferences, just like she said, and then eventually on larger platforms. I was talking about mental illness on my Instagram Stories and my podcast and creating jewelry at ban.do to raise awareness about mental health. And while plenty of times over the years I was so turned off by my own voice that I wanted to murder it via multiple maiming stabs of the tongue, or maybe removal of the throat organs altogether (that’s possible, right?), the response was overwhelming. As it turns out, I am not the only person who deals with these issues on a daily basis. That was strangely surprising for me, but if you struggle with any of this you know how isolating and singular your experience can feel.
Since this book will address issues of mental health head-on, we should probably get something out of the way: I am not a doctor. I am the founder and creative lead at a lifestyle company that sells disco balls you can drink out of and bath mats with boobs on them. Oh, and when I refer to my “research,” please know that in most cases I’m talking about a quick Google search and anywhere from five to seventeen minutes of reading articles on Psychology Today. What I’m saying is, as much as I wish I could, I’m not here to diagnose you or suggest a treatment plan. I’m instead going to share my experiences as a layperson—without getting too clinical—and hope that in doing so, I can help you tune into your own experiences and feel less alone. I hope this goes without saying, but just in case: If you suspect you are suffering from a mental health issue, please seek out the help of an actual professional.
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I was in a sorority in college. That often comes as a surprise to people, so imagine how they react when I tell them I was actually the president. Regardless, during rush week, we put on a talent show. There was singing and dancing, sure, and there might have even been a magic show, but for reasons I will never understand, we also showed off our talent for reading philosophy. I have no idea how that qualifies as a talent, but it’s not really the point of the story so let’s just go with it. In this portion of the show, one of my sorority sisters stood on the stage wearing a pair of giant glasses that seemed to turn her regular eyes into the cartoon googly version. She held a giant leather-bound gold-embossed book and pretended to read from it. In total monotone, she declared: “ ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ ” Then she definitively slammed the book shut. Just to dial up the drama, we put baby powder inside the book so that when it closed a cloud of “dust” came out, a reminder that this was an old, wise book.