Mind your Mind
Expo
Training mental health
Merlijn: For me, mental health is everything. For a long time, I focused mainly on my body; I trained to get stronger. But at a certain point, I was only looking in the mirror to see if my muscles were growing. And it was precisely through exercising that I realized: my mind needs it at least as much. The older I get, the more I see that one cannot exist without the other. You have to train your mental health just as much as your body, and in a way that works for you.
Vlinder: I am still young, but I also try to consciously work on my mental health. I find it interesting to see how you can improve it in different ways.
Getting a grip
Vlinder: When it gets too much in my head, I go do something. Tidy up, draw, do crafts, something with my hands. That helps to calm my thoughts. When I tidy up, it also feels like I'm regaining a bit of control. As if I'm putting my head in order through my surroundings.
Merlijn: For me, that is working out. When I train, I literally sweat my thoughts away. In the beginning, I thought I was doing it for my body. But eventually, it turned out that I was doing it for my mind.
First year of secondary school
Merlijn: Two weeks before I started secondary school, our father passed away. I was eleven years old and my whole life changed. By gaming, I didn't have to feel what was going on. Later, I escaped into smoking weed, drinking, and partying. That lasted eight years.
Vlinder: I was five. I had no words for my grief. But I drew and did a lot of crafts; I was always busy with my hands. Looking back, I think: that was my way of expressing something, without consciously realizing it.
Feeling
Merlijn: I only learned much later that you are allowed to do something with that feeling. You don't have to wait until things go wrong. You don't have to go to a psychologist right away either. Sometimes it is enough to just say to someone: 'I'm not feeling quite right now.'
Vlinder: And that doesn't have to wait until it's 'bad' enough. You don't have to be broken to be allowed to talk. Your feelings are simply there, and that's okay.
Book
Merlijn: Writing was a turning point in my life. It started when our family was on vacation and I couldn't sleep for nights on end. I started writing down my thoughts, and that allowed me to look at them differently. The chaos in my head calmed down. You can share the words you write with people around you. I went to my mother and we talked about it. That was a relief. Eventually, I started writing a book about my father.
Board
Vlinder: Our father was manic-depressive and took his own life because of it. As a result, we experienced a great loss at a young age. And even though you are small, you deal with it unconsciously. Perhaps because of that, you actually have to put in a little more effort later on to process everything properly. But actually, everyone has to. Even when you are going through smaller things or struggling. Your mental health always needs attention. Merlijn: Precisely because things went so wrong with Dad, I know now: I want to do this differently. And I want others to know too that they don't have to wait until things go wrong.
Intuition
Merlijn: From a young age, I was inspired by the quote from Muhammad Ali: “I know where I'm going and I know the truth. I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want.” I put this quote in my book because I knew: this is about me. From a young age, you are steered in a certain direction by school, your environment, and the expectations of others. But what if you want to find your own direction? It is important to train your feelings and your intuition. That is your inner safe place that you can always fall back on. When I was young, I suppressed my feelings and got stuck. That is why I say now: try to train your intuition and learn to trust it.
Je bent niet alleen
Merlijn: For a long time, I thought I was the only one who felt this way. But as soon as you share something, you realize that no one has everything perfectly under control. Everyone is struggling with something.
Vlinder: We are all searching a bit. It is precisely when you say that out loud that things become lighter. I also hope that young people see that being creative is *also* a form of mental care. It doesn't have to be grand. Making something, tidying something up, taking a short walk – that helps. Merlijn: You don't have to go to the end.
