Self-Care, According to an LGBTQ Mental Health Educator – Everyday Health

June 17, 2021 Kim Martel

As a mental wellness coach, consultant, speaker, and founder of Archie Cares, an organization that provides virtual and in-person programs on mental health awareness, Archie Messersmith-Bunting has created a business around feelings.

He believes that talking about feelings is so important he starts conversations with the question “How are you feeling today?” rather than “How are you?”

The goal of Archie Cares is to talk more about mental illness, suicide, and addiction — in order to normalize talking about it, says Messersmith-Bunting, a mental health educator with a Mental Health First Aid certification from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. And that starts with having honest and open conversations about how we’re feeling.

“I believe the only way we’re going to normalize having a mental illness is by making it normal. I am a human that shows up with a mental illness. I’m a recovering drug addict and a suicide attempt survivor,” Messersmith-Bunting says. “I give mental illness and addiction a very real face, and I share openly when I’m struggling. Unless we have a conversation, there’s no hope of understanding it.”

Messersmith-Bunting was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, a mental disorder that affects an estimated 17.3 million adults, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

Messersmith-Bunting has dealt with feelings and thoughts he now recognizes as symptoms of depression his entire life. Growing up as a gay man presented him with difficult feelings that he did not know how to cope with. “Growing up in a time when it was not okay to be who you are, that impacts one’s mental health challenges,” he says.

He started using drugs after finishing college and faced addiction in his twenties when he was living in New York City and pursuing a career in acting.

“Being an actor in New York City is about being judged. That’s the nature of the industry, but it began to weigh on me,” Messersmith-Bunting says. He felt pressure to live up to a certain image. “I definitely did a lot of compare and despair. There’s been a lot of internalized trauma from not being able to be who I actually am,” he says.

He struggled to cope, describing “a slow snowball that became an avalanche.”

Eventually, he decided to get help. “I did the work to overcome these challenges. I went — and still go — to therapy. I dig in. I listen to my feelings. I talk about my feelings. I don’t bottle things up anymore,” Messersmith-Bunting says.

He hopes that his work with Archie Cares helps others overcome the same types of challenges he did and take that first step to open up, acknowledge their struggles, and get help.

“I never want anyone to hurt as bad as I did the day that I didn’t want to be here anymore. That is a very lonely, scary, terrifying feeling,” Messersmith-Bunting says, adding that there is a path out, and knowing how to talk about what you’re feeling and what you need can help. “I want people to understand how to help other people find that path even if it’s uncomfortable,” he says.

Messersmith-Bunting, who is 45 years old and lives with his husband and 3-year-old son in Charlottesville, Virginia, still struggles with bouts of depression from time to time. Prioritizing himself and taking care of himself through these times helps him cope — and helps him be better able to help others, he says.

In these instances, he says, self-care is the exact opposite of being selfish.

“I actually believe that self-care is selfless, because if we’re not taking care of ourselves, then there’s zero chance we can be there for someone else,” he says.

Here’s what Messersmith-Bunting says self-care looks like for him and how he makes it a priority.

Everyday Health: What self-care practices are part of your everyday routine?

Archie Messersmith-Bunting: I practice gratitude and mindfulness, and set my intentions for the day. I think people have confused intentions with a task list, but intentions are focused on how do I want to show up to the world today.

Also, I have never met a nap I did not like.

EH: In what ways do you — or have you in the past — struggled with self-care and making time for taking care of your own well-being?

AMB: I’m not sure I even knew what self-care was early on. I thought it meant buying myself a cute shirt. I didn’t really learn what true self-care was until much later in life.

What I’ve learned to do now is to find self-care that works for me. To me, self-care is recharging your mind, spirit, and soul. I would challenge people to reimagine what self-care is.

You don’t need to fit yourself into any sort of perfect self-care box. For instance, I am not one that practices meditation in its truest form. That is not a thing that works for me. So trying to fit myself into this perfect little box was a challenge.

EH: How do you prioritize self-care when other things get in the way?

AMB: I consider myself a helper, but I have to help myself, too. I work with organizations who lose people to suicide. That takes a lot out of me, because I feel myself reliving some of my past hurt. So I really have to listen to my heart and my spirit.

If at the beginning of the day when I’m brushing my teeth, if the most important person in the world is not the person staring back at me, then something is wrong. If I don’t take care of me, I’ve got nothing to give to you.

Self-care sometimes is turning the world off for a second and letting the brain do something else. For me, that’s playing with my child or doing something that requires no mental energy.

I’ve also found that when I go to sleep at night, if I reflect on gratitude before I go to sleep, and not go on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook and compare my insides to someone else’s outsides, that actually allows me to sleep.

EH: You’ve talked a lot about overcoming addiction and other mental health struggles yourself. What self-care practices helped you overcome those challenges?

AMB: I participated in 12-step program, but I believe everyone has to find their own path. I did experience someone sharing grace and compassion and giving so much of their life to me, my sponsor. It was a guy in New York who really helped save my life. I also went to therapy.

For any of those things, the self-care practice that you have to learn to do is to learn to love yourself. Self-care is literally self-love.

But it’s really hard for someone who is struggling with addiction or alcoholism, because they often have a lot of negative feelings about themselves. I suggest starting with just trying to get to a place where you just like yourself, and then you can begin to love yourself.