James Ward-Sinclair on mental health in the age of Zoom, discovering his love of exercise, and taking things one step at a time...

The past few years have been difficult for a lot of us. If you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health, we want you to know that you are not alone. We have plenty of mental health guides and resources on our website. If you would like more information on seeking professional support for your mental health, please visit our seeking help with mental health page. We hope you find these pages helpful.

To talk more about mental health, we caught up with one of our content creators, James Ward-Sinclair. James is an autistic advocate, fitness fanatic, and the brains behind ‘Autistic and Unapologetic’, a popular autism awareness blog.

Here, James writes about struggling with his mental health during the pandemic, how his new found love of fitness helped him get back on track, and his tips for aspiring autistic gym goers...

For the longest time, I only ever thought about my mental health when it couldn’t be ignored. When things were fine, I was fine, so who cared? But, when things went wrong, the negative thoughts that circled my mind were a little harder to push back, and I felt like I was stuck at a family event with a weird aunt who only wanted to point out my flaws.

However, at some point last year (when the world was at a particular low point), I couldn’t find the exit door to my engagements with poor mental health. I would wake up feeling tired, and leave the house sure I would return a nervous wreck at the end of the day. When people asked me about my change in attitude, I would happily say that I was feeling down, but that it didn’t bother me because I was sure it would only be for a short while - spoilers: it wasn’t.

Flash forward a few months later and, during one of the many, many Zoom calls which took place that year, I found myself quieter than usual, a lot sadder than normal and, in a move that is completely out of character for me, very, very teary.

Sure, I’ve cried in public before, but this wasn’t Lion King (the musical) or that one scene in the new Spider-man (yeah, you know the one). In my mind, this was weird because this, seemingly, was nothing.
 

I have come to realise that my new hobby wasn’t something as simple as exorcising my poor mental health through exercise. It was showing me the other side of the coin, where among the episodes of negativity and otherwise mediocre mental health, I could also have great mental health - a discovery that I’m sure will surprise no one, felt amazing!

Personally, I think this realisation took so long because, as autistic people, we are too used to only seeing the negative side of mental health - wherein, at worst, it can result in sectioning and other nastiness and, at best, it occasionally comes along to kick us in the teeth and leave us feeling down in the dumps.

Since that day though, I now see that positive mental health can be something that elevates us, allowing us to be more creative, more resistant to the negative and less impacted by change (something which is especially useful to us autistic people). Of course, things are not perfect, and I still have bad days, but my mental health and attitude towards mental health has definitely improved.

I think the key to better mental health is not always doing things that make you feel fine for a short while, but things which make you feel excellent for as long as possible - whether that be taking up a new hobby, opting to engage more with people you have lost contact with or maybe, just maybe, setting yourself the goal to one day beat The Rock in an arm wrestle.