Kindness as a Strategy: Tools for Managing Chaos When Mental Health Is Hard
Written by Charlie Rao, MS, LPC
Originally published by Charlie Rao. Read more of her work on Medium.
There are things I often share with my patients — not as instructions, but as reminders. Many of them are things I wish I had known earlier in my own life. And some are things I still have to remind myself of now.
Working in acute mental health settings, and living through my own seasons of depression, brain fog, and medication changes, taught me something important: when life feels chaotic, insight alone is rarely enough. What helps most are small, humane strategies — tools that support us when our nervous system, memory, or cognition isn’t fully available.
This isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about staying in relationship with yourself when things are hard.
When Cognition Isn’t Reliable
There were periods when brain fog was worse for me than depression itself. The fog made me feel scattered, slow, and drained. It chipped away at my sense of self. When you rely on your mind to function — to think, remember, articulate — losing access to it can be frightening and disorienting.
Add hypersomnia into the mix — sleeping 18+ hours a day — and time itself becomes slippery. Days blur. Details vanish. And yet, the system still expects clarity, recall, and decisiveness.
In those moments, external supports aren’t optional. They’re essential.
Tool #1: A Simple Psychiatric Medication Journal
One practical tool I often suggest is keeping a basic medication journal or notebook. It doesn’t need to be fancy.
For each medication, you might jot down:
Medication name (brand and generic)
Dosage
Approximate start and stop dates
Side effects you noticed
What led to stopping or switching
This can help reduce repetition, support clearer conversations with prescribers, and preserve important information when memory is unreliable.
In my own experience, some medication side effects were subtle at first — especially during periods of brain fog and exhaustion. At one point, changes became noticeable enough that family members expressed concern and asked if I was okay. That outside perspective helped me recognize that something wasn’t right and bring it back to my prescriber, and additional treatment was needed to manage the side effects.
That experience reinforced how important it can be to track changes over time — and to take seriously both what our bodies are telling us and what trusted others may notice when we’re not fully able to observe ourselves.
This isn’t about being organized. It’s about protecting self-trust.
When Appointments Hijack the Nervous System
Psychiatric appointments are often brief and high-pressure. Sitting in a small room, being asked questions, watching the clock — it’s easy to become flustered and forget the very things you meant to say.
I’ve left appointments feeling stunned, realizing afterward that I didn’t ask my most important questions or name the symptoms that mattered most to me. That experience shaped another tool I now share often.
Tool #2: Write Down Your Top 3–5 Current Concerns
Before an appointment, write down three to five symptoms or concerns that are most disruptive right now. Ask yourself:
Is this making me less functional?
Is it interfering with work, relationships, or daily life?
Is this new, worsening, or different from my baseline?
The goal isn’t to list everything. It’s to protect what matters most when your mind goes blank.
Having this written down creates an anchor. It helps ensure that even if the appointment moves quickly, your experience is named.
This isn’t about controlling the appointment. It’s about not leaving feeling unheard or unsure of what just happened.
Tool #3: Creating a Mental Health Toolbox
One of the most helpful frameworks I share with patients is the idea of building a mental health toolbox — a personal collection of strategies that help regulate, ground, or steady you during hard moments.
A simple rule of thumb I like is this:
However old you are, that’s about how many tools you should try to have in your toolbox. Not because you need that many — but because no single tool works every time.
Some days one thing helps. Other days it doesn’t. And that doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong.
Tools might include:
mindful mantras or chanting (repetition matters — what we repeat, we strengthen – Hebbian learning)
humming, singing, or deep breathing
laughing or light distraction
arts and crafts, adult coloring books, zentangles, doodling
music or poetry
meditation or prayer
talking with a trusted confidant
walking, going to the gym
gardening or being in nature
playing with pets
The goal of a toolbox isn’t to fix how you feel.
It’s to give yourself options — to cycle through, mix and match, and notice what fits in that moment. Needing more tools doesn’t mean you’re getting worse.
It usually means life is complex — and you’re responding to it honestly.
Kindness Is Not the Opposite of Resilience
There’s a common belief that resilience means pushing through, toughening up, or needing less support. But what I’ve seen — both professionally and personally — is that resilience most often grows out of kindness toward oneself.
Kindness looks like:
externalizing memory instead of shaming it
choosing tools over willpower
allowing “good enough”
adapting instead of forcing
Resilience, in this frame, isn’t toughness.
It’s staying in relationship with yourself long enough to keep going.
A Final Thought
These tools aren’t cures. They’re companions.
They exist for the moments when insight is offline, when memory is foggy, when the system moves faster than your nervous system can.
If something doesn’t help today, that doesn’t mean it never will.
And if you need many tools, that doesn’t mean you’re failing.
It means you’re human.
And being gentle with yourself isn’t giving up —
it’s often the most resilient thing you can do.
If you’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed and would like help sorting through what might support you right now, I offer one-time consultation sessions. These are meant to be a gentle, focused space for clarity — not a commitment to ongoing therapy.
Charlierao.org | 281-241-9990 | info@charlierao.org
