coping with cooking

The Battle of Mental Health

Metal health is…a bitch. It can be hard to do simple day to day things when your brain is attacking you. On a bad day everything suddenly becomes 10x harder than it normally is. Even getting out of bed is a task within its self. Sometimes we do lay in bed all day. Sometimes we don’t eat all day. But the next day we get up and we try again. We find the things that give us that little boost of serotonin! Something like a movie we find comfort in, social media, a new tattoo, a new hair color, or even trying a new recipe.

Cooking and baking is where I find the most serotonin personally! If I have a bad day, sometimes coming home and cooking dinner is just the thing I need to relax. Sometimes its a chore, but most of the time it makes my little sad brain a little less sad.

We also need to feed our bodies no matter what! Especially when we are not feeling good mentally. Have you ever had a day where everything is pissing you off, everyone is an ass to you, nothing is working out the way you want it too; someone tells you to take a nap, have a snack and drink some water, you come back and realize that was exactly what you needed? Not everything got better, but you now have more of a tolerance level for all the bullshit, and people aren’t as much of an ass as you thought they were.

People with poor mental health and neurodivergent people have a special type of brain; one that works overtime. I would even say it works 3x as hard as a neurotypical persons. (that’s not a fact so don’t quote me on it) And what did schools always tell you your brain needed to work properly? FOOD! Being hangry is a real thing. When your brain is hangry it is not happy; so you aren’t happy. I’m not saying that eating more is going to cure your mental health, but it certainly can help it.

Thats why I’m starting this blog. Taking all the things I’ve learned about food and mental health from my own experiences and sharing it with others. And also as another form of therapy for myself. I’ve learned that writing my thoughts down and getting them out of my head also makes me a lot happier. It feels like my brain is always at max capacity and getting those thoughts out and on to paper (or the internet apparently) frees up some.

All that being said, I look forward to sharing some recipes, cooking ideas, meal plans, and coping tips with anyone who comes across this page. Some recipes I find, others I make, and others I alter. Some a little more time consuming and some quick and easy for those really hard days.

Anyway, if you’re seeing this and read all of my long winded intro, thank you! Welcome to Coping with Cooking. I’m Katherine and I can’t wait to tell you all of the weird shit that goes on in my brain and in my kitchen! Let’s get healing!