This Mother’s Day, I had one of those very human moments where everything I am juggling landed all at once. I am in a master’s program, working full time, and preparing for our youngest son’s high school graduation, with all the pride, grief, change, and “how are we paying for college?” emotions that come with it.
Then I walked into the kitchen.
My husband had made me homemade gluten-free tiramisu, which was incredibly thoughtful and heartfelt. As someone with a gluten allergy, having someone make something special and safe for me means so much. But in that moment, instead of seeing the love, I saw the mess. The dishes. The ingredients. The counters. And I lost it a little.
Not because of the tiramisu, but because my nervous system was already carrying too much.
That is where prevention becomes real for me. Practicing resilience does not mean I never get overwhelmed, anxious, reactive, or messy in my own humanity. It means I am building the capacity to notice sooner. So I can pause. And recognize, “This is not really about the kitchen. This is overwhelm. This is my pattern. This is me needing care, not control.”
That small pause does not replace therapy, medication, or professional support when needed. But it does change what becomes possible in the moment. I can soften. I can repair. I can ask for what I need. I can see the love underneath the cocoa powder and dirty mixing bowls.
To me, this is the reframe we need in how we approach mental health. Mental health care should include intervention when people are struggling and prevention before people reach a crisis. It should include the daily skills, relationships, and environments that help us stay well.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I am grateful we have more public language than ever for talking about mental health, therapy, anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma, and stress. That matters.
Intervention support is deeply needed. Having been treated for depression and anxiety,
I know firsthand how important it is to have access to care, support, tools, and people who can help when things feel too heavy to carry alone. Therapy, medication, crisis support, diagnosis, treatment, and professional care all have a necessary and meaningful place in mental health.
And still, I keep coming back to this question: What if mental health was more than a crisis response?
In our culture, we say “health care,” but much of what we have built is really sick care. We respond once something has already gone wrong. We treat the illness, the injury, the emergency, or the pain that has become too loud to ignore.
We take the same approach with mental health. We focus on disorders after they appear, burnout after it has taken hold, and crisis after people have already been carrying too much for too long.
Intervention can be lifesaving. But intervention cannot be the only way we care for mental health. We also need to ask: What helps people stay emotionally well before they reach the breaking point?
I care for my physical health with sleep, movement, nourishing food, and water before I am depleted. My mental and emotional health needs that same ongoing attention.
This Mental Health Awareness Month, maybe the invitation is not just to talk more openly about mental health, but to reimagine when and how mental health support begins. Not only at diagnosis. Not only at burnout. Not only at crisis.
But earlier. Through learning practices and skills that can help.
In everyday interactions.
Before the breaking point.
For me, Nurturing Myself is not just an extra treat like visiting wiggly pugs or something I earn after everything else is done. It is part of my preventative mental health care, a daily practice of noticing what I need, offering myself care before I unravel, and building the resilience to meet life with more steadiness, compassion, and choice.
So maybe the invitation is this: What is one small, everyday practice you can begin using to nurture yourself before you reach the breaking point?
Kristie and the Dovetail Team