I’m actor Katie McGrath, and here's a piece of my mind
KATIE TALKS SELF-CARE, OPENING UP ABOUT HER MENTAL HEALTH, AND WHAT SHE DOES ON THOSE REALLY BAD DAYS
By Kristina Benoist
Welcome to our Piece Of My Mind series where experts, advocates, and amazing people from all backgrounds and professions share a snapshot of their mental health. We dive into their self-care routines, how they balance their work with their mental health, and how they manage those really bad days. We’re sharing this piece of their mind so that you can hopefully find some inspiration in your own mental health journey moving forward.
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You may recognize actor Katie McGrath from her role as Lena Luthor on the CW’s Supergirl for the past six years.
Originally from Ireland, Katie’s acting career has landed her in many different roles and locations across the world. She’s had to learn how to adapt to new cities, communities of people, and schedules. Throughout all of it, she’s learned what self-care routine works best for her, and it may not be what you expect when you think about traditional self-care.
We sat down with Katie to learn more about how she manages her mental health, how she found what works best for her, and how she handles those inevitable bad days.
This is Katie McGrath, and here’s a piece of her mind.
IDONTMIND: How is your mental health today? What’s your headspace like?
Katie McGrath (KM): Today it's pretty good actually. The sun is shining and it’s beautiful, my favorite type of weather. I got out at like 7:30 AM this morning and I've already been for a two hour walk. So I feel pretty amazing.
“I’m a really early riser. I like to get up when it’s still quiet out and sometimes when it’s still dark. I find the calm of the morning and the promise of the day make me feel very hopeful and very relaxed.”
IDM: What does a normal day look like for you right now?
KM: Every day is different and depending on whether I go to work. I'm lucky with the fact that sometimes I'll have a heavy episode and I'll be in every day and then other episodes I'll only be in for one or two days. So a lot of my day is taken up with working on and pursuing things that I love.
I'm a really early riser. I like to get up when it's still quiet out and sometimes when it's still dark. I find the calm of the morning and the promise of the day make me feel very hopeful and very relaxed. I get a lot of my work done sort of between 5:00 AM and 8:00 AM in the morning, which I know sounds crazy, but it's quiet and relaxed and easy.
So, I usually get up around five or six and feed the dog and take him out and then have about eight cups of tea and do some reading. I have a rule for myself that I'm not allowed to turn the TV on during the day. A lot of the time I'll find that if I have the TV on I'll just sit down and watch it and get nothing done. I listen to podcasts or I'll read, and only when it sort of gets dark in the evening, do I turn the TV on. A lot of my day is taken up with reading.
I don't have a car because I lived in London for so long. So everything I do is by my feet so I can walk and explore the city with my dog, especially when the weather's nice. But I'm Irish, so when it's raining I'm like, ‘I don't give a shit. I'll just go out and get wet!’
One thing that I find when I'm feeling a little low, that usually does help me — no matter how bad I feel — is just getting outside with my dog and letting him run around. He doesn't understand sadness and he just gets so instantly happy. Being around another living being, being that joyous and happy always makes me feel better.
“I thought there was something wrong with me because quieting my mind doesn’t help me. The best thing to do, for me, was to find the things that took up enough of my brain so I didn’t think about the things that were bothering me.”
IDM: What was your first experience really thinking about mental health?
KM: I think I was probably about 11. It was when I went from a junior school in Ireland to a senior school. It was a totally new environment, and I think I was probably very overwhelmed and feeling extremely insecure. But then maybe it was even younger, sometimes I feel like I’ve been thinking about my mental health before I even had the words to describe what it was. I think that’s why talking about it is so important from a young age, articulating it can begin to give you the vocabulary to describe some very confusing and complicated thoughts and feelings.
IDM: It sounds like every week your work schedule is a little different. So how do you balance your work with taking care of your mental health?
KM: I find exercise is really helpful for my mental health and for self-care. But getting into a routine of that with the way we work is very difficult. So you're either exhausted and you can't get to it or you're working all the time. I find it difficult to schedule that and to get that right. I find sometimes if I can exhaust my body, I can be more at peace with my mind.
What's tricky for me, and I'm not sure how it is for everyone else, is that I move around a lot for my job. Every time you're leaving the family and friends that you've created and they're getting further and further away. My whole family is back in Europe, and it's difficult because I very much feel like every time I get a support group set up and get everything figured out, I then have to move again. Every time you move to a new place, you don't know where your doctor is. You don't know where the supermarket is. You don't know where anything is. So it's a learning process and creating a whole life. Most people only do that once or twice in their life, but I do it every few years. It can be exhausting and isolating. And what worked in Budapest isn't going to work in Vancouver. I make it a point when anybody new comes to the city now that I work with, I'm like, ‘Okay, here's what I did and if you need anything, call me.’ Even if I can't help with anything, just to know that there's someone to call.
IDM: What are a few ways that you self-care and how did you find them? How did you realize that they worked for you?
KM: I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I was thinking about the “normal way” that you’re told to self-care. A lot of people go to yoga and they meditate and they quiet their minds. That in order to feel calm as a person, you had to quiet your mind and take everything out and relax. I tried all of those things and none of that worked for me. I thought there was something wrong with me. I'm the person who goes to yoga and comes out more stressed than they went in.
For the longest time, I thought there was something wrong with me because quieting my mind doesn't help me. That kind of self-care just didn't help. And in fact, it kind of made me feel worse because I get frustrated and I get angry. I discovered the best thing to do, for me, was to find the things that took up enough of my brain so I didn't think about the things that were bothering me.
BAKING
So what's really helpful to me is baking. I can concentrate on baking, but it doesn't take too much from me. I bake bread for all my friends. I bake cakes. You can always tell I'm kind of sad because the house is full of baked goods. My mom would come down in the morning and there'd be cakes everywhere and she's like, ‘Oh no, she's having a bad day.’ But following a recipe and sticking to something really helps me because I can concentrate on it and there are manageable steps. There’s also a sense of accomplishment at the end of it.
READING
Another thing that really helps me is reading. It’s a huge thing for me. I find that it takes up enough of my mind so that I find it relaxing, and I don't concentrate on the things that are bothering me. Right now I am stuck in 1920s New York. And I'm reading a biography about flappers.
TAPESTRY
I also do tapestry, which is the same as coloring. It's like a coloring book. It's so easy. But for me, that's like meditation. It doesn't take too much for my mind.
TAKING A PHONE BREAK
I also have a phone that has no SIM card in it and I download podcasts on it. And that way I can take a proper break from my phone. I'll go out walking with just podcasts, but no phone. People laugh because I have so many phones, but a lot of them don't have SIM cards in them. They're my old phones that still work, but I just put music on it and podcasts and then I'll just walk around the city with my dog listening to them, and then nobody can get at me. It's just my time.
“I always think that you have to count even the littlest things as wins because some days, getting out of bed and having a shower, and getting dressed is a win. You can’t diminish how hard it was to do that and the achievement that you’ve done it.”
IDM: Is there anything that you know you should be doing more of and you just can't get yourself to do it?
KM: I'm not great at telling people when I'm bad. I'm really great at telling them after the fact. I'm like, ‘So that was really hard last month,’ but I'm not great at telling them at the time. I still think ‘I'm going to get through this’ and I think it's probably an idea of control like, ‘I can do this, I can get through this.’ And I hide it, because I think I can manage it on my own. I should be better at just telling somebody I'm having a hard time and telling the people I love. I think that they can't see it. But of course, they can. I don't want to worry my family because I'm so far away, and I know my friends have their own things and I don't want to add to it. I think that I get stuck thinking I’m adding to other people’s problems — but that’s not the case.
IDM: Let’s say you’re having a really bad day, you just wake up and you know that you aren't feeling right. What is the first thing that you do to try and get your mental health back in a good space?
KM: I've had some bad times where getting out of bed is very hard. I always think that you have to count even the littlest things as wins because some days, getting out of bed and having a shower, and getting dressed is a win. You can't diminish how hard it was to do that and the achievement that you've done it. So I think the first thing I always do is count any achievement as a win. For me it’s giving myself a break and going, ‘You know, these things are hard but you're still doing them and that's good.’ It's the small things. It's getting up every day and getting dressed and making my bed. And I build up from that. Anybody who suffers from depression knows that some days are easier and then some days are harder. You don't know what you're dealing with on any given day until you're dealing with it. So some days I'm like, ‘Everything's great, and I can go see my friends and have them over for dinner’. And other days I'm like, ‘It's going to be hard to even have a shower today.’
I made a rule for myself when I was younger that I have to interact with a person once a day. It didn't matter who it was, and it didn't matter what it was. It didn't matter if it was going out to get a cup of coffee. I just needed to speak to another person every day. Interacting with people was a big one for me because if you leave me on my own, when I'm in a dark place, I will stay in my bed and I won't leave. That was one of the reasons I ended up getting a dog. When you have a dog, people are so positive and so happy when they see you. They'll stop and talk to you, but they'll talk to you about the dog. So it's easy to be happy when you're not having to answer questions about yourself. And it's literally the most positive interaction.
“There’s so much of other people telling you what works for them and there can be such pressure to think that what works for them will work for you...My individual needs weren’t necessarily what everybody else’s were.”
IDM: So does it come naturally to prioritize your mental health? Or do you think you still just really have to work on it?
KM: No, it doesn't come naturally. I have to try very hard at it. I figured out what works for me and it's so ingrained in me now, but it took me a long time to get there. I am not naturally somebody who is good at looking after themselves and good at taking stock of the things that are weighing on me. So it's something I've had to learn and it's something that I still continue to have to learn because there are times where I'm like, ‘I've got this down, it's great.’ And then I'm like, ‘Oh shit. No, I'm not managing this at all.’
One thing I will say is that there are very few things in my life that cannot be fixed by a good book and a cup of tea. And sometimes it's the simplest of things that will take you out of yourself and make you feel better. There's so much, especially with social media, of other people telling you what works for them and there can be such pressure to think that what works for them will work for you. But we're all individuals. We all have individual needs. And it took me many years to be okay with that. My individual needs weren't necessarily what everybody else's were.