Blogging is a place where my thoughts can escape. Where my mental health can wander without seeking attention and approval from other people. I started writing just to get my thoughts on paper. This is where I feel most comfortable expressing any kind of real emotion. Bringing up struggles and depressive feelings in any conversation with any person makes me very anxious and I probably don’t express myself as well as I would writing it down.
I don’t want people to try and fix me, I just want you all to read and understand what goes through my mind on a day to day basis. I want to share what I understand about mental health as well as what I am learning about mental health through other blogs and self-help books.
Mental health is difficult to speak about for most people. It’s human nature to avoid things that make us most uncomfortable. The reason people struggle to get the help and support they need is that life is so fast-paced. You wake up, go to work/school and entertain the small talk without anyone ever really noticing what you’re going through. Being depressed is more than being upset or sad. People throw around the word without ever really understanding what it feels like to be in that dark place.
Getting my thoughts down into this blog feels easy, however posting it takes a lot of courage. The idea that others will know what I’m going through is sickening. I have friends who have read my previous posts and they don’t know how to react or what to say to me once they have read it.
I’ve never really been someone who shows any real emotion - my stone-cold demeanour translates to me being chilled and laid back. I don’t seem to let anything overwhelm me, I don’t take anything too seriously. In reality, I’m probably the complete opposite of that.
I am quiet, I am reserved, I am shy, I am insecure, I am sensitive, I am introverted.
This is how I am, it’s how I’ve always been. My ability to make others feel good when I'm not is something that I love about myself.
When I was at my lowest a few years ago I was paralysed by my emotions and thoughts. Getting out of bed every morning was tough. the feeling of not having a purpose or meaning in life was crippling. I used to lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling, completely blank. I didn’t have any sense of direction, where I wanted to go, what I wanted to be. I just felt very sorry for myself.
I began feeling extremely pressured to get myself going as much as I didn’t want to. My parents couldn’t understand the lethargy and lack of motivation. I once told my mum, full of negative emotions at the time that I didn’t want to live anymore. I had reached a breaking point.
I never thought of taking my own life or anything like that but I felt like I just didn’t want to do it anymore. I hated waking up every day to nothingness. I wasn’t very social, so I could never surround myself with positive energy. I continued crawling deeper into this shell.
Eventually, I had a breakthrough. I was offered a job somewhere I wanted to work and knew it could be the first step to happiness. Surrounded by positivity and people who only want to better themselves.
For me, the biggest coping mechanism has been to train. Bodybuilding, powerlifting and personal training. This physical growth and development have helped with confidence and the feeling of content. However, the painful truth is that these endorphins are only temporary. I train for roughly two hours a day, six days a week.
This was only the beginning of my recovery.
I've only been 26 for about a week and I already feel like I’ve matured so much. I have started to embrace my own company and look forward to being alone listening to my thoughts.
I've started making positive changes in my life. This has all started with reading and writing.
Reading Vex Kings Good Vibes Good Life has been life-changing to me. Self-help books get a bad rep because those reading it doesn’t put into action the advice given to them.
Taking time out of my day to sit alone is one of the most satisfying things in my day. It’s calming, peaceful. Every couple of days I’ll take my laptop, a book, and headphones to a coffee shop and just allow my mind to do what it wants to do.
I can find myself deep into my book for 15mins and suddenly something clicks and I type away for the next 5 minutes only to then find myself singing along to a song in my head. I don’t put any pressure on myself to read a certain number of pages or to finish a blog post. I just let it flow.
I am currently on a train to work as I write this, the same song playing over and over again (Unconditional - Sinead Harnett) just allowing my fingers to tap away at the screen. The most beautiful things in the world happen naturally and organically.
It's easy to forget what’s real because people are so obsessed with trying to impress others or be the same as everyone else. These “social standards” are taking away from what makes us unique. It shapes us into something we think we want to be to gain approval from people we don’t even know.
You have to be honest about who you want to be and it has to be because it’s what you want. If changing who you remove toxicity from your life and allows for progression then it has to be done. However, changing who you are because of how you “should” be will only cause you more unhappiness.
Saying you should do something sets an unrealistic expectation on the process of life. It doesn’t take into account the mountains you have to climb. It puts you under immense pressure to meet these expectations. It's even more unfair to place that expectation on others, not only for them but to you too. We can’t expect others to do anything. They are currently running their race and will put their wants and needs ahead of everything including yourself. We may see this as selfishness and title those people as someone who doesn’t care for others. In reality, they just care about themselves more - exactly how it should be.
Opmerkingen