When suffering with depression getting through the day feels like running a marathon, it’s draining. You feel physically exhausted, let alone the mental battle you go through, the guilt of feeling like you’re just lazy, the feelings of wanting to totally give up, I could go on. If you’ve made it through another day suffering with depression, OCD, anxiety or any mental illness, give yourself a pat on the back. Stop being so hard on yourself for not having the most productive day that you feel you SHOULD have had or everyone else is having or asking of you . Even if you’re not suffering with depression and you’re simply having an awful day,, where events have happened so you feel upset and unable to take on the day, this still applies to you.
You might have days where you feel better and that’s amazing treasure those, but don’t let the bad days take those away from you. I love this quote so much at the start of my mental health journey the good days were few, and I was always being told by people ‘do this and do that, it will help you get better, it will be a positive thing’. When you have depression the simplest thing to a healthy happy person seem like such massive task. So as the quote says I won’t tell you to have a good day but please look after yourself as best as you can.
The first thing I’d say is, if you think you or someone else is suffering with depression then get them or yourself help, that’s the biggest step to getting better. You need to find someone to speak to and someone who can advise you on the best ways to help yourself get better whether that’s medication, therapy, or both. If you don’t think you have depression and you’re just feeling down because of a negative event, or your just not feeling yourself, make sure you find someone to talk to aswell, venting and getting advice of a loved ones is always a good idea.
Now you’ve done that the next most important thing is to feed and water yourself as obvious as that sounds. As I said above the simplest of things can become a huge effort when your suffering with a mental illness and some people neglect themselves of the most basic things. Your body needs food and plenty of water, so if there’s one thing I insist you do it’s that. I’m not asking you to be a chef and cook up amazing nutritious meals (although nutritious food is known to help a blue mood) but you need to eat and drink whether you feel like it or not.
So you’ve gotten help, you know there’s a problem and you’ve acknowledge that, that’s a big step. You’re feeding yourself because that’s a basic human need whether you’re suffering or not, that’s another step, even if these are your first achievements you feel able to do currently then that’s great. No matter how small the steps or achievements they are still positive and thats all that matters. If you’ve done those above things the next thing to try to do is clean yourself, I’d recommend running a hot bubble bath that you can just lay in and get clean then put some clean comfy clothes on, you’ll feel so much better for it once it’s done. It’s another positive basic human need to achieve when having ‘your day’. The final thing on your list of goals for the day is to survive and not give up. Keep fighting through those awful days like I did, it can get better.
“It doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you don’t stop – Confucius”
If you have a day where you get up shower, eat, go to therapy, go to work and get something productive done then amazing be really proud. If the next day all you do is feed yourself because you’re having a bad day and your mental health is bad then that’s fine to, your mental health comes first, never beat yourself up for this. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed or taken a step back it means your surviving you’re doing what you have to, to get through the days. Recovery and getting better is not plain sailing, for a long time It felt as if I would never get better, and then just when I thought things seemed to be looking positive the next day it would all come crumbling down. Please don’t see this as failing everyday is a building block to recovery good or bad. I’m not saying settle for a life of doing the bare minimum always, I’m saying be proud of the little things you achieve when your suffering, that its ok and you don’t need to beat yourself up, but of course always strive to get better and don’t give up. For some people with mild depression they may be able to function almost normally, for others it will feel almost impossible, everyone is different and it’s important not to make yourself feel bad for how you’re coping.
Please check out my other mental health blog posts for more self-help and information.
Need someone to talk to? Look in the contact me section, I’m all ears.
Hang in there,
Anna-Marie
♥
Stresses And Dresses 