Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for your bad days, Forgive yourself for not getting out of bed, Forgive yourself for not taking care of yourself.
\nI have found through my journey of discovery that forgiveness is essensial to wake up the next day in a better frame of mind. It is so easy to fall into a trap of beating yourself up over small things but we aren't perfect, we cant always be on a linear path to recovery! \nInstead of beating ourselves up, we must carry on and learn from the things we could've done differently.
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I am struggling to cope but that does not mean I am unhappy or sad. You see, i feel such intense emotions that can switch in a matter of seconds and the smallest of things can trigger these emotions inside of me. I feel rage, sadness, anguish, happiness, love and joy in such short spaces of time. I am not talking about days full of these feelings, I am talking about hours and maybe even minuites. When I feel too many emotions it drains me, both physically and mentally and it becomes a daily struggle. It affects my relationships, my sleep, my eating, my work and my anxieties and a lot more.
You see, i may be struggling but please don't presume that it is is because i am sad, it is because i feel too much. In an idyllic world we would be able to live our lives without facing judgement from society but unfortunately, that is not the case. You see, most people do not even realize that they are making false perceptions of a person and their situation by making judgments and I guess we are all guilty of it in some way or another.
It is not until recently that I have realized that I face judgments in many aspects of my life... I have had it all. The main one that annoys the hell out of me (besides the awful mental health judgments, which I am getting onto) is 'When are you going to get a proper job?' I am signed off work on health grounds, I work part time in a pub and I am constantly searching for volunteering vacancies around my area to give a bit back. I feel that society judges me for being a nearly 20 year old who doesn't go to uni or hold a full time job but I am a work in progress, I am not ready to set out into the professional world yet. I have battled with Mental Health Issues for the majority of my life and I have faced so many judgments from people and society as a whole. I have a none exhaustive list of things that people have said to me that have made me question why I even confide in others. There is still such a huge stigma around Mental Health in society that needs to be addressed as it causes more damage than it is worth. 'I feel that people are actually cruel when I tell them about it. I get the "I don't see why you don't like your body. You look fine. You're just being stupid" type of things. No-one understands that even though they think I look ok, I not not feel okay and it is hard to tell anyone because then I'm just being that over dramatic girl who just wants to be skinny when I'm actually trying to get someone to listen to me' - AL - Severe Body Dysmorphia The most common judgments that I face with my mental health is that people think I am aggressive, angry and mean all of the time when in reality, I can be the happiest and most loving person in the world (at times.) Another one that really gets to me is that I feel that people think I am incapable of most things, I get mollycoddled and it really does not help me try to grow in regards to my independence. 'I always feel like people assume I am dramatic. When I say I have BPD it's like they instantly back away and don't take me seriously anymore' - JS - Borderline Personality Disorder I feel that the media has a huge part to play in societies judgments of mental health as they only ever portray the dark side of it such as murders. The modern day society seems to believe everything media outlets tell them and half of the time they have it so wrong but I will not get into that, This blog post will turn into my usual confusing ways of communicating - Talking about 60 different things before realising I have completely gone off track. 'My most common judgement is that I am not sick enough to ask for special accommodations (Note taker, Extra time for exams etc.) and that it is odd that I succeed in my studies (My mental illnesses should be a setback) and the biggest one is why I get upset when people use the term "Are you bipolar?" to talk about PMSing' - CSA - Bipolar Affective Disorder I feel that the first step towards eradicating the stigma and judgments around mental health is to educate the world about what it is really like. Educating people that it is not just fixed by going on a walk or keeping yourself busy. Educating people that it is not a way of mind but in fact it is an actual chemical imbalance in your head. Educating people that if you work towards breaking that stigma then it would allow girls, boys, men and women to speak up about their pain. 'I constantly get looked at like I am a fragile China Doll... I have found that since I have gone through depression people think I am incapable of making my own decisions and it feels like people are always waiting for me to break. The most common judgement I get is "You can't do that because of your mental health" But I again think that that falls under the fact that they think I am a china doll' - LC - Depression I hope that one day, I will bring a child into this world knowing that if they wanted to speak up about their feelings then they will face no judgement and get the help they need because after all, mental health is just as important as physical health. I would like to thank the lovely ladies who have shared their stories with me. Healing is not linear. We all have bad days where we struggle to see the light and these days can be very challenging, especially if we have to carry on with our day to day life and not hide away from the world. Below I have listed things to expect when you are around someone who is on a bad day so we can support each other on every day - not just the good.
Self Care is the actions an individual takes to develop, protect, maintain and improve their health, wellbeing or wellness.
Wether you suffer from a mental health illness or not, practicing self care is so important to improve moods and appreciate yourself for who you are and to maintain physical health which always assists your mental health. Self care can mean anything from taking vitamins every day to taking a walk to taking a bath to colouring in a mindfulness colouring book. Anything that allows you to improve your own wellbeing. In my eyes, Self Care is crucial to my daily life. It allows me to take time for myself and to put my inner demons on the back burner for a while. My inner demons are exhausting and this time makes me remember that there is a real person inside me! Who am I?
That is a question I ask myself daily You see, Borderline Personality Disorder can lead you into a constant identity crisis. Some days I wake up and believe I am a walking, talking queen but other days I wake up and do not even want to leave the house because I feel so uncomfortable in my own body. Other people's opinions on how i should act have a massive play in this. If someone tells me to be a certain way then i will be that way because i am a people pleaser. I guess I am just an identity thief on a mission to find who I truly am. I feel very empty as a person; nothing really feels like my own. I have a small collection of hobbies and interests but they are not really mine, they are things i have just kind of picked up. I am constantly looking for things to build my new self upon but at the moment I am just doing what I am until everything makes sense again. I don't know who I am or who I ever was and it is a scary thing for me. Ever since my original diagnosis of Depression i have questioned the truth behind it. The diagnosis did not explain the inability to build stable relationships, the dissociative states, the need for constant attention, the inability to regulate my moods and the random outbursts of energy.
After 8 years of communication with psychiatrists and GPs, Today I recieved a letter from my Psychiatric Team with a diagnosis. Impulsive Personality Disorder. It is a Borderline Personality Disorder Type that quote ' is often seen as the most charismatic of the borderline types. The impulsive type is extremely different from the other subtypes of borderline personality disorder, even to an untrained eye. The impulsive type might seem magnetically enigmatic from the outside looking in' You see, i thought recieving a diagnosis as such would break me into a million pieces but it has done the opposite. I have come to terms with the fact that this is me, i am who i am and it has motivated me towards working on the negative traits of my disorder. I would consider being bullied at a young age as one of the largest contributing factors to why i suffer with mental issues.
You see, when you have had the fact that you are not good enough instilled from such an early age then it has a detromental effect on your confidence. I never felt good enough, i never felt like I could trust people in fear of having abuse hurtled at me just for being a little different because i was never a normal child, i took olives to school instead of chocolate and my Grandfather was my bestfriend. I changed myself in my early teens for a few years because I was desperate to fit in. In a way, I thank the people who bullied me because they have made me who i am, they have made me a lot stronger. I am still different but i have come to embrace it now. I now see that being yourself is the most beautiful thing, it is an element of self care. I guess the pain has stuck with me for life though, because i was in such a big development phase in my life it has become part of me. Low confidence is now a personality trait of mine and i have severe trust issues which i can only put down to bullying. I am at peace with it all, I have accepted the past however it breaks my heart to see there is still such a large issue with bullying. I have recently found out that I was misdiagnosed with depression and my psychiatric team are throwing names of conditions around, trying to come to my diagnosis. They have told me they are pretty certain that I have Borderline Personality Disorder and reading into the condition was like looking in a mirror at myself. I feel very intense emotions, I am impulsive and I feel empty a lot of the time.
People have turned around to me and told me to not let my condition define me but it does define me, and that is okay. You see; because I have struggled for such a large part of my life, when I was going through the stage of self discovery as a teenager this was who I was. I loved deeply and hurt a lot and it hugely effected my identity because if you were to make a huge chart of my life, the symptoms would take up the majority of it. Why would I stand here and say it doesn't define me if it is the center of my whole being? My condition is vehement, debilitating and it can sometimes prove life threatening but believe me, I will never ever give up my battle to live a somewhat normal life. All in all, I have been massively shaped by my mental health condition but if I had the choice to go back and change things, I wouldn't because it really has been my life's greatest teacher. Dearest Body,
You remind me of some of the most beautiful of flowers. At times you shall wilt and become fragile but with the right care you will blossom and become even more beautiful than before. I am sorry i starved you of what you needed, I am sorry for believing that you were so repulsive that all I wanted to do was destroy you. All you could do is scream out at me to make me come to terms with the fact that i have an issue. The truth is; i had no fight left in me and I just wanted to dissapear, i wanted an easy way out. I hope i have done you proud by letting you blossom once again. I have let my war wounds heal which you have to show for the rest of your life but believe me, they tell a beautiful story of a fight like no other. I have let you grow stronger and even more beautiful then you ever were before. I vow to never let you wilt again for i know that societies perception of beautiful is a cruel and ugly one. You are strong. I love you. |