One Unusual Trick to Finding Mental Health and Avoid Feeling Stuck
Do you ever have those days where you are your own worst enemy? When all of the pain and hurt comes from you and just spreads? then it spreads to weeks? Months?
For hours every day, my mind played on repeat terrible things:
“You aren’t helping anyone, who are you kidding?”
“Do you even know what you are talking about? This doesn’t make sense!”
Then things start happening, digging into the rottenness I suddenly see in myself.
Grandma passes away. “You are a terrible granddaughter, you should have spent more time with her.”
Mom has a heart attack. “You should have been there to help reduce the stress.”
Grandpa goes to the hospital. “You should be there helping to take care of him.”
It doesn’t matter what is going on, somehow it is all my fault. The guilt is overwhelming. Impostor syndrome abounds.
From there it starts to spiral faster and farther downhill.
How does it stop? When does it end?
Bad news and good news.
It won’t just end. Running its own course simply makes it all run deeper.
But the good news is it can stop. But you have to be the one to do it.
There are many ways to stop this process. It’s going to take a lot of effort to figure out which works best for you. Sometimes, it might even be what works best for your particular situation.
The Situation
November was a terrible month for me, what I wrote above was just the tip of the iceberg, and all of it was happening within mere days of one another. There were so many things going on, I actually didn’t even hear about the death of another family member until about a week later just because there were so many other things going on.
With all of the bad news that just kept coming day after day, I had this constant little storm cloud hanging over my head. I became sluggish and tired, lost any and all ability to focus, spent more time crying than I care to admit and just didn’t wanna… anything.
Unfortunately, that isn’t an option when living by yourself in a completely different state than the rest of the family. Life has to keep going. Time stops for no man, as the saying goes.
I was living life just going through the motions. I would show up to work, struggling to do the bare minimum.
The ironic thing is that I was there just a few short years ago before taking serious action into becoming a writer.
Back then, it was just the excitement of it all that was able to shift my entire mindset and lifestyle. I started to learn so much, learn from incredible mentors, including a long-time hero of mine, and the progress I was making was an addictive rush.
That obviously wasn’t going to work this time around. All of that was already a part of my life and I still hit a motivational wall.
So what comes next?
What do you do when sheer excitement and adrenaline rushes aren’t enough?
What do you do when a love of what you do isn’t enough? The purpose isn’t enough?
What do you do with the rapid succession of changes that leave grief and pain in its wake?
What do you do with a gap in your soul?
The Lie
You would think the simple answer would be to fill it, wouldn’t you? Fill it with things that make you happy and bring peace, blah, blah, blah.
Those are great ideals but remember that wasn’t working. I had passion and purpose in my life and I still lacked the desire to do anything with them.
The central problem isn’t the gap. The central problem is the lack of motivation and desire to do anything.
So how did I snap out of it? How did I get the motivation to start writing again? How did I pull myself from the depths of despair and depression caused by multiple life tragedies?
Guess what, it took more than one answer. Wouldn’t it be nice if life had one easy answer to any problem we face?
Whenever we face problems, our instinct is to look for an answer. A fix. We see something as broken and we need to get it back to the way it was before.
Problem is, that won’t happen. My grandma won’t magically come back to life, neither will my cousin. I don’t know if Grandpa will pull through this situation that took him to the emergency room.
Things change. Permanently. We face uncertainty in the face of such big changes.
Pretending I am happy about things that I’m not won’t work.
Trying to fill a void with something else doesn’t always work. Sometimes it can. If it does, lucky you.
But what about the rest of us poor schmucks that just feel broken?
The Change
The good news is that nothing has to be permanently broken. While the gap caused by losing my grandmother will never change, it can be healed.
The gap can be filled, though not always through self-indulgence and focusing on things that make us happy or feel good.
Often that gap is filled with a different kind of pain and struggle. We have to do hard things to get the results we want.
If we want to heal and feel whole, it’s going to take a lot of focus and hard work.
But first, we have to be tired of the state we are living in. This was easy for me in this instance. I am using to living a highly fulfilling life and I was tired of feeling so empty just three weeks into the month.
Secondly, there are certain thoughts and feelings that we have to let go of. I have to acknowledge there is nothing I can do to bring back my Grandma. Since I am in no way a medical professional, I have to acknowledge there is nothing I can do for my Grandpa.
The self-deprecating remarks, I do have some form of control over. However, that will have to be saved for another day. That is a constant struggle, not the deep, life-changing, lack of motivation apathy that came from such huge events.
Now that my mind is logically sorted, the outlook is a little bit clearer. I still have zero desire to do anything, but the despair has at least lessened.
After a few days of this, I was still in the same funk and unable to completely snap out of it.
I still didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning, didn’t want to write, didn’t want to work out, didn’t wanna… anything. I just felt broken.
I was managing to get up and go to work. I am at least sensible enough to not burn my bridges and lose my job. That would have only made things much worse.
Been there, done that.
The Hard Part
What I did realize though, is that I still had the ability to make myself do something I didn’t want to do, like going to work.
I realized I was going to have to re-establish all of my habits one by one to try to force myself back into sanity. and I just hoped and prayed that somewhere along the way, things would just stop hurting.
I didn’t know how long it would take. But I just needed some part of my life back.
My first concern was about my health. In 2018 I had started working out and have lost 30 lbs, and didn’t want that to be undone. Not only that, but during winter I am incredibly prone to sinus infections and other illnesses, especially if I don’t keep active.
It takes ages longer to heal emotionally if you are trying to heal physically, too.
Problem was, I didn’t wanna.
So I procrastinated, but wouldn’t let myself out of this promise I had made to myself. I am no liar, even if the only person involved is me.
No joke, it took me an hour just to get changed into workout clothes. Once I was out the door, I decided to check the mail first. After returning the mail to my apartment, it took another 10 minutes just to leave again.
Then upon arrival in the workout room, I stood on the treadmill without starting it for another 2 to 3 minutes, because I really didn’t wanna. Once I started, I was feeling done about 5 minutes in. I wasn’t sure I could keep moving for the full 30 minutes at the pace I had chosen. I had to make sure it was quick enough to at least break a sweat while simply walking. I knew I wasn’t about to run.
But not only am I not a liar, I am not a quitter. I’m too stubborn for that, thank goodness.
So I used one of my coping techniques and tried to distract myself. Music wouldn’t cut it, so I didn’t even try. Instead I tried to focus my thoughts on other problems to be solved, like what I was going to do about my writing and how I was going to get back into that, maybe some different marketing techniques and BAM! I had a great idea! I instantly picked up my phone and made a recording so I wouldn’t forget it later.
I kept walking. I kept my mind going.
Before I knew it, the 30 minutes was over.
I was in shock. Mostly because I felt good. I felt less congested and sick. I felt a lightness emotionally that I hadn’t had in far too long. Honestly, I was a little skeptical about how good I was feeling and wondered how long it was even going to last.
Now that it’s a week after that point and I still feel “normal” (I am by no means what most people call normal, but more like my average self again), I might have snapped out of that depression that was holding me for so long.
I still miss my grandma. I still worry about my mom and the grandparents that are still living.
Life is far from perfect, but I am in a much better place to handle all of this than I was before.
The Point
The article isn’t title “How I Snapped Out of My Depression” for a reason. It’s not just a “cool story, bro” kind of thing.
The point of my taking the time to write all of this out is three-fold.
First of all, that there is hope. Depression is a serious thing. It doesn’t matter how long or short it lasts, how frequent or infrequently you deal with it. But there is always a reprieve. That’s the feel-good point, but we all know this. It just doesn’t always feel like it.
One of the most inspiring things to me is the Japanese art of Kintsugi. Broken ceramics and pottery are repaired by filling cracks and reattaching pieces using gold. Not only does the piece regain it’s usefulness, but it becomes more valuable in the process. The history is clearly visible in each piece. We, too, can recover and heal from times when we feel broken and gain valuable wisdom in the process.
Secondly, mental health needs to be treated, just like physical health does. We can’t just sit and wait for things to take care of themselves. When there is illness, there needs to be treatment. We can’t just pretend like everything is ok.
If we get physically sick, we don’t pretend like nothing is wrong. We may stay home and sleep, we may see a doctor, we may take medication. It varies by personal and illness. Mental health is the same way. We can’t just ignore it like there is not a problem. Find treatment.
Thirdly, we often have to do things that we don’t want to do. It is human nature to simply give in to what we want, rather than using discipline to get things done. This is one major thing that holds us back from becoming our best selves. We have to force ourselves to do things we don’t want to do if we ever want to have the best things in life.
We have to do things we don’t want for our health, in relationships, at work. Sometimes we do them, sometimes we don’t.
But if we don’t, we miss out on benefits we had no idea were hiding behind this thing we don’t want to do.
Like healing during a workout.
I never would have expected that outcome, but I’m oh so glad I did it anyways.
What Now?
To heal, we need to start where we are and move forward. I’ve created a super-helpful guide to get you started and it’s completely free.
Click Here and I’ll email you my FREE guide to help you turn negatives into positives. (I promise you’ll love it)
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