I remember telling a therapist in the recent past that I never thought I'd be free. I never thought I'd find freedom in my own mind. At 25 years of age, I was still on medication, struggling with crippling OCD, mix that with the leftover depression from the last ten years, and you have what I thought would make me a sure failure. Feeling like you don't have control over your own brain is one of the scariest feelings ever. I've heard things like "just think differently" or "you know you have control over your brain right?"........ok, while those things can be accurate, they can sometimes take a TON of work to get to that point. It comes easily to some people. Some of us just happen to fall on the other side of the spectrum (the same way lifting heavy things comes easily to me, but can be extremely difficult for someone of a smaller frame. Why is mental illness any different?)
Do I have control over my brain? Today? Yes, for the most part. Monday night when I walked in the gym? I lost control for about a half hour. I was anxious as hell and stressed out. And really for no particular reason. I just had a momentary lapse in control of my own mind, a feeling I used to feel 24/7. (So yes, there's always that small fear that I'll relapse and lose all control and lose my mind again. That fear never really goes away).
My point is, I don't have things figured out but I can tell you what I do know, today, at this moment. And if sharing this helps one person, I've done my job. Some days I just feel lucky. I know I've put a ton of work in to get where I am, but I also feel like I had a lucky break some time in the last six months. That all of my hard work suddenly "clicked" and now I have hope. I'm sitting here racking my brain for what got me here. I feel it's my job to share what I've tried to collect on this matter. Here's what I can think of today. I'll probably continue this post at another time when I have made more sense of all of this.
1) Research - There is a ton of research out there on the brain, but there seems to be a huge disconnect between the research and the people who could benefit from it. Psychology research started out as a hobby for me, and now it has become a regular part of my life. Understanding OTHERS helped me understand myself. That sounds like it makes no sense, but it does. I think a common theme of depression is the tendency to take the blame for too much. You're afraid you aren't doing a good enough job at work, so you always fear you're being watched or your boss will find out you're a failure. You isolate yourself and conclude the problem is 100% inside of you. I think once you start separating yourself out from OTHERS' insecurities, you find a little bit of freedom. Who are you trying to impress? The people that are jerks to you aren't justified in doing so because you're a terrible person, they do it because they understand themselves less than you do. Dig a little. Subscribe to Psychology Today. Order a couple of books on amazon that are specific to your situation. You might think some of it is a waste of time, but I promise you it's not. If you learned just one thing about yourself or others in that book, it was worth the read. I've got a ton of good articles and books if anyone would like to do some research. :)
2) Empathy - I recently read an article by Dr. Psych Mom about getting over a spouse that cheated. Cheating is never something I would be okay with, but there's room in this world for all sorts of people, and sometimes reading about people you have nothing in common with can help you understand things a little better. Some people have 5 kids and divorce is not an option, emotionally or financially. How do you get past it? She says empathy. Understand why they cheated. This in NO way says it's ok, but understanding where other people are coming from can help you let go of your anger, and possibly move forward to fix the problem. I was always good at having empathy for people that were struggling or weak, but I never had empathy for people that had power over me and made me feel like crap about myself.
Wouldn't it make you feel better to know that the reason your coworker is mean to you sometimes is because of some unresolved issue from childhood? As opposed to her being an evil person......or you being deserving of the treatment? It makes people seem more.......human........and less evil. I went through a pretty significant phase of anger towards the world when all I saw was people trying to hurt me. It hurt me more not knowing why it kept happening. The empathy is for me. It's for me to let go of anger.
3) Exercise and Goal Setting - So maybe I'm a little biased here, but let's just pretend for a second that I'm not an athlete. That I've never touched a weight in my life and I just started going to CrossFit classes, or Zumba classes, it doesn't really matter. There are two main reasons that exercise is good for someone suffering from a mental illness:
a) Exercise changes your brain chemistry. Just getting up off the couch chemically puts you ahead of where you were had you not done anything. I'm talking simple chemicals. Forget the sense of accomplishment you get from finishing a tough workout. I'm talking endorphins. Endorphins change your perception of pain, they change the way you think. And just taking care of your body releases stress in so many ways. I personally like weightlifting because it's easy to take out any negative emotions on a heavy barbell.
b) Goal setting. The reason I enjoy (insert sport here) is because progress is measurable, and you can literally accomplish something every day. Depression has a way of making you feel like you're worthless and can't accomplish anything. Exercising with the intent of improving can give you a daily opportunity to set a PR with something. It can be anything. Today? Your PR might be a back squat PR. Tomorrow? Your PR might be showing up even though you feel physically trashed from that back squat PR, and you're putting in work most people would choose to not to do. You're doing something great. I'm sure there are other things you can work to accomplish, but I find this to be the most straight forward. Hard work equals results.
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| One of my favorite quotes ever. |
4) Personal Responsibility - This one is the toughest. Personal responsibility does not mean you think you're a piece of shit. It does not mean getting angry with yourself for not having things figured out yet. Personal responsibility means admitting you were dealt this illness. It means saying out loud "I have depression." It means admitting you have a problem brushing off your critics. It means admitting you have an eating disorder. It means after all these years, you admit you still have trouble dealing with that one difficult parent. You're not admitting that you're terrible. You're admitting that you're flawed, and maybe you've been flawed since birth. It's like being born blind. You can get angry that you were born with this disability, or you can make an action plan to work around it.
This is the beginning of a long and drawn out fight. But I can guarantee you, once you know your enemy, the fight becomes much more straight forward. You're no longer scrambling in the dark out of control. Now you're just walking around in a dimmed light slightly out of control, and that light will get lighter with time. The fight lets you know you're alive. If you never had to fight for anything in your life, none of this would be worth it.
Finding happiness after over a decade of being in the dark? Not many people know what that feels like. But I do. And I'm telling you it's worth it. It's so fucking worth it.
Always Keep Fighting <3
