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  • "being aware of, and able to accurately diagnose the type of mental illness you're dealing with is not the same thing as actually working to fix it"

    And

    "That's bullshit. Honestly. That's bullshit. Just because you can articulately attempt to justify it doesn't mean it's justified"

    Also

    "Sometimes things just suck and you have to deal with that for a long time"

  • This has been what I do with mine. Most of it is pretty fucking "well duh" type stuff, however working with people to hold you, and you hold yourself, accountable for making progress in these ways. The part of having someone to hold you to account, this is often where a therapist is the most useful. However, in this situation, this isn't an option, so you need to reach out to others.

    Take your meds. If you need meds, but can not currently access them due to finance issues, there are sources out there that may be able to help. This is not often easy to navigate, but it may be something that saves you.

    Try any method you can find, that is from a reputable source, to keep your sleep on a schedule, and get at least 6 hours per night. This is way more important than many wish, but generally everyone knows it is vital to health, including mental health.

    Make yourself accountable to someone for daily improvement progress - eg find a friend, family member, online gaming buddy, whatever, that you report to, on a routine basis, to report the regularity of maintaining these routines. This means whatever you need to do to keep your living space clean, and in order, routine exercise, adherence to a healthy diet, maintaining the framework to keep yourself on track, like keeping your phone calendar up date, keeping lists of chores/errands you need to do, working on maintaining a hierarchy of needs (most immediate things to do, and most important), etc. This is the big one though, this person is allowed to criticize you in your failings on this, and you need to take that criticism, and use it as a call to focus on these areas. You may need more than one person willing to help. If you are isolated, there are online groups for these things. No this isn't a great alternative, but it is better than nothing, and living in despair.

    You need to audit your behavior. You need to make a record of the things you do that are mentally taxing, and thus can harm your mental health. Do you spend all day, every day, at work, or stressing about work? You need to find a place you can vent this stress, and look for advice on how to disengage with work enough stop burn out, but still do what is expected. If what is expected is just too much, you need to recognize it, and work on finding a lower stress income. Do you doom scroll? Well look into apps that help you regulate the time you spend online. Also, audit your experience with the platforms you engage with. If you find one is mostly something that adds to your stress, depression, despair, etc. work on just cutting that out completely. Look at your personal relationships, and really try to assess whether or not your relationships are healthy, if not, how can they become healthy? If there is not foreseeable way to make it healthy, go low-contact, pilot no contact. If your daily life has any improvement because you no longer maintain contact, then it is time to drop them.

    Social activity. This will depend greatly on how much socializing, and what kinds, you can handle, etc. This one is much more tricky, especially since anxiety, anhedonia, and other negative aspects of your mental health really affect how hard this is. However, you need to work on getting some sort of in person social contact. It needs to be regular, and I don't mean like all the time, but that there is a routine set-up for it. Local hobby groups, activities at the local library, publicly held events you may attend, try to work out a specific time period where you, and at least one friend/family member, can spend that time together doing an agreed upon activity.

    Do things that allow you to put your thoughts into more of an order than they may currently be. This could be a journal, personal blog, etc. Just something where you can dump your brain, look at what came out, and apply some structure to it.

    Spend time outside. Be it with people, or alone, just force yourself to spend time outside, especially in places you can see nature, see green, etc. If you just sit there observing it, it will help to maintain wellness. This is subtle, and takes a while, however it does have a real impact.

    There is more, and I can ask my therapist, when I see her this week, for resources for all this, and I can update with what she says, if she is willing, which I do not see why she wouldn't be.

  • You clearly find it easy to stop doing things that are bad for you (drinking, drugs, eating meat), but you struggle to start doing things that are good for you (exercise, cooking, eating enough/well).

    She was right. I still don't do the bad stuff and started doing the good stuff and now my life is so much better. Ironically it was quitting the last bad thing (weed) which allowed me to start taking care of myself. It's not enough to not hurt yourself, you have to be good to yourself too.

  • Right, kick ass. Well, don't want to sound like a dick or nothin', but, ah... it says on your chart that you're fucked up.

  • "When you're fighting with someone, think of it as tug-of-war. You choose how long you hold that rope, but you can put it down, or not even pick it up. Either way, neither of you are really going anywhere until one of you chooses to walk away."

    There's a member of my family I strongly dislike, so I had to work on not taking the bait.

  • I got a lot of professional advice and guidance in the moment to kick the door to mindfulness wide open. I wish I could share any one thing specific to help anyone replicate the experience. I honestly think this kind of Gnostic awakening has to be tailored to the individual. Also, I was told I was a quick study at this - so sadly, it may take a long time to get there (months to years even).

    One exercise we did that helped a lot was to have a discussion with your younger self, and explore what you would say knowing what you know now. Like with a lot of this stuff, the key is to verbalize - it's fundamentally different than talking to yourself with your inner monologue. So you're gonna need a close friend that you can share a LOT of deeply traumatic experiences. Pulling punches and censoring your own speech is just going to get in the way. Fundamentally, this is what we pay counselors for: privacy, not judging, and helping to take out the trash. Group therapy may help here too - I have yet to try this, so YMMV.

    On a more specific note, I used to be obsessed with root-cause-analysis for my own psychological problems. I almost got into an argument with my counselor over it, until he was able to help me see the light. You can absolutely figure out why and even how you got this way, but that information will absolutely not help you if you're already in a safe space. It can help you break free of someone or a bad situation, but stuff that happened 30 years ago? Not so much. When you get down to it, there's no "undo" button for trauma, no matter how much you know. Instead, one must look to the present, exercise mindfulness in the moment of anxiety and triggers, and practice walking your headspace back to a more rational place.

    Edit: this was all during the pandemic, BTW. I can't say that compares to what we have going on today, but I can confidently say that it's possible to focus on self-help despite all that. It's really possible to separate "things that are going on in the world" and "things that are just me" in your own head, and work on the latter.

250 comments