I have no doubt what so ever that mental illness is real. I know it is real, I’ve witnessed it first hand, I’ve dealt with it on a personal level. However I do believe to some extent that we are mollycoddling ourselves and exacerbating the situation.
As much as awareness needs to be raised in regards to mental health and in keeping people safe we also need to stop viewing it as a personality trait. It is never something to be ashamed of but it’s not something to be proud of neither. As an anxiety sufferer with PTSD and with a history of depression, I know that these illnesses can take you to the deepest depths of hell, but you don’t have to stay there.
I am not my anxiety. It is just something that has manifested because of my brain. My glorious brain that just made some misinformed connections.
Well I’m getting in there with my soldering iron and fixing them.
I do not expect anyone with a mental health issue to suddenly jump up and say ‘Oh, of course! It’s just my brain. Sorry, I’ll get on with being better now, thanks.’
I know that’s not how it works. There are ways to take back control though!
If I sit and think about my anxiety and how it makes me feel and I read articles about it and plug my brain with negative thoughts about why I feel like this and then continue to stew over the past and dwell on the emotions I have built up in regards to those past experiences, then of course I’m going to feel worse.
I don’t wish to dwell on the past. Yes fair enough, that thing that happened 15 years ago may well be the reason for a trigger to this, that and the other but is it really helping me to relive that moment over and over again?
No, it isn’t.
I take from my experiences and traumas the knowledge that I survived. I’m stronger for making it through. I’m not damaged, I’m done papering over the cracks. I’m knocking the damn wall down and instead creating a wide open space in which I get to frolic and smile.
I am not anxiety, I am not PTSD, I am not depression, I am not a sufferer.
I am a survivor, I am a warrior and I am going to quit worrying about what could have happened, what I should have said or done. Instead I’m focusing on how insanely amazing my life is and will continue to be.
Think positive, be positive. ♥
Don’t ever let anyone make you think you’re not good enough.
Follow your dreams right now! Don’t wait until tomorrow,
next week, next year. Stop planning, start doing 🙂
‘Blind faith is no way to run a world’ – Victor Stenger
R = A x EIM x t
Made A Hames 