Coping, not cured.

I have anxiety and PTSD. I have these things due to instances, events and traumas that have occurred during my life. They have caused parts of my brain to break and they might not ever knit back together properly. That’s okay though.

I may never be ‘cured’ but I’m learning to cope.

My light bulb moment came to me very recently, regarding how my life is just how it should be for now. I have known this before but it’s very difficult to accept it sometimes. You get angry and frustrated at things very easily because of the mental illness and that makes it hard to just let go.

I’ve been telling myself over the last few weeks or so to just let it go and my brain has been  fighting back, arguing with me;

“You can’t just let it go. This situation is not right, you don’t deserve this”

Blah, blah, blah.

And more often than not I would respond;

“You know what, you’re right, I don’t deserve this. I’m going to get angry, that will solve it”

When of course being angry didn’t solve anything, it just made it worse. What has happened though is that each time I have tried my best to react differently and stay calm my focus has started to shift ever so slightly and my thought process changed.

I know that there will be a time when it switches back and I’ll become blinkered again, however the next time the good shift towards coping may happen slightly quicker and stay around a little longer.

I don’t believe there are any actual cures out there for mental health issues, not yet anyway. I made the mistake of thinking ‘Once this happens you’ll be better, once you’ve finished this you’ll start to feel great’ and of course I didn’t feel better so I was feeling rubbish and useless because I couldn’t cure myself.

There isn’t a time or a status that you need to reach in order to feel better. You may well be in a job you hate, a relationship that isn’t working or you just feel s**t and the change in job will be a positive factor and leaving the poisonous relationship is definitely going to have an impact and doing things to make you happy will switch your mindset, it won’t all suddenly be coming up roses though.

The changes in your chemistry in your brain will take time to heal and that anxiety, depression or other mental health issue will strike back at you, probably when you least expect it but this time you’ll be ready.

Be happy and keep smiling 😀