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Simple tips for getting through the tough days
I try my best to be a relatively positive person, to not to let the negativity of life consume me, but even I struggle with getting through the tough days. General life in itself is hard – no one has a life free of negativity. But when you live with a chronic illness, or mental health condition (or both), it can feel like the bad outweighs the good, and getting through each day can feel impossible. I’ve had my fair share of tough days, and have spent a lot of my life figuring out how best to get through them. I’ve not got it perfect by any means, but I…
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Taking care of your mental health when you can’t go outside.
We’re going through a rather unusual time right now, one we never knew we’d face. Social isolation is not something we had ever imagined having to deal with, but it has come on so quickly that we hardly had time to prepare. I know I’m not the only one feeling quite anxious and uneasy about what is happening in our country (and the world) right now. There are so many unknowns coming that my mind barely knows how to make sense of it all. People are having to work from home, businesses are closing, we’re being told not to travel or gather in large groups. It feels like the world…
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I’m not grumpy. I’m mentally ill.
I’ve been thinking back through my past a lot recently. About past relationships and friendships. About my life in general. Something that stood out to me is the memory of being miserable. That sounds quite sad, but so many moments come to mind where I was forced into a situation I didn’t want to be in, and I was just really unhappy. This may be my social anxiety talking, but what struck me most was the way other people must have thought of me in those moments. They didn’t know what was going on in my head, all they saw was this grumpy, upset, moody person. The person who clearly…
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Things not to say to someone suffering with a mental health condition.
I know this topic has been covered time and time again, but I still think it’s an important one to cover, and to keep talking about. There are so many comments, or misunderstandings, that can have a severely negative impact on people who struggle with their mental health – and it keeps happening. It can be exhausting trying to explain to people why these phrases are so unhelpful, but it’s so important. A lot of the time people do think they are really helping, or they think they know better. But there are so many better ways to support people who are struggling, and it’s not hard to do them.…
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Things depression makes difficult.
There are so many misconceptions about what living with depression is really like, and what struggles people like me face each day. Depression is actually a really difficult condition to understand when you haven’t experienced it yourself (not that I would ever want you to). We find things difficult that most people wouldn’t even think twice about. It can be very frustrating as we are often seen as lazy or like we aren’t tying hard enough simply because we find even the smallest of things very overwhelming. In an effort to help more people understand what we’re really dealing with, and raise more awareness of the true struggles of depression…
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Loneliness is a b****
Today I really wanted to talk about something that I don’t think people talk about enough when it comes to mental health (or chronic illness): loneliness. This is a huge symptom of mental health problems, and something that’s really affected me a lot lately. And it’s not just that we don’t always talk about it, but people who haven’t experienced it often don’t understand how truly lonely it can be. Not time to read now? Pin it for later: Loneliness in the mental health community is a big problem. Let me paint you a picture, a picture of my life: I live with my boyfriend, who is very lovely and…
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Mental Health Triggers: The Workplace
“Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen” – Conan O’brien. After writing a couple of pretty raw and emotional pieces about my experiences with mental health (that I have yet to publish), I’ve decided to create a new series – the RaR series. This stands for raw and real, and the aim is to bring you raw and real mental health stories that tackle important things that I feel we really need to discuss. For the first one I thought I’d ease myself in, and start with one thing that for many is simple and easy, but for me is a massive trigger: work. No time to read?…
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Anxiety Girl: The Book We All Need In Our Lives
Lacey London’s Anxiety Girl is the anxiety book we all need, to read, to experience and to share! I don’t often review books, because it takes me quite a long time to read them. By the time I’ve finished the book I don’t really remember what happened along the way, I am just left with whether I generally liked it or not. This book was different. As soon as I finished it I knew I had to write about it. This post contains affiliate links, which means if you click a link and purchase something I may get a portion of the sale at no extra cost to you. Read…
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Positive Affirmations: The tool you need to get through the day
I am a big believer in the power and importance of self-care, and am constantly adapting and learning new ways to take care of myself. One of the things I’ve discovered recently is positive affirmations – something that I actually do but didn’t realise it was a useful tool. Positve affirmations, or self-talk, consist of phrases that can help calm you down, or keep you going, when you are in the midst of low mood or anxiety. They are simple things you can tell yourself to remind you that you can get through this. Once I’d learned what they were, I reached out to my lovely twitter followers for their…
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Bad Days: Don’t Let Them Get You Down
Less than 24 hours ago I was raving over all my social media platforms about how great I’ve been feeling lately as a result of the CBT I’ve been doing, as well as other things. So it would only be fitting that I would be due a break down – one of those bad days. It is true that the last few weeks have felt like a turning point, and that’s great. But it’s also true that there’s no cure for depression, and good mental health takes daily work which can get quite overwhelming. No time to read now? Pin it for later! Bad Days are not a set back…
