Drowning in a sea of your own destructive thoughts—you gasp for air. You can see people ashore, but they can’t see you. As you scream for help, you instinctively realize you’re fighting a losing battle and will soon be washed away. Do you take your last breaths to swim against the current and fight for your life? Or do give up as you desolately sink into your own destiny? You finally realize, only you can save yourself.
The battle of mental illness vs. the mind has been a losing game for many people and our society has only worsened from it. With stigma, violence, and the spread of anger and hate, it has been nearly impossible for mental health to be adequately funded, advocated for, and tackled in our nation. One of the biggest obstacles is the stigma of addressing mental health and the fear of speaking out about it. Defeating that is the first step. We must address it and find ways to alleviate it in any way possible.
People are suffering and it seems there is no cure. But it hasn’t defeated everyone and many have come out of the deep, dark, shell of a life they were living and are now stronger than ever.
Here are a few things to tell yourself when you feel defeated by mental illness:
1. You can't lose a battle you were never meant to fight.
In the words of Rocky Balboa, “Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up.”
Mental illness does not discriminate and it’s not meant to make some people weaker than others. But that’s how we feel—defeated. Like the weakness has taken over and you’ve had no choice but to forfeit. But why give up when you were never supposed to battle this in the first place? It’s not your fault, so why are you punishing yourself? Don’t let an unfair match-up be your demise.
2. The mind is a beautiful thing to waste.
When you feel trapped in your own mind, it’s like you’re robbed of your own freedom. You escape to get out—but you tend to forget your other side. The creative, unique, weird, fun, happy side you have a hard time keeping. It slips away as you drown in your own negative thoughts.
As a multidimensional tool, the mind is such a beautiful thing to waste. Varying emotions are what makes us stronger and gives a boost to that happy side we struggle to find. Focus on exercising the mind because brain health is so important. You must dig deep to find the happiness you’re truly searching for.
3. Even though the bad outweighs the good, remember the good.
This feels like one of the hardest challenges of dealing with mental illness. It’s difficult to hold on to the good when there is so much bad getting in the way. The mind works in mysterious ways and this is one of them. According to a study in The New York Times, the bad outweighing the good is a common tendency for everyone. “Negative emotions generally involve more thinking, and the information is processed more thoroughly than positive one.”
We literally can’t help but to be more passionate about negative events than the positive ones. All you can do is make a conscience effort to remember the good. Reminisce, soak it in, think back from time-to-time on all the good in your life. The negative will always resurface on its own.
4. You will make mistakes, so grow from them.
Even if you feel like your whole life is a mistake—you must grow from that feeling. You must also grow out of it. And this obviously comes with time. Just like all growing pains, it takes time to realize our mistakes and learn how to change them. Beating ourselves up over our mistakes over and over again only leads to self-destruction.
5.) There is not always an answer for everything in life.
People are always searching for answers that are usually not there. Mental illness is not black and white. There will always be gray areas. With that comes confusion, frustration and defeat. Just because you don’t know why you feel like this doesn’t mean you should give up searching. Just know there will never be an answer for everything.
6. Only struggle can make you stronger.
An easy life is for the weak. Despite all the cliché sayings, this overall idea is so true—without failure, there is no success.
7. Change is okay.
As humans, we inevitably fear change. We fear the unknown and what it would be like if we actually could think differently. It’s okay to change your opinions, way of living and your overall self. Think of change as something positive, not another obstacle.
8. Turn against the negative voice in your head, not yourself.
It has been said that our brains produce more than 50,000 thoughts per day. That’s a lot of battling within ourselves when we suffer from unwanted, conflicting emotions. Speaking with others and allowing your problems to surface is important to remember. Bottling up thousands of thoughts is bound to break you at some point.
9. You can talk about it.
Stigma seems to be one of the biggest challenges for addressing the mental health crises. It’s important to fight against this because people will never speak up if they are scared to be heard.
10. Be resilient.
Always remember that bouncing back can feel like the greatest accomplishment. You owe it to yourself to be the best person you can be in life. Don't be defeated.
*Info and resources for living with mental illness can be found here.
