When you try so hard to be okay but you just can’t
Feel shitty. Attempt to be positive. Fail. Repeat vicious cycle.
THE VICIOUS CYCLE
This week has been a shitty week for me. I thought I could keep my streak of feeling good and okay. But deep inside I knew, it won’t last.
And no matter how many times I have gone through this painful phase in my life, it never gets easy.
My heart still aches, my body is still heavy, and my mind stops giving a fuck.
I have tried countless techniques to feel okay. Some of them actually work (if I can bring myself to do them) but not all the time.
Once I fall into the self-sabotage cycle, trying to be okay only makes it worse.
I know I want to feel good. I know I want to be mentally well. I know I want to be okay.
You take a deep breath. You shake yourself and hope to drive out the negative thoughts but the second you find yourself alone with your mind free to wander, your back to feeling bad about yourself again. And you feel worse because you failed. And if you still have the energy, you try to look for another way to make yourself feel okay only to fail again and feel much worse.
NEVER CHANGING
It’s during these times that I’m sure I’ve never changed and I will never change. I’m still that sad little boy who gets depressed for the smallest of things or for no reasons at all. I thought I could grow out of it but every now and then I get reminded that maybe this disability will always be a part of me.
I dug up a poem I wrote 2 years ago (2016) that I had written describing how I felt about myself and how I thought I will never change.
“I thought I knew everything
My heart was made to sing
And I saw the world for what it was
Nothing changed because everything changes
I held a rock at the start
A weapon, I thought I was being smart
But I held on too tight
And it grew inside me, refusing to come out
It sat beside my frail heart
Slowly swallowing all its parts
A heart of stone, solid and rough
But the change is never enough
Inside the rough and solid stone
Is still the frail heart all along
Nothing has changed, nothing ever will
The stone crust will breakaway still
My heart was not made for this world
It was not made to sing any words
My heart was made to suffer
It was made to ache and endure”
The cycle saps the energy and life from me. Everything I do is laden with worry. My mental and emotional state affect the people around me. I don’t want that. No one wants to be a burden to others.
STOP TRYING
I start to wonder how I got past those times when I felt depressed because I feel fine, happy even, during the in-betweens. There must be something that I did to break the cycle.
I look back and think of the common denominator of my healing process. Was it the breathing exercises, running, working out, meditation, spending time with nature, writing, reading, talking to someone, determining the cause, practicing gratitude and self-compassion, praying,…?
I can go on and on listing the things I did to try to feel okay but there is no single thing that did it. This is why I can’t say that there is one sure way to make myself feel okay.
But if there is one thing that I can take away from all those dreadful times, it is this:
No matter how hard life may seem to be, you will eventually find yourself in a place and time where you will feel better than yesterday. It’s not about what you need to do but it’s more about letting things go.
I’m not saying you don’t do anything. Go ahead and try all the techniques you know. Yes, you will feel bad if some of them won’t work. But some may work not because it’s the right solution but because enough time has passed for you to let go of the hard things you keep holding on.
I haven’t tried therapy and medication yet. They’re not really options for me as of the moment. But who knows, maybe I’ll run out of things to try and give them a chance.
CONCLUSION
I know my flaws. I’m aware of my emotional and mental tendencies. I admit it’s hard when I have to deal with them. But they don’t have to be what my life is about. There are moments of clarity and happiness in between. Those are the things that matter. Those are the things I know I should hold on to.
