Discomfort.

I found myself at a point of waking up and realizing what my life actually looks like. I am not taking care of myself. I am letting myself down left and right. I am struggling with seasonal depression on top of regular depression and all the symptoms that come with it.

I had a moment of “how did I get here” today and that reality check was hard. I feel like I have been making progress while going backwards at the same time. Recently I started a new therapy program and that is going well, but I have been binging and not taking very good care of myself for the same amount of time.

Today I saw myself on my home camera. It saddened me to barely recognize myself. I look unhealthy. I can see the pain in my eyes and in the way that I move. There was another clip, of me crying. It was agony seeing myself in such pain and distress, remembering how it felt in the moment.

I don’t want that to be my life anymore. I want to feel moments of joy, laughter, and calm. I want to feel content, happy even, if possible. I have to take action and responsibility for my own life and what it looks like right now, though. I think I am in a place where I am capable of doing more but have been choosing not to.

It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be uncomfortable. But am I not already uncomfortable? I don’t feel good in my body, I don’t feel good about my lack of movement. My body hurts. I already am uncomfortable.

It comes down to which state of discomfort I would prefer – the temporary discomfort of going to the gym or doing the dishes versus the consistent discomfort of pain in my body or the discomfort of a dirty kitchen?

I have been choosing the latter, but I am going to start working hard to consistently make the changes, like going to the gym and keeping my kitchen clean in order to help myself feel better overall. Taking control over my life, prioritizing self-care and household tasks are important to my recovery and healing process, and I believe I am mentally in a state where I am capable of taking on more, and that it actually might be good for me.

Since I moved into my own apartment again seven months ago, my mom has been helping me with my household care and tasks. I had been living with my parents for almost two years before being out on my own again. While I was living with them I was in a state of poor mental health and deep depressions, while also dealing with eating disorders.

It was startling when I finally moved out, feeling healthy and strong enough to do so, only to discover that I wasn’t capable of taking care of myself alone yet. A month of physical illnesses thrown in and I was falling apart. Living alone was not going how I thought it would. My mom stepped in to help take care of my home while I focused on maintaining my mental health.

My parents, who I am so grateful for, have been doing so much for me ever since I moved out on my own. I feel guilty sometimes, but I have been struggling with my mental health more than I expected; I thought I was better, on a positive trajectory. I was wrong. But my mom coming over to help me weekly with cleaning and resetting my home has helped keep me sane during this time.

I feel it is time to try and do more on my own, though. If I am able to keep up on household tasks and taking care of myself then I will have something to be proud of myself for. A sense of pride could go along way toward helping my self-esteem and self-efficacy, helping me to get better overall.

Taking responsibility for where I am at right now in life, really taking stock and recognizing areas that could use improvement is a really hard step. I don’t like looking inwards and having to accept that I am the only person who can change what I find.

I’ve spent so much time looking externally for the answers or a savior. The place I should have been looking all along, but was too afraid to, was inside myself. I am realizing that there is no one size fits all roadmap for healing. I was searching for the way to heal myself, wasting time and money even.

I finally realized in therapy this week that that I am the only one that can heal me and I am the only one that can determine the path I take to get there. If I try to use someone else’s directions I will end up lost or back where I started. I know deep down what I need to do to help myself get better. All I had to do was ask myself.

What I have never, or rarely, done though, is listen. Actually listen, and take action on what comes up. When I ask myself what I could be doing right now to help myself and the reply I get is movement, and I ignore it and do something else instead, I am only hurting myself. I am only letting myself down.

I bet that if I start listening in those moments, and taking action on the first response that comes up, then my life will radically improve. What if I were able to sit with the discomfort of looking in on my own life and making note of what I want to improve? What if I were to ask myself what I needed to do in order to make those changes and wrote down the first thing that comes up, even if it sounded hard? And what if I started taking action on those things, what might my life look like then?