To Get Better You Have To Want Better

After severely struggling with my mental health for many years, I arrived at rock bottom. I was struggling with depression, anxiety, anorexia and daily suicidal thoughts. I thought things would never get better, life was just not worth living and there was no point because there was no future for me. I even had a plan laid out of how I would end my life.

But you know what I did, I just kept going. Eventually, I graduated university, recovered from my eating disorder, found a job, found my talents, worked on myself and my trauma, came to terms with my sexuality and realised that actually... people were right. It does get better. It really does, but something people don't mention is that while things do indeed get better, things get better when you decide to want better.

Sometimes, we become so used to our own suffering, we become so comfortable in it that we begin to love it. We begin to enjoy feeling sad. We almost romanticize it in our heads, convince ourselves there's no point in trying because there's nothing better anyway, and we continue suffering. We become addicted to that suffering. That might sound like an odd statement and some people might think, "nobody chooses mental illness, nobody wants to feel crap all the time" and you're right. We don't want it initially, but once it's there and we've been living in it for so long, it becomes all we know. It becomes almost like an identity or a part of your personality, if we get better, then who are we?

It's especially common among those with eating disorders who fear that recovery will not only make them gain weight but will make them lose their coping mechanisms and their metaphorical comfort blankets of obsessive behaviours.

It doesn't matter how many people try to help you, how many promises they make, what they give you, how they try to explain it, even if it's forced upon you. You won't recover unless you want to.

At the end of it all, you are the only person who can make you better. Sure, it helps to have a therapist, counsellor, a support system, good circumstances, etc... but even with all those things, a person can still end up on the edge of a bridge. For therapy to work you have to engage with it, take the advice of your therapist, do some work on yourself and figure out what's actually triggering you. For your support system to actually be effective you have to reach out to them, or respond truthfully when they ask you how you are. You can't hide yourself away. You can't sit in your room, alone in the dark, listening to sad music making yourself even sadder. We've all been there!

In this world, there's no one who can save you, but you. You have to help yourself. That thing or person that you think will make you happy and "fix" you, it's not going to do a damn thing.

What actually makes a difference to your mental health is how you think about yourself and the world, the meaning you place on things, the habits and behaviours you have and how you respond to circumstances. When you work on changing these things, that's when your mental health will improve. Even if you take the smallest, tiniest little step out of the cave, you're still moving towards the light. Baby steps are still steps. Slow progress is still progress. It's better than nothing.

It may not be easy, it won't be a linear process, there will definitely be bad days, there will still be moments where you want to go back. But you are stronger than your mind, you are more than your mental illness. You will get better.

You got this.