Sometimes it is hard to convince yourself that things will be okay when at the moment everything feels like you'll never be able to get back up after falling down.
You can feel like you've hit rock bottom for so many reasons. Grief. Depression. Bullying. Denial. The list goes on and the feeling can happen more than once in a lifetime and truthfully, as often as it wants to.
Feeling like you have nothing left is not easy to control. In fact, it is almost impossible to grab onto the wheel after it's been spinning your life out of control for months.
A lot of us have been here. And some of us have been here multiple times and are working on improvement. To the people who haven't been here in life, I admire you, even though I am a little bit shocked. It is hard to avoid the bad things in life that make us feel worthless or helpless.
Once you've already hit that rock bottom in your life, it takes work to get back up. Getting back up takes many things:
It takes time. Nothing comes quickly. I wish it did, but unfortunately, you have to be patient and wait. Wait for the heartache to subside. Or, if you're having trouble feeling anything at all, wait for some feelings to stir inside of you. It is tedious and frustrating but worth it in the end.
It takes dedication. You have to dedicate yourself to the idea of getting better. Whether that is committing to talking to someone every week, be it a friend or a therapist, or taking the time to come to terms with how you're feeling yourself.
It takes a lot of personal encouragement. When I realized that I was at the point where I needed to work through a lot of personal stuff, it took forever to actually work up the courage to do something about it. That came with a lot of mental breakdowns, many nights of feeling stupid and annoying before people I vented to convinced me I wasn't. And then came the feeling guilty for taking up other people's time over something so "stupid" and "ridiculous." But eventually, I had to walk myself into the health center on campus and get some help for myself.
And sometimes, it might take outside help. Getting myself to walk into the health center was a process because it took a lot of help from friends and family. That involved a lot of owning up to my feelings to other people in my life, which was incredibly difficult. It isn't easy to vocalize all the thoughts you have that deal with your weaknesses or things that you don't like about yourself. Even if you're talking to people you're very close to, it takes courage.
It is a lot of work to pick yourself up off the ground when you're too emotionally and/or mentally tired to move. It takes a while to get to the point where trying seems possible, but eventually, the time comes. And as every day passes, it gets easier.
It is never easy and just because you succeed after the first time around doesn't mean you'll never have to re-do the process. Sometimes, you might find yourself on the ground again, and that is okay. Getting help and making yourself better isn't a quick process or an easy one, but it's necessary and worth it.
And you're worth it too.
