Living every day with mental illnesses isn't easy. When you battle with your own mind, it can be hard not to fall into the mindset that something is wrong with you and that it's your fault.

I have battled every single day for so long now, with the concept that I am "broken" and "damaged," and that it's my fault.

Logically, I know a chemical imbalance is not actually my fault, but that doesn't change the idea that I have set in my head.

The idea that I am "broken" and "damaged" has held me back from so many things. This idea held me back from achieving my own goals. I would consistently make excuses for myself for why I couldn't achieve them, and I would also tell myself that I wasn't good enough or that I wasn't worthy to better myself or achieve my goals.

This mindset has also held me back from making new relationships. Again, I would tell myself I wasn't worthy of having such wholesome things in my life that would make me happy because I believed I was so "broken" and "damaged." I also believed that people couldn't accept me because I was "damaged" and that nobody would be able to handle the "broken" me.

Once I finally recognized and confronted this toxic mindset, I was able to set myself free.

I replaced "damaged" and "broken" with "unsolved," like a puzzle. When you first take a puzzle out of the box you have all of these pieces all scattered around, and each piece by itself doesn't make any sense until you start piecing them together with their fitting pieces. But also, if you don't have each of those unique pieces, then the puzzle wouldn't even be able to come together.

I have followed @the.holistic.psychologist on Instagram for quite some time now, but I was never able to fully commit to her practice of future-self journaling until I confronted this "broken" mindset.

You can check out her page to get the full information on what future-self journaling is, but a basic explanation of it is that once a day, for thirty days, you write out the behavior or pattern you want to change, affirmations to help you achieve it, and how you will practice actively changing it every day.

The first pattern I decided to shift was my self-perception of how I viewed myself as "broken" and "damaged." I made the conscious commitment every day to not only journal but also to consciously and actively replacing those adjectives with more self-accepting words like "unsolved."

By taking these steps throughout every day, before even the end of the first thirty days I was able to significantly see how much more open and loving I was to myself.

Along with more loving and open with myself, I am now also more open to new relationships around me. I now know that I am not broken or damaged or unworthy. I know without a doubt that my mental illnesses do not make me less of a person. I know that my mental illnesses don't make me unworthy of healthy habits. I know that my mental illnesses don't make me unworthy of making and maintaining healthy relationships in my life.

Now that I have been able to confront and overcome the belief that my mental illnesses make me less, I am able to move forward and break free of my own toxic beliefs.