When you have a mental illness, any given day can feel nearly impossible. Sometimes a bad day can come out of nowhere and leave you feeling broken. That happened to me the other day. I have been feeling relatively fine for the past month or so, and I could tell that I was finally starting to get better. Suddenly, I woke up one Sunday morning with no energy to get out of bed. I got up and went to church like always, but it didn't make me feel good about life like it usually does. Instead of studying on campus with my friends after, I went back home and laid in bed for the rest of the day. My brain was telling me every terrible that I've been working so hard to overcome during these past few months.
"They don't love me, they just pity me."
"All of my friends are much better people than I am, it's no wonder no one really wants to be my friend."
"I'm so pathetic that I can't even get better, I don't deserve to take up space on this planet."
On Sunday, I wasn't strong enough to fight against these thoughts I was having. I let them destroy my day.
I don't want to face another day like that, but I've come to terms with the fact that it's part of recovery. I'm allowed to have bad days, but I'm not allowed to let them ruin me and destroy the progress that I've made.
I'm not writing this to get pity. I'm writing this so that people who face the same things understand that they are not alone. When I feel as bad as I did last Sunday, I feel like I have no one. Just reaching out to my closest friends and asking them to talk to me feels like the hardest and most daunting thing in the world. I feel like I'm annoying, a bother, and like no one wants to deal with me and my mental nonsense. I know that’s not true. I know that everything the evil parts of my mind tells me isn’t true, but it’s my lack of ability to believe in myself and my closest friends that makes the bad days extra hard. I know that if I can overcome my fear of leaning on my friends and asking for help, the bad days won’t be as terrible.
Bad days are okay. If you can recognize that you’re having a bad day, that means you’ve had good days, and good days mean that you’re getting better, even if you don’t feel like you are. Recovering from a mental illness is hard, but it’s not impossible. You will fight this. You will get better. I believe in you.
