Health & Fitness

We’ll be okay...

I‘m 18, lack life experience and can only speak about what I’m feeling at this moment and for the past few years. I don’t have a diagnosis for depression and don’t want anyone to feel offended by this post. I've had a rough year and this is how I tried coping with it, nothing more, nothing less.

This is simply for people who feel like they can’t handle life right now. #7 is the most important point for those who feel like this is too long to read (TL;DR below at #7).

Where I’m at

I got out of two relationships this year, one of which brought me a lot of joy but was also highly toxic. The other one was one-sided, he did a lot of the work in the end although it was the other way around before that.

I wrote some myTakes on this topic already, I cut myself for three years and stopped in 2019 but it’s been really hard to stay clean. I still get spikes of energy, extreme lows and have problems with my family every week, if not every day.

I live in a high income country, and although I’ve been receiving help for many years now, I’m not okay. I haven’t been for more than five years now and I’m starting to see and accept that I probably won’t be getting better until I become more independent. This is something I’ll address later.
I feel bad for feeling bad. I feel lonely. I don’t have a close friend right now.

When me and the toxic guy decided it was time to end things, it broke something inside me, and that hit me hard because I thought I was at my lowest and getting better again, but apparently in the function of life I’m still at a point in time at which this function is concave down.

Where I want to be

It‘s okay. I’m okay. I want to be an independent, strong woman some day, I sometimes consider myself one when comparing myself to others but still experience imposter syndrome when I simply want to buy groceries. „Do they think I’m old enough to be here on my own? Why are they staring at me like that? I don’t fit in...“ are thoughts I have every day on different occasions.

I would love to rid myself of these feelings, these thoughts, and become more self-confident in the process.

I absolutely adore this song, it expresses how I act in many ways, I always act like I’m this strong person when in reality, I’m not. At the same time, it’s what I’m striving for.

How I'll get there/what has already helped me

#1 Eat healthy, nutritious meals

I know, this sounds a little odd as advice, but you are what you eat, and I feel much better when I eat food that is good for my body and soul.

#2 Exercise

This goes in the same direction as #1, but when you move your body, you'll most likely feel healthier. A mistake I made here is that I used to think exercising indoors is equally nice and rewarding as outdoors, but going for a walk is much better for me than soulcycling for half an hour, obviously this depends on your access to sports facilities but I love taking walks in the forest, for example.

#3 Hobbies

I used to love crocheting, and recently picked it up again to listen to a Podcast while working on a scarf etc. I think having a project can be great, something you work for, also with exercising for example.

#4 Know what brings YOU joy

Something I absolutely adore and love doing is skiing. I get an adrenaline rush every time, I'm good at it, I'm fast, and I personally never had an accident or an injury from skiing. But something you enjoy doing may be cooking, helping others or simply taking a bath, the point here is that you should try to find ONE thing you really like.

I know from experience that this is difficult and that at times, it may seem like you don't enjoy doing anything at all. What about sleeping? Eating? Yeah, those are necessary for life, but there's nothing wrong with enjoying them!

#5 Instead of trying to break bad habits, form new ones around the things which bring you joy

This sounds more complicated than it is. For example, I don't really like sleeping too much but wanted to enjoy it more, so I focused on things I liked and enjoyed doing and then combined them: instead of paying attention to people saying that when you exercise after 8pm, I now try to cycle or stretch every day (during school, I hardly ever go outside, and I've accepted that I just don't find the energy to do that).

After this, I eat a late night snack and go to bed. This has improved how I view going to sleep. I had really bad nightmares for more than a year, which is why I developed this strategy

#6 Identify WHY you have bad habits

Bad habits include anything that bothers you, is bad for yourself to a large extent, hurts others or makes you lose years of your life. For example, I love instant noodles. I love their taste, their texture, they're easy to make and so on. But the sacrifices I have to make to eat them, mainly eating less throughout the day so that I don't gain weight from my late night indulgence of instant noodles, and my acne, aren't worth it.

Therefore, I stopped eating instant noodles after consuming one or two portions each day for three weeks. I wasn't addicted to them (yet), I just really enjoyed eating them, but it made me break out terribly and gain weight. Now, I refuse to eat them, although they would bring me some temporary joy. Make sure you know the difference between permanent and temporary joy.

#7 Look after yourself

This is the main point you should take away from this Take, when you love yourself, you take care of yourself, and this means something else from person to person but is extremely important when you want to get better.

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I hope that this was somewhat helpful. If you're struggling, feel free to message me, maybe I can help.

We’ll be okay...
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