My Beautiful Battle (Entry 2) It's Okay Not to Be Okay. My Journey - Asking For Help 🙋

Disclaimer: This is just my personal experience and I am not an expert. Mental illness is a very sensitive topic, if any of you feel like you may be triggered or negatively impacted by talk about this topic, please don't read this post. It is also a very personal topic and it manifests differently in every individual. So if commenting please remember, 

only kindness. 

It's okay not to be okay.
It really is.
I'm sure many of you have heard this saying it's okay not to be okay. Maybe you have heard it a million times like me, or at least if you are mentally ill I am sure you have heard "It's okay" or "it will be okay" more times than you can bare to hear. But I'm here to tell you that it really is okay.

I'm as much here to tell you as I am writing this to remind myself that there is nothing wrong with having a mental illness. There should be no shame, why be ashamed? Are you ashamed of how brave you are? Fighting this disease everyday. To get out of bed, to feed yourself, to leave the house. It's all just a little bit harder, sometimes a lot harder, some days impossible. You should be proud of yourself because everyday you survive it, is another battle won. Every time you show up to work or to school, you had to fight that little bit harder to get there. So don't be ashamed, be proud. You're a bad ass warrior.

"You wake up every morning to fight the same demons that left you so tired the night before; and that, my love is bravery" - unknown.

When is it not okay?

Somedays it's fine if all you do is lie in bed and snuggle.

 Before I go any further. I'd like to clarify; Being mentally ill is 100% okay, having bad days is (sucky but) okay, having to overcome more obstacles to reach your dreams because you have an illness is okay.

But I think it's also important to acknowledge when it isn't okay. Everyone will have a different idea of when this is, how much stress they can handle and how badly they are affected. 

So for me, I'm really bad at knowing when I need help. Let alone asking for it. But I got to a place where I started having LOTS of bad days.
I stopped doing things that I love and couldn't work towards my dreams cause I was too sad and stressed. Then Finally; I was so overwhelmed by being unstable all the time I really didn't know how to get better. So it began obvious, I wasn't going to make it on my own. At least not to where I want to go in life, so I went to the doctor. 

It ended up  taking me a few of months to get the process underway. I procrastinated, cancelled doctors appointments, avoided phone calls and worked myself up into a panic over one silly appointment. But now I can finally (proudly) say. I asked for help. I am on the way to making my life and brain a better place to live. My doctor recommend me to see a psychologist. I honestly haven't had much luck in the past with other people I have seen. But I am going in open minded and hopefully get some ways to cope with life and all of it's challenges. Because as I'm sure all of you know, mentally ill or not, that shit is hard. 

So yeah, that's where I am at right now. I want to share with you all my experience with this, if I am feeling better, if I think it's helping etc. I want to be able to talk about mental health with openness and honesty so that it's more transparent. As an illness that is all inside my head, it's gets pretty dark. So hopefully this series will bring it to light. To help fight the stigmas, to inspire other survivors and document my journey, so one day I can look back and see how far I have come.  

So thank you to all you amazing people for joining me for another post in this series. I hope that by sharing my experiences with mental health I can spread awareness and help some people to get out of the darkness that we all feel. Hopefully this will inspire you to ask for help when you need it and accept it graciously like I am trying. 

I hope you enjoyed reading!
See all you beautiful souls next time!