Don’t Give Up

The mental health journey is most definitely not linear. I’m actually just now coming out of a depression that lasted about a month. It was probably one of the worst ones I’ve had in a very long time, and unfortunately it was exacerbated by someone I held close to my heart.

As I said on Twitter this morning, it’s very hard to come to terms with the fact that someone that means so much to you is detrimental to your mental health. You see, for the past month, I wasn’t putting myself first anymore. I wasn’t really focused on all of the important things I’ve been working on for over a year. I stopped going to kickboxing; everyone who knows me in real life knows how much I love kickboxing and how much I look forward to it. I always put it before anything in my day.

I also stopped focusing on my diet; I wasn’t eating as often as I normally do. I cut down on how many times I left the house; I only left for appointments. Life was happening around me but I was hiding as much as possible, and in doing so, I allowed myself to get tangled up in an emotional spider web. It was an addiction I couldn’t pull myself away from.

I’m not sure what “broke the camel’s back”, but I finally did what was needed to really open my eyes. In the thick of it, I had no idea how much of a negative impact it was having on my mental, physical, and emotional health. Now that I’ve snapped out of it and stepped away from this unhealthy individual, I’m left picking up the pieces.  There is definitely some damage to repair, but I realized that I’m strong enough to keep going. I’m better than this.

What I’m learning through this setback and recovery is that these journeys are not linear, and that’s okay. No journey is perfect. Every journey has hiccups. But we have to keep going. We have to keep moving forward, recover, take back our power & continue to do whatever we were doing to improve our lives. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally.

We can’t give up. ❤