2. Let go of bad mental habits

As Amy Morin, a clinical social worker, said: “My journey taught me that the secret to being mentally strong, was that you had to give up your bad mental habits”. You might even ask, how do we give up on bad mental habits? Well this works just like physical fitness, if you want to lose weight and stay fit, you have to constantly attend the gym and reduce the amount of food that contains a lot of fat.

Most mentally ill people have a tendency to be negative toward themselves. They tend to be angry at how things are going in their lives, but do nothing to seek help.

After all that happened in my life, not once did I hate myself, but one thing I failed to control was irrational thoughts — I was mostly irrational towards myself. I knew it wasn’t healthy and needed to be stopped but it was never an easy task. No advice or motivations could calm these irrational thoughts. I had to find a better way to deal with this on my own. And that was when I came up with a strategy of using a magical phrase that overpowered my irrational thoughts. Every time I became irrational towards myself, I would stand still, take a deep breath and recite the magical words, “I am an overcomer, beautiful, powerful and strong.” I recited these words until I felt better and that was how I would cope with irrational thoughts.

You need to find something that will overpower your mental bad habits and use it patiently without giving up. Firstly, you also need to figure out what your bad habits are. Is it self-hate? Suicidal thought? Or a negative mind set? You need to find a strategy that will work only for you and get you fit again.

3. Allow yourself to feel

Most people who are mentally ill usually have a tendency of avoiding their feelings by being numb or numbing their emotions such as pain, anger, sadness and anxiety. As Jennifer Rollin, an eating disorder therapist, said: “Processing and experiencing your feelings is part of having a full life… Part of having a full life is feeling all your emotions.”

While being emotionally numb could be a relief for most people, it usually has short-term relief and long-term effects on an individual. Jennifer explained that, trying to suppress our emotions is kind of like trying to hold a beach ball under water. It takes a lot of effort and eventually the beach ball will fly up above the water with force.

I remember when I got tired of all the chaos in my head. I knew I needed to get help as soon as possible. So I decided to speak to this wonderful woman, in fact I’m glad I met her. I remember opening up to her for the very first time, which I didn’t do in detail, and what touched me the most is the tears I saw in her eyes. And for the very first time, I felt so connected and I remember asking myself, “Why can’t I feel any pain or cry about my past, while her eyes were full of tears?” This is because I was numbed not only to emotions such as pain and sadness but also joy and peace. Because struggling with your emotions often leads to more suffering.

The first time I finally decided to let my emotions out when I started my journey to mental stability. Dealing with those emotions was terrible for me, the anger, pain, the sadness, but I’m glad Mrs Casandra van Huyssteen, who was and still is supportive, listened to me with love and compassion. She was always available to hear me out and with her help I got the courage to sign up for walking in victory, a Christ-centred recovery programme. At this programme I met a very wonderful facilitator by the name of Lara Jayne, who supported me emotionally and spiritually and made herself available to me.

See, we need to understand that a journey to stable mental health is not an event but a process that needs perseverance and patience, because allowing yourself to feel is the biggest step to recovery.

Tell us: Do you agree that we need to feel things in order to really heal?