8. Be patient with yourself

We live in a world where everything is instant, a world where we are taught not to be patient. And this could seem fun, you know. We want instant ways of losing weight, instant food, instant messaging such as WhatsApp and Facebook, and many other instant ways of getting stuff done. This might not seem like harmful behaviour but it does affect us on a deep level. We carry this behaviour even in our mental health, we expect to be fine exactly after a traumatic event or experience.

In order for one to be mentally healthy, one needs to understand that healing is a process and not an event. It takes one step at a time to get to the top. As much as it might not feel like it, every effort may lead to success.

I remember when I decided to heal, I wanted everything to happen so fast, I wanted to get emotionally better, get back on my feet, be as confident as I used to be. I wanted to be academically successful and gain back things I felt that I lost. My desire was correct, but I took it in the wrong way because every time I felt at my lowest, every time my nightmares came back, every time I wouldn’t get the result I wanted or at least thought I deserved, I would beat myself up. I would be self-critical and get angry at myself for not doing or putting in enough effort. I didn’t realise that all these negative thoughts only made things much worse and led to many emotional breakdowns, which felt like I was going back to square one.

See, as a person who is mentally ill, you need to understand that there will be days when you are at your absolute best and days when waking up feels like a huge task. Days where you don’t care about your goals or achievements, where the only thing you care about is leaving the world.

You need to understand that these days will come and having these days does not mean that you’re not getting better. These emotions are normal and one thing I realise is that, you need yourself more than anything at these moments. You need to love yourself and be compassionate toward yourself. Only with this self-love, you will be able to overcome this stage.

9. Maintain healthy eating habits

Although there are a few types of eating disorders out there, I will focus on anorexia which I am quite familiar with.

Anorexia is restricting the amount of food that one eats in order to maintain a certain body image in one’s own head. It is incredibly unhealthy and is at times life threatening. Although anorexia has physical manifestations, it stems from emotional and behavioural issues.

Many people find the only way of coping with feelings of anxiety, sadness, or depression is to restrict their food. This may give them a false sense of “control” and specialness as Jennifer Rollin, an eating disorder therapist, said. She further said that the one thing that almost all her clients have in common is the difficulty in expressing, processing, and coping with their emotions. Eating disorder behaviours often provide short-term relief or satisfaction and long-term feelings of depression, loneliness, and misery.

There were times in my life where eating felt like a burden, this went on until I could spend a week without eating any solid food, because it felt like my emotions were feeding my hunger instead of food. And it kind of felt good, I was okay with it, without knowing that I was making things worse for myself. Without a proper meal, my body lacked energy which meant I was unable to get some of my tasks done such as school work which. This increased my stress level and led to a further deterioration in mental health. Proper diet contributes to mental health, when you keep your diet in check and healthy. You are able to cope with every little task of the day and meet the deadline, in which it will boost your confidence and give you courage to face the next day — with this routine, your mental health will improve.

Tell us: Do you try to eat healthily?