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DAY 43


Today I have had a productive Sunday full of exercise and good food, along with some organization. I'm feeling quite reflective on the journey I've had with this illness, I'm almost half way through my allocated 100 days and it's helped me a lot, and according to you lot - it's helped you all too.

I’m going to talk about something very delicate and give you a tough love approach, whilst I understand that we all need nurtured and a degree of kindliness in regards to mental illness… we also need three words: Get Over It.

Before you shoot me down completely as an impervious being, this is a mental health blog I am aware – I just wish sometimes, people would tell me to ‘Get Over It’. Lets establish some things: You can’t just ‘Get Over’ mental illness, as much as you want to. What I’m referring to is after all the things you’ve been through and it is indeed all over – how do you move on? How do you accept happiness and not torture yourself over whether or not it will last? You have to get over it.

Terrible things happen to wonderful people in this world, mental trauma is lasting. I was petrified when at 15 I had a big health scare. I kept thinking – is it there? When will it get me? Then I got over it. It took a long time but there are key stages of ‘Getting Over it’. In this post I’m going to help you ‘Get Over’ the mental scars of your illness. I know how much Depression affects us, even when we are not depressed – we are anxious that it will come back.

I used to pine over old boyfriends, all the time. I had a team of friends full of sympathy and would give me a lot of love and acted very soft with me. I think to a degree it’s okay to get sympathy – but I genuinely found it helpful when I got a friend who was like ‘Okay I felt bad for you at first but cut the shit and get over it’. Maybe it’s because I have a first-rate sense of humour. I will again state that if someone is deeply depressed or troubled – ‘Get Over It’ will not cover it at all. But for the person who has bad habits that are not a trait of illness but a trait of personality – they should get over it!

I’m not quite over ‘it’. Being mentally ill has really emotionally stunned me where I’m like… oh god I am going to end up ill again! Just waiting on that moment, but there are things that I can do that help me get over it.

If something happened several years ago and it’s finished and you’re still talking about it then… you need to Get Over It. I had an eating disorder, yes sometimes I pick up bad eating habits and calorie count however I’m not worried that I’ll get so obsessive again. I had an eating disorder more than 5 years ago, hence why I don’t mention it every two minutes. I was malnourished and the state I got my body into was horrendous. I don’t mind telling my story when appropriate but if I sat hashtagging every image I post on instagram like #anorexiasurvivor, it would be damn annoying.  You can tell your stories without letting them consume you and take over who you are. I’m not known for my illnesses and neither do I endorse that idea, I help get myself over it by not making everyone in the room uncomfortable by changing every single topic to that one bad time that happened ages ago. I’ve been around so many people like “I find _____ really annoying because all they talk about is ______”. It’s not annoying to share your story, but to genuinely only ever talk about something that happened years ago is a sign that you’re not over it and you may need counselling, or at least stop yourself talking about it.

The second thing that will help you get over your traumas is actively seeking help, so support groups. They will really help you get over the traumatic moments of your life. Mental Health needs nourishment and talking therapies are super helpful for these kinds of things. Even if you have a super supportive friend or partner that you can talk to about these things just so you can move on with your life and get over it. I talk to my boyfriend when I’m not doing too well, however – it’s not our only conversational point. It’s so refreshing to live a life outside of this illness particularly when I have to write a post everyday on my mental health!

The best thing to help you get over mental trauma is just being productive – try and push yourself to do things you normally don’t. Maybe switch off the Internet for a while because that really helps me. Go outside and explore, travel and try new foods. As much as things like watching Netflix and playing games may help you, you’ll find it’ll make you lazier, less active and in turn you may naturally sulk into a depression or be taken aback with compulsive thoughts about your traumas. Make friends! Making friends is so important, people who can’t get over their situations tend to be quite lonely and so all they do is think about it all day and can’t move on with their life at all. Concerning yourself with other people’s lives and seeing how they live helps take you out of your hellish residence of the mind and opens you up to the wider world. It’s fantastic not to be all about ‘your’ problems and just listen to other peoples!

I hope these tips have helped you although I will endorse that these are almost self-help techniques, I would not recommend anyone to say to someone who is mentally ill to ‘get over it’ as the picture is so much more difficult than that. By doing these things you can distract yourself from your traumas and help yourself move on, which is an essential piece to the recovery puzzle. I know that I react well to tough love, we may not all but what we all want is recovery.

I would love to hear how you guys “Get Over It”, and I hope you all are winning the fight against your mental demons. Love to you all.

*Cuddles like a fluffy bunny*

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