9 Affirmations You Deserve to Receive If You Have a Mental Illness
People with mental illness donât get enough credit, enough affirmations, enough love. More often than not, the words we get can feel a little hollow.
In a world that tries to tell us that we are too crazy, too much â in a world that says we are less than in so many ways â I just wanted someone to say to me, âYou are exactly enough, and yes, I see how hard youâre fighting.â
If youâre anything like me, sometimes you need someone to acknowledge you, especially when things get tough. So here are some of the affirmations that I wished I had, and that every person with a mental illness (or illnesses!) deserves.
1. You Are Worthy of Love
Yes, even on your worst days, you are absolutely worthy of love, care, and compassion.
Sometimes it can feel like the folks in our lives are doing us a favor by loving us, but this stems from a really problematic idea that we arenât worthy of love in the first place.
Bullshit. We are. Struggling with our mental health doesnât make us unlovable, no matter what our exes or so-called friends say.
Thatâs not to say that weâre perfect. No one is. But perfection is not a requirement for love. We have trauma to work through by virtue of the difficult journey that weâve been on. But many of us, whether we have a mental illness or not, have things that we need to work on.
Just because youâve got work to do, it doesnât mean that you should deny yourself love, or goodness, or happiness.
Mental illness does not make you unlovable. Mental illness does not mean that anyone who loves you is doing you a favor. Mental illness is just one layer of a complicated, beautiful, and whole person.
Struggling with your mental health can sometimes make you feel inadequate as a person, like this so-called weakness makes you less than everybody else. If youâve ever felt that way, Iâm here to tell you something: You are absolutely, positively enough â exactly as you are.
No matter where you are in your recovery, no matter what struggle youâre dealing with, and no matter how many times youâve broken down, I need you to know that you are enough. You donât need to do anything extra or change who you are to be worthy of good things in your life.
Mental illness doesnât mean that youâre somehow less important, less worthy, or less remarkable than other people.
I find myself beating myself up at times, wondering why I canât get my shit together, wondering if these disorders say something about my character. I wonder if itâs a sign that Iâm defective somehow. I wonder if it says something about my shortcomings. I wonder if my mental illnesses are a shortcoming.
But you and I are not defective. We are just people, with our own unique journeys and the struggles it took to get here.
Donât let anyone tell you otherwise.
3. You Are Strong (Even On the Days When It Doesnât Feel Like It)
Youâre fucking tough. You know how I know that? Youâre still here.
Donât believe me? Itâs summed up best by this Mary Anne Radmacher quote:
âCourage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, âI will try again tomorrow.ââ
Every day that you choose to keep fighting is a testament to your strength. Every day that you keep trying, even when everything in you is resisting, is proof of your courage.
Every small victory â getting out of bed, making that phone call, preparing a meal, doing a load of laundry â is yet another example of how strong you are, despite the relentless grip of mental illness.
Give yourself some credit. You deserve it.
4. You Are Not Damaged Goods
Back when I was dating and I wasnât open about my anxiety or bipolar, I felt like I was carrying around an enormously shameful secret. I felt like I was defective and that, sooner or later, the people that I cared about were going to discover that I, Sam Dylan Finch, was âdamaged goods.â
But hereâs what Iâve learned: Every one of us, in some way, is âdamaged.â And moreover, those struggles, while they may have shaped who weâve become, are not the entirety of who we are.
And whatever those struggles might be, they certainly donât depreciate our value. We arenât meat sitting in a freezer, slowly expiring until weâre tossed aside. Weâre people â people that, like anyone else, have had our fair share of challenges to get to where we are today.
Anyone who says weâre less valuable because weâve struggled in the past does not deserve a place in our present.
Besides, letâs be real. Deciding that someone is less worthwhile because of their disability? That says more about their lack of compassion than it does your value as a person, no?
5. You Donât Need to Run Away
Sometimes when Iâm scared that Iâm too much of a burden for the people that love me, I feel this intense urge to just run away.
To turn off my phone, catch the next train and take it up the coast, to don a red trench coat and disappear a la Carmen San Diego. (Yes, this is a fantasy that has run through my head many, many times â and yes, I own the red coat.)
Years ago, I used to disappear abruptly for a day or two, sometimes even weeks at a time, much to the distress of my loved ones. I believed that I just wasnât good company. I thought I only deserved to have friends when I was feeling good, and if I wasnât, I deserved to be alone.
Let me save you the time (and money): You donât need to run away. You are not a burden.
Your friends are your friends because they care about you, not because youâre a circus performer that exists solely for their entertainment. Friends are there on your good days, your bad days, and all the days in-between.
And itâs their responsibility to make sure theyâre taking care of themselves, and that they communicate when they need space. Itâs your responsibility to trust that, if they need space, theyâll take it.
Instead of running away, just be open about how youâve been feeling. Give your friends the chance to prove you wrong or to take a step back if they need it. You donât need to run away just to see whoâs going to follow â all you need to do is tell them whatâs really going on.
Youâre not a burden. Youâre a human being who has struggles from time to time. That doesnât make you undeserving of friendship â if anything that means you need your friends now more than ever.
If your friend was going through a difficult time, I imagine youâd do your best to stand by them. Why is it so hard to believe that someone would do the same for you?
6. You Didnât Do Anything to Deserve This
Sometimes my twisted bipolar brain would convince me that I somehow brought these illnesses onto myself, or did something to make them happen.
Gentle reminder: Itâs not your fault.
And again, for emphasis: Itâs not your fault. Itâs not your fault. Itâs not your fault.
If you had caused this, wouldnât you have done everything in your power to undo it? Wouldnât you change this if you could? And wouldnât you have done that already?
I donât know why mental illness likes to tell so many lies (what a jerk, right?), but take it from someone who knows: Mental illness doesnât happen because an individual magically makes it so. Itâs a complex combination of psychological, social, and biological factors.
Nothing you did on its own created this monster, I promise. Your first diet or binge didnât âcauseâ your eating disorder. Your first cut didnât âcauseâ your depression. Your disorganization didnât âcauseâ your anxiety.
A dysfunctional response to stress is evidence that the problem existed long before you responded to it. Okay?
So donât dwell on what you couldâve, shouldâve, wouldâve done. Instead, focus on your recovery. Be kind to yourself and be gentle.
7. Do Something Nice for Yourself
Self-care is vital. And if you arenât making time for yourself, itâs time to make time.
Setting aside an intentional moment or two to nourish and take care of yourself isnât just a luxury â itâs necessary for our mental health.
I wrote an article specifically about self-care for folks with anxiety, talking about how self-care is one tool that I use to help manage the distress that accompanies generalized anxiety, and what steps I take to practice self-care as a person with mental illness.
For many folks with mental illness, self-care is an invaluable coping tool to keep ourselves afloat.
You deserve nice things. You deserve to treat yourself and nurture yourself. The everyday wear and tear that comes with mental illness means that we have to invest in ourselves and our wellbeing. We need to make sure weâre taking care of ourselves to mitigate the impact that mental illness can have on our health.
And yes, even when weâre feeling great, we have to keep investing in our self-care to keep it that way.
Self-care isnât selfish. Itâs necessary. And if you havenât been putting in the time, now is as good a time as any.
If you arenât sure where to start, check out this amazing video and take a look at this list of articles here at Everyday Feminism!
8. You Donât Have to Pretend to Be Okay
I spent so much time trying to hide what I was going through. I locked myself away and I kept people at an armâs distance for so many years; I thought that I was protecting the people I loved, but in reality, I was hurting us both.
I was hurting them because, in truth, they wanted to help me. They were more hurt that I didnât trust them or ask them for help when I needed it. And I was hurting myself because it meant that I was battling these illnesses alone â something that I just couldnât do by myself, no matter how hard I tried.
Iâm going to issue a challenge to you: Stop pretending to be okay when you arenât. You donât need to be âokayâ all the time or even most of the time.
Iâm giving you permission to struggle. Iâm giving you permission to be sad. Iâm giving you permission to be angry. Feel whatever it is youâre feeling, and let the people in your life who want to be there for you actually be there.
Let people in. Itâs okay to not be okay. You donât have to do this alone.
9. Youâre Doing a Good Job
You knew I was going to say it, and here it is: Yes, youâre doing a good job.
Living with mental illness(es) can be hard work. And we seldom get any credit for the work that goes into keeping ourselves alive.
On the outside, it seems like what weâre doing is very simple â getting out of bed, cooking ourselves a meal, and maybe dragging ourselves to work. But with disabilities like ours, simple tasks can require a monumental effort.
I see that effort. I know that itâs hard work. And I want to tell you that youâre doing a good job. Youâre doing an amazing job. Despite every obstacle that is standing in your way, youâre still doing the best that you can.
I am so, so proud of you for the work that you do, day in and day out, to keep going.
If I could, Iâd teleport over to you right now and give you a trophy. Iâd also bake you a cake. And then weâd watch Netflix together â because who has the energy for anything else?
I know that it might not always seem like youâre making much progress, especially on the days when you canât do much other than sleep (Iâve been there, trust me). But even on those days, knowing what youâre up against, itâs a miracle that youâre still around and Iâm so happy that youâre here.
Keep taking it one day at a time. And every step of the way, donât forget to pause and acknowledge the hard work that youâve done to get where you are.
titsay
vaporwave
romaincrisis
izzy806
