The Loud Mind Of A Quiet Person

Healing

     It is important when it comes to healing to accept some difficult things about life:

1. You cannot change your past no matter how much you wished to, so regrets are normal but do not give them too much attention because you will lose sight of your present life.

2. Things won't get better just because they have to or because time helps. Time does not help. You help yourself. What hurts you now might hurt you the same after months if you take no action. So you need to start from somewhere. Time can help you if you let it do so, by replacing some memories with others and changing your brain focus.

3. Comparisons are very harmful. The only one accepted is to compare you from today to you from yesterday. If you are in a bad mental place, thinking about how it was when you were not feeling like this just frustrates you. Thinking about where you imagined yourself to be and where you are now is equally frustrating. Comparing yourself to others is the worst of them all. You do no compete with other people. You just need to make the best out your life. What make them happy might not make you happy.

4. You might miss badly some people or some situations that you cannot have back. Maybe you wished to do something again with a former close person that is no longer in your life. You must do it anyway with another person or even alone. You must have the best day you can in your given context, with the people and the resources you have.

5. It is way easier to be a mean person than to be a kind one, so people are likely to choose the first option. It is easier because it is way less riskier. I was so stunned for years that people would not do for me what I do for them. I thought:" If I can do it, they can do it too". But everyone sees the world in his/her own way. Also, do not try to change people. It never works. You can help, support and be kind but only they can change themselves, and that requires a strong will in the first place. Most people do not want to change because they do not see anything bad in their behavior. Challenging your bad behaviors requires patience, honesty and determination but most people do not analyze themselves, they live like they are on automatic pilot. It is comfortable, but not productive at all.

6. You made mistakes, you make mistakes and you will do a couple more of them too. You are a human, not a robot, so you cannot do everything right. Talking bad about yourself is one of the worst things you can do. You were naïve, you were foolish or you could have done better. None of these things matters. Through mistakes you gain experience so you must use it so as you will do better in your next situations. Also, not everything teaches you a lesson. Some experiences are just painful and that is all.

7. Pain changes you. But if you shutdown, trust nobody, become angry, hurt others and in the end, you transformed into a cold person, you let pain win. It is normal after a painful experience to protect yourself, but that should be a short-term thing, not a way of life. If you were abused, do not become the abuser. People hurt other people who had no fault way too often. If you can put an end to it, do it. Do not let the past take away from your present too. I hate when people hurt you or change how they talk to you even though you were always constant. If something bad happens to you, do not reverse your anger on the friend you talk with. Either vent if it helps, either act like nothing happened because why should he or she support your anger, why that relationship must suffer because of you?

8. Letting go is one of the hardest thing you will have do to. The sooner you do it, the better. I did it as late as possible and for every day I did not let go I wasted a day of healing. You cannot heal and hold on to what is hurting you at the same time. Sometimes reality hurts too much to accept it but it may come to a point when you have no choice but to let it in the past and move forward

9. New beginnings are scary but worth it. Change is good, but painful at first because change brings uncertainty. Also, if you can take a break in your life, do it. Routine can destroy your happiness. It is difficult to change your job, your place, your university or to begin a new relationship, but if you started something, do not always ask yourself if you did the right thing, ask yourself what you can do to make that thing right. You will find out in time if it was a good decision or not but do not ruin it with doubts.

10. Most people are very inconsistent. Some of them do not know what they want from life and use you, others get bored and abandon you, a part of them get colder to you because they met another person and the beginnings are exciting and the list goes on. So you must somehow be prepared to it. The best thing to do is to be very careful who you allow into your life so that the chances of bad surprises decrease.

Being aware of these things above should reduce some of the past pain. But actions for a better present must also be taken. You need to start from somewhere. You cannot jump straight into self-caring tips if you hate yourself. I ended my chapter about Trauma by saying that I needed to be cared about. It was a top priority. I found this warmth in my family. So I gave up my job, stopped the University year and came home. I did not know how it would work, but I knew that I could not be worse. Jobs and university were not problems. On the contrary, at my job I was appreciated and I was doing fine with my courses. But the general mood was too dark and I had like 2-3 hours free per day in which anhedonia was in full effect. I called it a negative routine. I was a little bit better just in weekends when I got home. So...I decided to have more of that. Now, after six months, not only do I feel better, but I feel...good, to my surprise. I know not everybody has the luxury of leaving their duties and take a break or not everybody has a caring family but you must find emotional support somewhere, family or friends. You need that external impulse so that you can build from there. You might not feel able to get up on your own because you feel powerless. There should also be something that makes you feel better and cannot be taken away from you so try to find ways of doing that as often as possible. You must accept that you are a work in progress. You need to celebrate every step towards healing you do. I got better without even noticing. So, be proud of yourself if you took that shower you kept postponed, be proud of yourself you gathered enough strength to go to work or even to get out of your bed, be proud that you ate. Do not think about your general situation too much. Celebrate every single progress you make. Those are very though battle that you won. If you have a person who knows about your struggle, tell them about your successes too. Share the good news with that person. Also, do not expect healing to be just ascension. You will have relapses. It is fine, it is normal. It might feel like you lost all the progress and you are back at square one, but it is not true. It is just a step back. Remember you started at 0 and made many steps. If you feel better enough, start a self-care challenge. They are cute, simple and surprisingly effective. When you are going through the healing process, your mental health should be the biggest priority. Make more time for yourself, say no to the things you want to say no to, practice your hobbies, do sport, listen to your favorite music, drive, whatever helps. You can even start meditating. You can listen to affirmation speeches in the morning. Creating healthy habits is very productive and important, not only when you are healing but in general. At first you need to keep yourself busy to stop thinking that much but that is ok too. The hardest step is the first one. Do whatever it takes to make it. Then, like a snowball, you get bigger, in this case, you feel better.