What Happens When You Stop Struggling?

TW: Topics related to eating disorders and suicidal ideation.

I am trying to ride this wave of productivity by building up a queue of posts that I can put up on a regular basis! This is how real bloggers do it right? What started as something therapeutic for me has turned into something that friends, acquaintances, and strangers have told me is helpful! Thank you, all, for your encouragement and for spending time here.

What happens when you stop struggling? – This is a question I never would have dreamed of asking a year ago. I was at a point where struggling was something I had been doing for years… a decade even. What does it feel like to not be gasping for air? What does it feel like to not be treading water in the deep end? I had no idea.

Step by step, and with a lot of intention, I have found myself pausing and realizing that I wasn’t hanging onto the edge anymore. I was no longer stuck in survival mode. It was a long and laborious process, but here I was. This post isn’t about getting there. This post is about staying there.

Just because you aren’t struggling doesn’t mean it is easy… or even easier than before. Maintaining this state of mind requires a lot of intention. After a decade or more of struggling, I found myself falling into old patterns. The first pattern being doing the bare minimum to keep myself alive. Those that are close to me know that I have a complicated relationship with food. Aside from the allergies I have with nuts and various fruit, I have a tendency to avoid eating unless I feel like I “deserve” it. During really tough mental health days, I would reward myself with the most decadent and unhealthy of foods for getting through the day. It was something that my therapist had suggested I do in order to help with my tendency to punish myself by abstaining from eating. Because things weren’t too hard anymore, I found myself neglecting food because I didn’t feel that I “worked” enough to deserve it. I wasn’t hanging on for dear life and fighting the mind demons, so I wasn’t working hard enough to deserve food. When I realized what was happening, I had to focus on detaching basic nourishment from my rewards system.

Also, bad days can feel like a major failure. Once you realize you aren’t in survival mode anymore, it’s absolutely liberating. You notice that you’re coping with negative emotions much easier, and that intrusive thoughts aren’t so intrusive anymore. I noticed it and I felt awesome. Therapy was working! I learned so many awesome skills that I was no longer just surviving, but thriving. Then I woke up one morning and that familiar feeling of existential dread was creeping in. I was so familiar with that annoying little thought that said, “No one would really care if you disappeared today,” that I began to believe that all of the work was for naught. It’s an awful feeling of failure and I tried my best to hide it. Of course, that only imploded on itself at a fraction of the time it took for me to crack the first time. I realized that was progress in itself. How many years did I spend faking it? 11? How bad was it when I finally cracked? It took me a few weeks to crack and I felt better immediately. I knew this then, but it’s so easy to forget that progress isn’t linear.

Derealization is not exclusive to a very poor mind state. I have discussed Depersonalization/Derealization a bit in this very old post, and I intend to touch on it again, but it does not go away. Despite it being a coping mechanism for me during very low moods and mental states, it continues to be something that I battle on a day to day basis. Depersonalization still requires purposeful and proactive action in order to stay grounded. This means that I pause for breathing every day during breaks in my work day. This means that I take extra moments on my dog walks to check in with my five senses. This also means that I have to make the conscious effort to engage in yoga practice. This discovery was disheartening, but learning to live with it has been quite meaningful.

So, I guess these were just a few thoughts/discoveries I had once I realized I wasn’t on the struggle bus anymore. The takeaway lesson I have learned thus far: Be gentle with yourself, and choose yourself everyday even if you don’t feel like it will make a difference, because it does!