The first step in healing is to admit you’re not doing okay

October is mental health month but it’s an important topic personally for me as I too struggle with my own mental health. 

With the ongoing covid pandemic, I guess it gives us an extra kick in the gut and puts a mirror before ourselves on how everything just feels like shit all the time. As much as we love to hide it and put up our well presented face to the world – it doesn’t really help to become better mentally. 

I have always been writing about feelings, emotions, our inner world but I never really properly wrote a piece that’s dedicated to mental health even though I have been working on it on a daily basis. I guess I too have been hiding behind my writings and pretend everything looks slightly better online than in real life. But the truth is, I don’t want to hide anymore. I have been struggling now for a long time, and just recently learned to put more focus on myself. 

But I’m not the only one, I’m sure of that. As I’m writing this, there are countless people suffering in silence. Social media especially doesn’t make it easy to be open about our struggles, because it always shows all the highs of people’s lives. You’re never sure what to expect when you start to get vocal about your internal battles. You might lose friends – or even family, because the things you will share will be heavy, uncomfortable and require a certain amount of empathy, patience and compassion to be able to comprehend the complexity of your mental state. It’s likely so that you don’t even understand half of it yourself, let alone someone else. That’s why we hide, so we don’t put ourselves at risk that it will get even worse, that we might end up alone in the end. 

But the thing with healing is – it only gets better when it gets worse first. Like physical wounds, it will get more painful first before it can get better. Because of its invisibility of mental health, it makes it much more difficult to know, when do you actually get better and how does that work then? There is no one clear answer and not one method that works for everyone. But one thing I’m sure of and that is

You can only heal when you first start to admit you’re not doing okay

That in itself is extremely difficult to do, but once you have overcome the feelings of shame, of your own ego and all that blocks you from healing, you will finally admit to yourself “I’m not okay”. If you have reached that point – be so proud of yourself because it will be half the battle. There is so much strength in that that shows willpower for betterment. That’s not nothing. And that is exactly the confirmation that you need – that in times of self-doubt, remind yourself that you are strong for taking the first step in healing. 

Just because you’re afraid to lose people doesn’t mean you need to lose yourself first to keep those same people around by keeping silence, by hiding for your own battle. 

You come first, always