Living with Mental Illness | How I Have Found Stability And Change With My Mental Illness

How I Have Found Stability And Change With My Mental Illness

Posted on June 22, 2008
Filed Under Health, Journal, mental illness |

My Words are weapons just like with mental illness medications are the weapons for stability. Through this web site I use my weapons to help others and myself. My weapons keep me stable lately and this allows me to focus more on a non-therapeutic way to keep me stable with my mental illness. In saying this I am showing that there are many ways to become stable when dealing with your mental illness or mental health condition.

Stability in a person’s life can sometimes be really hard to find and when you are a person dealing with a mental illness, finding stability can be even harder to find and maintain. Life can be hard and like in my last post I was talking about balance and mindfulness and that also goes along with finding stability in your life.

For myself, I would have to say that finding stability has been a everyday struggle for me because since I am dealing with a dual diagnosis it makes it that much more difficult for me to find stability in my life. So that is why as of lately I have been trying to find stability, balance, and mindfulness in my life.

Now after great research on each of these subjects I am learning that when and only when I truly understand and learn the ways and techniques of these subjects that I will then truly be happy and then my life will have more stability and meaningfulness.

So as of lately I have been really focusing on trying to find a perfect balance with everything that is going on in my life and I am trying to find happiness in everything that I do no matter if it is something that I want to do or not. Because part of mindfulness is accepting every situation for what it is no matter how bad or negative it may be.

For example: this past weekend I went and stayed at my parents house to help my parents out in their yard and gardening work. Though for most people would look at this as being hard work and not a whole lot of fun. Well, I took all of the negative out of the situation and turned it into a learning experience for myself, and I took my hard work as an appreciation for all of my efforts by at the end of finishing up all of the yard and gardening work and was eager to go outside a lot after it was done just to look at my accomplishments and I got to see the results of my hard work and after it was all said and done I really got a new appreciation for gardening and got the thrill of seeing how hard work really pays off.

So in the end after taking the negative out of the situation I found a happiness with doing something that required hard work and determination and I got the benefit of learning something new and I got the thrill of seeing my hard work pay off. In the end I found a sense of happiness because I helped my parents out with something that they can’t really do anymore because of their health problems and age and I got the appreciation of learning a new skill which was gardening and I found out that I like planting flowers and working in a garden and pulling weeds and making something that looks so bad turn into something beautiful.

Though there are many ways to find stability when it comes to someone that is dealing with a mental illness and there is really no right or wrong way to find it but most ways all include a form of medication therapy and case management. For myself I am currently involved with both forms of treatment and in my opinion they both help me out a great deal.

Though the most important part both of these treatments is to be on top of them and make sure you are current with everything that they have you working on in your mental health program as well as staying on top of taking your medications regularly.

Aside from the major roles of staying stable with your mental illness there are several ways to maintain stability. So I am going to let you know what I do for my own stability and how I work them into my own daily living routine. Then you can either use what I do for my own stability or you can adjust them or make up new ways that best adjust to you and your own lifestyle.

Though you must remember stability isn’t easy to obtain and it does take a lot of hard work and dedication but if your life is unstable and you don’t like the way your life is going because of your instability then trying something new is the best thing you can do.

I also know that change with mental health patients isn’t that easy to obtain because most people that are suffering from some type of mental illness are already in a regular routine that they have adjusted to throughout their daily living and it has taken them a long time to get where they are at in their lives and most are scared to get out of that comfort zone that they are in so most will just keep doing what they are doing because they are afraid of getting worse. But I am here to say that even with the most severe cases of mental illness change can be a good thing for your mental well being and for your physical well being.

Look at it this way, What do you have to loose? You can try to find more stability in your life and have a more functioning lifestyle. You can also work on that stability and with that will come a better sense of happiness and you can start your path to a more mindful and balanced life. So even if nothing happens you at least get out of this a learning experience and whats the harm in learning something?

The next couple of steps are the ways that I have been trying to perfect in trying to maintain a more stable environment for myself and for everyone around me in my life. As of this point in my life I have had a lot of success with them.

Though I have had my fair share of set backs but I have examined why I had the set back and then I work on trying to fix it to better function in my life and the biggest key in all of these is I am willing to accept failure because without failure there could never be success.

I also suggest keeping an open mind while trying to find a stable lifestyle for yourself and it will better help you in aiding you through the rough patches during this time with your mental illness and your mental health.

Step One: I take my medications regularly and I see my case manager as much as possible.

Step Two: I have accepted that I have mental illnesses and that I will have them for the rest of my life and that I need to keep an open mind about how to deal with them in my life and daily living.

Step Three: I have researched and am learning about mindfulness and balance and how to use them in my own life. Because through this comes eternal happiness in all aspects of one’s life.

Step Four: I am trying to find a healthy balance between everything that I like to do and I am not trying to overdue any one thing that I like to do.

Step Five: I have been putting my marriage and my wife first in my life and I know when she is happy everything else in my life will be happy. Also putting priorities first in my life. (like paying rent, bills, etc.)

Step Six: I ask for help and I am not afraid to do so and I have been learning from people that have been dealing with mental illnesses longer than I have and how they maintain stability in their lives.

Step Seven: I take anything negative in my life and I try to find the positive’s about them and try to find happiness in whatever I take on in my life.

Step Eight: This is probably the most important of all of the steps and that is I WANT TO CHANGE! I want a better and healthier life for myself and my wife and marriage. So I can find that eternal happiness like I was talking about in step three.

Step Nine: I have found activities and interests that I like to do and that make me happy and I pursue them.   ( For example: I have found a passion for playing video games and helping people through my web site.)

Finally, Step Ten: I have learned to be my own best friend and be comfortable with who I am inside and out.

So through these steps I have been pursuing my dream of finding everlasting happiness and stability in my life and I know it isn’t going to come easy and I know it may take a long time for me to be truly happy and I also know that I may never find everlasting happiness but anything is better than what I have been doing in my past with my mental illnesses and my mental health and like I said above, I WANT TO CHANGE!

Not only for me but for everyone around me and so that I can show people that are dealing with mental illness that it doesn’t have to ruin your life but it can make you a better person and it can lead to great things and that most of all that is isn’t a weakness but yet it is a setback but setbacks never have to be permanent.

It is all a choice and the choice is yours. Do you let your mental illness own you? or Do you own your mental illness? My hope is that you choose to own your mental illness and make a great life for yourself in spite of your mental health condition.

If You Found This Information Helpful, Please Share It with Others!

Comments

Leave a Reply