Today was tough. I’m sat here, close to midnight on Monday evening, thinking of how I could’ve made today better. In honesty, I don’t think I could have, or should have, given the chance.
I often think there’s a balance to be struck between taking stock of a day, and ignoring the day completely – especially if it was a shitty day.
Today was one of those days. A shitty day. That being said, there are lessons from today I can definitely learn, so long as I don’t fixate and ruminate in my perceived “failures.” Mental illness does that. Shows you the imperfections, often the nuances in your day that really do not even exist in the eyes and minds of others.
There wasn’t anything particularly bad about my day. Just my mental illness deciding to be loud and obnoxious. I spent the day working and doing my best to be kind to myself, relieving any pressures I would usually place upon myself by repeating the same sentence in my head…
You are good enough.
My surviving through today, was good enough. My parenting was good enough. My work was good enough. My self-care was good enough. I was good enough. I still am good enough.
We all, mental illness or not, have “one of those days.” You know them, where nothing seems to go well, everything seems that much harder for no apparent reason, and you’re looking forward to bedtime before it even reaches lunchtime, despite the fact you know your sleep will likely be broken too.
I am learning, through my journey that is mental illness and recovery, through my own awareness, that it’s okay to have days like this. It doesn’t take away from who you are as a person and it doesn’t make you inherently negative or lazy.
If all I managed today was to survive it? That’s okay.
It’s more than okay. It’s strong, despite feeling anything but.