Am I doing this right?

Hey!

How are you all? I hope you are all fine :). I feel incredibly lucky and happy, and this has been going on for quite some time now, which is surprising to me as well. I know I never really talked about the topic of mental health and I don't know how much I will get into this topic as of now, but I feel like talking about it, so why not?

Okay, so: I have been diagnosed with a psychotic episode in 2004, and in 2006 I experienced the second one. However, I must also say that ever since I was about 10 years old, I felt not really happy with myself. I don't know what to say about this; I don't want to trigger anybody, but let's just say I started early on doing things to myself that were not very "nice"... I never really overcame this mentality of self-destruction, and never actively really tried to get over it. Okay, I *did* try out living with the LOA and tried living 28 days just giving stuff to others, but I always slid back into my mindset of being worthless, dumb, uninspired, neither creative nor intelligent and so on. It was very hard to live wiht this, especially since I did try to help people who were going through similar stuff in their life, and I felt a bit like a hypocrite (No offense to the people I mean at this point; YOU REALLY ARE WONDERFUL PEOPLE AND I AM INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL FOR HAVING YOU IN MY LIFE!!).

So after having hit the ground in December 2015 again, which I will not go into greater detail now about, I somehow had my mood lifted again, and I don't really know what did this or why? I mean, I really engaged in more fun activities, I drew or painted or sang or whatever-ed whenever I felt like it. Also, as I told you already, I picked up language practice and made some progress with this now, too :). When I felt like, "Oh I want to do XYZ!", I moved things around until I was able to... I even participated in said competition, and even though I didn't win in the end, I did feel good about it, because I did have the courage to send the poem away!

I don't want to claim this IS the key to overcoming mental illness in general, but (a) I feel more open toward seeking for help actively now, and (b) it helped me to just engage in some activities without overthinking stuff. I know this is really hard to do, especially when you are stuck or having depression, when you feel like everything you loved doing loses its meaning and you just want to lie around and do nothing (At least it was like this to me; my favourite activities started meaning less and less to me, but I forced myself to remember and think it through then, and I *always* came to the conclusion my heart was yearning for making music, which, in turn, made me happy again and made me stand up again.). But yeah, of course I am not you; I don't know what you need in all cases. I just wanted to write this, and maybe some of you who are going through a particularly tough time in their lives will find the will to get out of there, too.

I cannot say I am 100% recovered of course, and it will take a long time to overcome ways of thinking I kept "dearly" to myself for almost 22 years now, but right now, I feel like it is worth it. Creativity has a healing effect sometimes, it is unbelievable... :) If you DO want to know something or comment with your concerns or whatever, please do so. I really don't want you to feel uncomfortable, but ---- please don't give up. I know I don't know you all personally, but I strongly feel it is saddening I don't. Why? Because everybody has an enormous potential for personal growth, for creative endeavors, for making the world a better place inside of them, and I firmly believe this... Everybody is worth getting to know, everybody is worth speaking to. And I really believe that everybody has a piece of the puzzle hidden in their hearts, thus being an important part of the world's population... This includes YOU, too, my dear reader! :)

I don't really know what else to write about... There are so many things I could do, but right now, my possibly biggest wish is to go to bed (it is half past 11pm now)... The sleepiness is probably also the reason this sounds very weird now altogether, but I really mean it! You. are. special. A special little snowflake, if you wish. Whatever you want to be, it is a part of you already!

Okay, my bed is calling me, and I guess this is just a sign of being tired (Thanks for reading, though!)!

~S. R.

PS: I also learned that doing stuff because I want to do it & NOT to fill entries in my blog(s) is the best way to go. :)

PPS: Please comment with any feedback if you have that. Just constructive criticism, please, though. Thanks.