Today’s post was supposed to be about how I fell in love with ebooks, but that post is 0% complete and instead, I’m compelled to write this.

I’ve never thought that my mental health journey was going to be smooth. Right now, I’m in one of the low periods, where negative thoughts take over and life is lived on autopilot. So I’ve followed the advice that I’ve been given – exercise regularly, go out with friends, drink enough water, get enough sleep.

But what do you do when those tire you out too?

Staying in makes me feel like I’ll die friendless (especially if I open social media at any one time). Going out with friends tires me and I still feel like I’ll die friendless. Yes, in the moment it’s pretty nice to be with people but it drains me and I am wrecked with doubts over whether they wanted to meet before and after the whole thing.

Exercising tires me out physically and for some reason, I never get the endorphin high thing.

Writing is harder than ever before. I’ve got so much to say about this topic but the words just aren’t coming. My brain is sluggish and I hate it.

Sleeping more doesn’t seem to work; I’m tired either way.

Drinking water… okay, that doesn’t tire me out. There’s that one thing, I guess.

Overall, all the ‘common’ methods don’t seem to work and it’s disheartening. I feel disappointed in myself for having done the “right” things but not getting the emotional boost I want. I almost want to go back and ask for refills of my medicines but the medicines made me so sleepy and I didn’t like them when I was taking them. I can’t believe that I want to go back and ask for more.

So right now, my mantra and newest coping method is kyrie eleison.

Christ have mercy.

Doing things by myself is not myself is not working, using my friends to cheer me up isn’t working, and I need someone to lean on. It is not an instant cure because it’s hard for a “do it yourself, own your problems” person like me to fully let go, but let go I must; I am tired even though I do all the right things.

I feel like sometimes, there’s this narrative that as long as we are faithful and give all to God, we will instantly feel better. It would be awesome if that were true in my case but right now, it’s feeling like there is no magic bullet, nothing that I can do in the next ten minutes that will let me say “but I tried prayer/confession/etc and I’m starting to feel better already.” The whole ‘trying to let go and place my burdens before God’ thing was something that I started last night, because running through doomsday scenarios did not (surprise, surprise) let me go to sleep. I want to believe that if I continue to work at putting my burdens down before Jesus, they will eventually stay down, but it’s not convincing to me right now. So the only thing that I can say is

I believe, help my unbelief

This was such a rambly post and I might be putting the cart before the horse, but I want to believe that all this shall pass and I will have days of contentment and peace in the future. It is extremely scary to write all this down because what if it doesn’t work? But I suppose that’s the point of faith – it steps in where we can’t.

I still believe that CBT and counselling and all the things above (getting enough sleep, strengthening social networks, etc) help because I can sense that this is not the lowest I’ve been. Faith alone can’t help if I self-sabotage by isolating myself and leading an unhealthy life, but perhaps in my attempt to prove that, I’ve missed out an important avenue for maintaining mental health. I really hope this post isn’t too contradictory because I hate how we sometimes stigmatise mental illness by making it a lack-of-faith thing when it can be a brain chemistry thing, but I also believe that faith is important to getting well, just like how your mental state affects your physical state.

Kyrie eleison