Progress over Perfection, those three words can be hard to hear, especially you can feel that the world is against you, and you cannot break free of the addictions and bad habits that you have created in the past, especially if they are for an extended period. I was one that many times never believed that I could get away from the bad habits or beliefs that I had about things like mental health and the treatment that was necessary, but I made my intent in 2025 to rid myself of the old habits and addictions that I was experiencing that I felt that I could never let go, but I have started to.

Part of that was realizing that I was not caring for myself in the way that I needed to and as a result, extremely negative behavior was occurring. Part of it was being unwilling to accept things as they were, other reasons were for the way my mental health conditions were making me feel good. Regardless, there was a part of me that was tired of the way that I had to recover from when I had failed to adhere to my mental health treatment and the recovery process that it involved and the fact that I had to repeat this process quite a bit when I went off the adherence path repeatedly.

Quite frankly, I was tired of the recovery process when I had fallen off the wagon of adhering to my mental health treatment. I was also tired of the fact that I was living in a lie and not being honest with those that I needed to be and being deceptive towards them by leading them to believe that I was caring for myself when in fact coming clean at the beginning of this year made them realize the times when I was not myself. Even as those that know me admitted to me that something was not right and I vehemently denied that fact, I did feel bad in such a way that looking back at all the instances that I was not caring for myself I was not able to handle certain situations that are a part of not only having mental health challenges but also being autistic.

It took seeing that and realizing that indeed, as much as I disliked things, my metal health treatments were successful at keeping those bad moments from happening as they have done in the past. I was just unwilling to see that along with the fact that I kept being unpredictable at many things along with the process when I would jump back on board with the mental health treatment, the countless hours that I slept and the fact that I did not want to live that way anymore. I knew it was up to me to make those decisions.

As I had repeatedly tried to get back on track repeatedly over the past six years, I never really had the motivation to do so. But one thing in 2025 was the fact that I was tired of repeating the process of getting back on track later and the amount of time I missed doing so and how hard it was to my body along with the many other issues. There was a part of me that also knew that I needed to slay my negative behaviors that I was experiencing though they were things that I enjoyed, they never really had any value to my quality of life.

The process, has been quite straightforward, and for the most part I continue to have the motivation to keep going forward because I have the desire and drive to do so more than falling back off from adherence to my mental health treatment because I know the damage that is done and as tempting as it can be, in the end I know that it hurts me deeply and there is more of a purpose  to keep going and make my mental health more of a priority.

While it is indeed progress and not perfection, I am hoping to continue 2025 in a better future mindset that I can overcome the secret cloud that has been over my head for several years because of knowing that it is more advantageous to take care of my mental health while knowing and understanding the dangers of what happens when I do not take care of my mental wellbeing.

My mental health is important to me as much as it is in anyone else. It is what needs to be important because I work for an agency that is all about mental health and that I know I must be my best when caring for myself and if I am not I need to take care of myself in the way that I need to, but ultimately give myself the grace that I need to and see the progress that I need by understanding that it’s not always perfect and that I need to continue to be patient with myself.