For several years, I fought against caring for my mental health. I began to turn myself around by starting to care for myself. I saw that it was beneficial because in reality, they know and they care for me. I long believed they shared their concerns and fears with people who would understand me. Eventually, I realized they always knew by how I acted. I understood it was important to do the right thing.

For years I defied what had long been stressed for me to care. Two times it got really bad and several time it drew the attention of many. I saw the signs and they knew them too. I went through changes and realized the consequences of inaction. This realization causes not only myself but others to make things worse for ourselves. It also causes others to live in fear and have concern for our well-being. The last time the honest conversation happened, it scared me too and I began to do what was right.

It took some time to get better. Yet, I saw that other people noticed a difference in me. That was something I wanted to be proud of. I realized I was not alone. I was not just someone they did not care about, like I led myself to believe. They depended on me. They needed me to be there for them. I needed to be my best to handle what I had to go through. I had to see that what I was doing in the past was pointless, destructive, and hurting me. It was time to let go of the behavior and do what I had intended to do all along.

I had to also understand that those who shared concern and fear did so not to get me in trouble. They acted because they cared for me. They wanted to call attention to it before it got worse. It was not because they did not want you to do something. It was not because they had to do something. It was because they cared and valued me. They were supporting me even if I didn’t see things that way. I had to let go of thinking that they were against me. They were actually there to support me in my life. They supported me through the things that I had to go through.

It was also knowing that regardless of what happened in the past, or what I had led myself to believe. They were in the profession of helping people with mental health. They knew better than any stranger on the street. I couldn’t see what was happening because the disease was obscuring my vision. It made me believe that things were just great. But I knew I was deliberately doing pointless and destructive things by neglecting my mental health. No matter how many times I wanted to believe it was good for me, it was not. It was better to hear the compliments. Fighting the side effects was necessary by doing the hard work that needed to be done.

We are unwell and working to get back on the right path. It can be hard to see that we need to do what is right. We must be consistent at doing it by knowing that we are not only a work in progress. Progress matters over perfection. Having consistency and understanding on how things work take time for the progress to show. In the end, I had realized that it was best to do things exactly as I had in the past. I decided to let go of the old pointless and destructive behavior once and for all.