A New Year, A New Me?

Its that time of year where everyone says "new year, a new me". Not just people with mental health issues or depression but pretty much everyone. Personaly, I hate this concept. Its the idea that a un-influential date can help change someones life. I mean im all for it in theroy and to the 10% of people it works for thats great, but i've never had it work for me and I reckon it can be a rather damaging concpet to people with psychotic depression.

When I was at the worst of my illness I would use any date or occassion as a turning point in my struggle. New Years, new achedemic year, birthdays, end of exams, moving house, the list is endless. For the first few weeks all kinda goes well. You make a few changes here and there, you see a few improvements etc. However for people with non-mental illness's this is where it just kinda ends. You stop going to the gym in feburary after buying a years pass but its all fine cos everything just goes back to normal and you get on with your non-gym life. This never happened for me and I dont think this is how it works for most mental illness sufferers.

When the time comes when you realise that this new begining hasn't been a field of roses and your actually not as different and perfect as you thought you were, I alwaysed plumited back into depression and in most occassions became worse than I was when I started the "new me". The idea of failing to a psychotic depression suferer is horrible. You feel like you have let the world down, and that they hate you. This used to make me paranoid, that people were calling me failiure and I just spirled back into a deep depression. It was one step forward and two steps back.

This post isn't all doom and gloom though. I found a way to use this concept effectivly and hopefully this will work for other people too. As humans, our natual habbit is to aim for perfection. This makes us set almost impossible goals. If you want this new year to have a lot of change, then set yourself smaller acheivable goals. Don't simply say your going to change with no idea how or say that your going to be the perfect person. I started with smaller ones. I remember my first goal set was to go 50 days without self harm. I read a post secret entry by a girl who said that she was suicidal and 50 days later was so thankful she was still alive. So thats where I got 50 days from. I had a book with a tally in and each day would write how I felt to see if I got better.

Don't get me wrong I wasnt saved after 50 days but I did feel like I had acheived something. From self harming everyday I had gone almost 2 months without. Try set yourself little goals like that, its doesnt have to be 50 days, it could be a week or whatever suits your condiiton. Reward yourself with little victorys dont overwhelm youself with massive defeats.

I hope this helps you set some reaslistic New Year goals. My one this year is to go swimming once a week for 2 months. The excercise helps me feel energised and less depressed and I always have good thinking time in the pool as no one distracts you. Happy New Year x