Living With Mental Illness Can Feel Like A Full-time Job…And It’s Exhausting 

Whew! Living with mental illness and keeping yourself at a level of functioning can feel like a full-time job…and it is exhausting!! I’ve seen the term “high functioning” mental illness for those of us who live daily with mental illness, but still maintain jobs, are raising children and can function well enough to get by most days. What many people don’t realize is how much work goes into each day, how much recovery time most of us need (when nothing gets done) and just how exhausting this can be. 

There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes in order to be able to function. To be honest, in order to fully manage my depression and to be as functioning as I would love to be, reach my goals as well as achieve all I want to achieve, I would need to make managing my depression my full-time job. More goes into maintaining a strong and healthy brain than just taking your medication and seeing a therapist. 

I have a minimum of 5 strategies I use daily just to maintain my mental health so I can work, provide for my family and have relationships with other people. The ones I make sure to fit in to my daily routine are, exercise (at least 20 minutes), eat healthy, positive affirmations, being aware of my triggers, and checking in with my feelings throughout the day. There are so many more that I could add, but there simply isn’t time in the day to do all that I would like to do.

 Plus, many of us who live daily with mental illness need downtime. After a social event, a stressful situation, or even just working all day can leave us completely drained. Often this means not getting other things done that we need to do. This can often make us look lazy or irresponsible, but we are just doing out best to keep our mental health where we are still able to function. This often looks like piles of mail on the counter, dishes in the sink, and sitting on the sofa watching TV. It’s difficult to explain unless you have truly lived it. 

On days when are struggling with our mental illness, it is exhausting to just try to stay ahead of it. It is exhausting trying to work through it so we don’t spiral deeper. All our energy is going towards doing all we can to push through. The energy we have left for work, family, relationships, friends, etc. is often little to none. On days like this, it is a full-time job. 

In an ideal world, we would have the time and money to focus only on our mental health. In an ideal world, we would have the entire day to do all we know that helps minimize the frequency of our depression and to keep our mental health the best it can possibly be. In an ideal world, others would understand that when it looks like we are being lazy, we are either trying to recover or we might be struggling. But, we don’t live in an ideal world when it comes to mental health. That is why we need to share and educate others so we can end the stigma. What do you do each day to help keep your mental health the best it can be each day?

Be sure you have downloaded my free 31 Day Journal for Depression. You can grab yours HERE.

Also, my update, second edition of my book, Depression Survival Guide will be released soon so stay tuned! Here’s a sneak peak of the new cover!