“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose. “ – C.S. Lewis
I didn’t walk out of the mental hospital with the secret to life . Truth is, I am only qualified to share what I have learned along my journey. While there will never be a one-stop-shop for mental well-being; through my hospitalization, books, friends, and journaling I have found many tips on how I can live a happier life. Sometimes finding happiness seems hard, impossible even. When I hit rock bottom, thinking that I would ever be okay didn’t seem possible. But the moment I started living life for me, I was able to take control of my happiness.
Everything I THOUGHT would fulfill me seemed far from reach. I just knew finding love again would make me happy. I longed for someone to CHOOSE me. For the entirety of my adult life, I had been in a relationship. Finding myself single was incredibly foreign. Life as I knew it was gone. I realized much of my life relied on that relationship and my partner. While both of us were independent, in some ways I was dependent on him. I chose to stay at home and get a “temporary” job while he was finishing school. (making these choices based on him was MY choice.) Three years later, our relationship was over… My temporary job wasn’t so temporary. My life hadn’t “started” yet. I was depending on the life he was building to help build mine. Now I had to start over and pick up the pieces and figure out what I wanted in life and how to accomplish it.
Putting a stop to Codependency
It’s important to have support and love, but never let anyone be in charge of your life/happiness. Allowing someone else to control how you feel and live is destructive. You have to be the one to take control of your happiness. At age 28, it was terrifying to start over. I don’t know how to date. I have a tendency to share my thoughts and FEELINGS (especially feelings) with anyone who shows an interest. While I find this communication valuable in a relationship, baring my soul to every man I meet is a fool-proof way to scare them off… In fact, I’m sure that was a tactic in how to lose a guy in 10 days. A pattern emerged: 1. I would start talking to a nice guy. 2. We would have great chemistry and intriguing conversation. 3. I become too invested because I got my hopes up about this one. 4. Our plans to meet up fall through or he would ghost me. 5. Devastation and the beliefs I wasn’t good enough came back. They found someone better to talk to. Disappointment would come if I didn’t get a snapchat or text. WHY WAS I ALLOWING SOMEONE ELSE TO AFFECT MY SELF-WORTH?!?! Since I was new to the single life, I was missing that intimacy. I realized I was chasing to have that feeling back. I was looking for a man to fill that void rather than chasing my dreams and finding myself.
Before I date, I have to gain confidence in myself again. This is an opportunity to be the Bethanie I have always wanted to be. I feel empowered to navigate myself through a broken heart and mend it through self love. We can’t let anyone be in control of our happiness other than ourselves!! Others will most likely disappoint you. Establish your own self and build on that. Let your happiness come from within you.
Expectations can become dangerous
How many times have you been disappointed because things didn’t turn out as expected? High expectations can be positive, but you can cross into dangerous territory. I was disappointed when someone would lose interest in me, because I was expecting too much from that relationship/person. I thought if I found a man to love me, I would be happy. The best advice I can give to avoid this disappointment is from my friend, Rachael. This lesson helped me so much, she told me “You should be more guarded with your heart. That is one thing we learn about valuing ourselves. We need to stay away from the people who burn us. Once we do that, we will attract those who will walk alongside us rather than fill a void. It’s not a bad thing to protect your heart. If we don’t do it, no one will. You are valuable! Not just anyone deserves what is inside your heart. That’s a spot that needs to be earned.” Protect your expectations. Don’t let yourself become heartbroken because you got your hopes up.
I don’t want to harp on my love life- or lack thereof, so I will give you another example of how an expectation can become hazardous. My Mom is a recovering alcoholic. When I was 21, she went to rehab and has been sober since. As a child, I hoped and prayed she would stop drinking. I thought if she loved my sister and I enough she would stop drinking. Once I got older, I realized I couldn’t make her stop. I knew no one could make her choose sobriety except herself and I had to accept that. If I continued to imagine a world where my Mom is sober, I would face more pain when it didn’t happen. I have always loved her but for my own mental health, I had to accept she will always have a drink in her hand and I needed to distance myself from her. Miraculously, she chose to get sober on her own! I now have a beautiful mother-daughter relationship with her and I couldn’t be more proud of her.
It’s been difficult to navigate my expectations. High expectations set me up for disappointment but then low expectations became just as damaging. If I expect I’m going to scare away every guy, chances are I will be waiting for them to let me down. Thoughts of not being good enough, not finding a relationship as strong as my last one, and waiting to be ghosted fed my depression. Insecurities told me lies. Think about something you’re insecure about- for example, I’m insecure about my weight. When I go to the beach, I think everyone is looking at me and thinking, “Omg look at the tubbo”… and so many other hurtful things. I let the insecurity distort my realty and ruin my vacation. We have to shut down this unhealthy negative thinking.
I started chatting with a new guy and was feeling hopeful. After becoming single, meaningful conversation with a man has been a challenge. I was grateful for someone who cherished the same aspects of a relationship as I did. I felt safe to tell him the baggage I would normally hold back. The first night we spoke; I shared the story of my hospitalization and mental health. He didn’t seem put-off and even offered his own struggles. From the beginning, he made it clear he wasn’t ready for a relationship. The timing wasn’t right. While I heard and understood that, I enjoyed our conversations so much and felt myself get my hopes up.
We agreed on a weekend to get together. He had to reschedule, which seems fair right? My distorted expectation that I will drive him away kicked in and I automatically assumed that was happening. I have had more than one man tell me they have to reschedule, only to never hear from them again. Out of my frustration, I lashed out and told him not to worry about it. I pushed him away and we haven’t talked the same since. My mind was telling me, he wanted to “reschedule” because he didn’t want to meet me anymore. I never gave him the benefit of the doubt that there were other factors on his end. I learned, this is called over-generalization. It is a common issue that frequently affects those who have mental illnesses like depression or anxiety disorders. It is when you apply one experience and generalize to all experiences, including those in the future. I expected the past to repeat itself , manifested that exact scenario and screwed it up yet again. How will I be able to develop any relationship if I’m just waiting for them to run away? I needed to identify and stop the negative thinking from convincing me of these lies. Also, to give a little more trust; not every person I meet is going to treat me poorly.
My first step in becoming happy and healthy again was to acknowledge I was struggling. I didn’t know how to “fix” what was going on in my mind. Once I gained the correct coping skills, I could navigate how to get myself out of the hole. I decided to finally take control of my happiness.
