We all have them, right? Some more than others. And some worse than others. But today I want to talk about falling back into bad habits after learning to break them.

Mental health is a big part of my life, as you may know, and I’ve learned what my bad habits are when it comes to my mental health. I went through a long and slow process of changing the things that were harmful to me.

Identifying them was difficult, and changing those bad habits didn’t come easy either, but slowly and surely, I learned to break some of them rooted within me for years.

I’ve spoken about one of them before actually, it’s that negative ‘what if’ game you play in your head when confronted with something.

Over the last few months, things have been a little all over the place. When you have to learn to accept something completely out of your control and change how you view it, there is a lot of peace that comes with learning that for yourself.

So, you sit in that peace for a while. It feels foreign to you though, because you’ve never had that kind of peace before.

But before long, something else had happened. This wasn’t something directly involving me though, I was giving support to someone else. But being a support person for someone when you certainly don’t feel strong enough to be one, isn’t easy to sit in.

I was constantly second-guessing myself, fearful I wasn’t doing right by them. I was worried I was giving the wrong type of support, and unsure of everything.

I turned to others in my life and leaned on them for advice. I was assured I was doing a great job, and that who I was, always consistent in my support, was enough.

I didn’t feel confident in my abilities though, and I felt like I stumbled through it. As I/we came through the other side of it, things weren’t as bad as I thought they were.

I keep reminding myself of my strength and where it comes from. I remind myself that someone needed me as their support person and that it was because I had the strength to offer it.

Fast forward some time, and here I am faced with something personal, something confronting. And unfortunately, everything I had worked so hard to change, went right out the window. I fell right back into those bad habits I’d worked so hard to change.

I fell down that rabbit hole so quickly, it was shocking. I was angry at myself. How and why did I allow that to happen? Knowing how damaging it is for me. Where had all the new positive changes I’d made in my life gone?

While I understand that I needed time to process it, what I didn’t understand was in that time frame, I fell down that rabbit hole of bad habits.

Every bad thought I could imagine went through my mind. And it had me sitting alone in the darkness.

I believed that I’d have to face it alone. That I wouldn’t be worth having around with this new challenge I was now facing. That I would fall back into old habits and revert to that person I worked so hard to evolve from.

I remember feeling slightly horrified at the thought of going back to that person. That feeling alone was enough to pull me up a little.

This was a deep revulsion actually, and gave me strength. It helped me see that in the moment I may have felt weak and allowed myself to fall but overall I knew I wouldn’t let myself be that version of myself again.

I’ve come too far; I’ve grown too much and learned too much about myself. And with that, I found the strength to sit with those fears and come up with a plan on how to deal with these challenges, mentally and emotionally.

I know in the future I will be faced with something confronting again. I know that I will need time to process what I might be challenged with but unlike this last time, I will be more aware of how I might react again.

Next time I will remember my strength, I will remember I am not alone, that I am loved, and supported.

Navigating mental health is never easy. Even when you believe you are coming out the other side of it. But mental health or illness has the ability to drag you back in, and quickly as it were in my case. Thankfully though, I didn’t fall completely back into old destructive bad habits, due to the support I have in my life.

I’ve said it once and I’ll keep saying it. It’s incredibly important to have strong support systems in place around you.

Throughout all of this, I’ve been quiet on my blog. Not something I liked but it was necessary for me to be able to process and manage the things I was faced with. Now though, I hope to get back on track. As I enjoy writing and sharing things I find interesting, or helpful tips here and there.

If you need to reach out, feel free to contact me, I’m always here to help out where I can.

Until next time, remember…

Be kind to yourself. x