Love and Happiness with a Mental Illness

Those of us with a mental illness have a tendency to love to much or to little. We haven't learned how to truly find the happiness that we deserve instead we always settle for what we get or what we feel we deserve. They tell us to love ourself, but those of us with a mental illness rarely have the strength to love ourselves, let alone someone else. So where do we find the strength? 

I've finally (let me rephrase that, "i think I've finally") learned the answer on how to love myself. Repetition! By giving myself self talks and learning to believe in what I'm telling myself I have learned to love myself for the first time in my life. It was a very long and very hard process, but I was able to do it when I had NO faith in myself.

I know many of you are saying; "that's you, not all of us can do that."

Stop doubting and start believing in yourself. You are all better then that! Don't live in your disease, don't live in your past, and never forget your better then all those put together. 

The way we go about getting our mind to think things over and over is by repeating things to yourself that are meaningful and encouraging. Find something to tell yourself a few times a day, the trick though is not to make negative comments, have negative thoughts, or do negative actions. Yes I know it's hard not to do these things while we have a mental illness but we have to overcome it at some point, otherwise how do we expect to start to feel better?

No one is better at destroying our relationships then us. We either love to much or love to little, yet we hang on to what we got because we feel that we can't get anything better then what we currently have. When we do have a great relationship, those of us with a mental illness self destruct, ruining what possibly could have been the best relationship we have ever found. I know, I destroyed 2 wonderful relationships where I always felt they wanted something better then me because I had no self esteem and didn't think either of them truly loved me. 

Find strength in yourself to do the right thing; if your in a crappy relationship and your only holding on because you think you can't get anything better or if your self destructing please do the right thing and inform the person your with what is going on with you then you might just be surprised at their reaction. 

Take pride in yourself and what you do. Learn to love yourself and you'll see the difference in how your mind works. You'll start to feel pride and joy in your actions and thoughts. You'll have strength to believe in yourself. Be repetitious in your thoughts, positive thinking, and your actions. Be positive! 

Start small, make lists and hang them up where you'll see them, look in the mirror and tell yourself truthful amazing things about yourself, find something that is a constant bright spot in your life, spend time looking up at the stars.

There are a million ways that you can start to feel better about yourself, the choice is to find one that makes you happy. Start pleasing yourself, not everyone else.....