 Hello there my beautiful internet friends, welcome back to my channel. I Tried to film like 17 other videos today and by tried to I mean I literally laid on the floor staring up at the ceiling Thinking I should really do something with my life and with my day But I couldn't and I haven't been able to in days because my old friend who's not a friend depression has come visiting the dark cloud has settled over me and Things are getting progressively harder every day as it sort of Sinks its teeth in and I wanted to do two things today first of all I wanted to show you what this looks like for me and then also Mention a thing or two about surviving not what we normally hear about it. I Should be working right now. I should be Editing things I got done with my normal job earlier and now's my time did I need to work on this stuff? and I haven't been able to in days because I think everything I could possibly say is worthless and meaningless and boring and why would anyone care to listen and As far as what it actually physically looks like I have a full face of makeup on it's a few hours old and gray Whatever this is sweater and then I have athletic shorts on because I was too exhausted to change out of The rest of my clothing I got the pants done But I couldn't do the rest of it stumbled my way downstairs and just plopped everything down here And I'm watching some absolute trash TV in the form of the bachelor that that you see right there that that that purple open bag is Kettle corn that I'm eating because I don't have any other food in the house I haven't really eaten all day because that takes too much energy. I really think sometimes we demonize unhealthy coping mechanisms and Then it gets really overwhelming because when you're depressed When you're dealing with some kind of mental health issue Trying to do the right thing is Exhausting trying to do anything is Exhausting and so if I sit here and I think I should go to the grocery store. I should get good food I should go to that thing. I said I was gonna go to tonight. I should not watch trash TV That's probably not great for my mind I should clean my house up and put real freaking pants on and what I don't even know what all these things are My house is a mess and the floors are covered in dirt from the dogs I should I should clean my house. That'd make me feel better. I should go outside with my dogs It's something that my my therapist and I talked about a lot is the fact that Coping however, you need to cope for a short period of time isn't wrong like if I cannot get out of the house That's okay. If I need to lay here for four hours with the heating pad on and watch mindless crap Is that particularly good for me? No But is it bad? No, if it's how I'm gonna make it to the end of today without Sobbing or getting self-destructive if all I can do is sit here the rest of the day Half-dressed full face of makeup still on sitting in darkness with my dogs around me That's okay. I think we underestimate how much energy Surviving is like I got up this morning. I did all the right things I got up on time and I had kind of breakfast not really I exercised I Listened to a book before getting on social media or anything like that took a shower. I got ready for the day and the entire time I was just feeling progressively horrible progressively miserably worse and so Hopeless and dead and depressed. I wonder that we all don't put too much pressure on ourselves Sometimes to cope the right way There are healthy coping mechanisms and they're not healthy ones And I think this is all the within reason sort of thing like I'm not talking about if doing that helps you Just you know go ahead and do it No, but within a reason if I'm zoning out and scrolling through social media for an hour and a half I know that's not good for my mind, but if that's what I need to do for a day to make it through That's okay I don't think that there's any shame in that if I need to stay here on this couch The rest of the night if I cannot do anything if I'm just here almost in tears just from How I feel That's okay. You don't have to cope the right way You don't have to deal with Prussian depression the right way because there isn't a right way It's it's what's gonna get you through and I think it's a process of progressively incorporating more and more things that are Better for us and are gonna get us in a healthier mindset Faster, but I don't know about you I sometimes get caught in the spiral of being like I need to do all of the right things To get to a better place and that just gets me to a worse place because I'm failing doing those right things because I can't think I can't speak I can't move I Guess what I'm saying here is there's no shame in survival There's no shame in coping however you need to cope and taking care of yourself in canceling commitments and maybe not going Outside for a day if you just can't if you hear all that munching. It's the dogs eating food in the background but I hope I made it clear on my channel that I am all about good mental health strategies and Healthy ways of dealing with things and moving forward, but I think sometimes I Get so caught up in all of this shoulds what I should do. What's the healthiest thing to do? I end up just crippling myself because I can't I can't do it I can't check all the boxes and I feel like a failure anyways There isn't a perfect or right way to deal with depression and I get so caught up in Trying to do it right that I just feel so much worse about myself. I just feel like absolute Crap because I already feel like I'm failing and I feel like I'm failing at trying to not fail And then I just end up hating myself and that's no way to live. That's no way to get through this It takes enough freaking energy to exist through depression and fight through it That I'm not gonna worry about doing everything right. I'm gonna worry about doing two things, right? First one is making it to the end of today Gonna do that and Then the second one is I'm going to reach out to someone and let them know what's going on I'm going to talk to my friend and my husband and just be like hey things are really dark Those are both healthy things to do and I'm gonna do those things today and Aside from that I'm gonna say it's okay to sit on the couch and do nothing and Not worry about trying to do things right because I don't think there's a right way to survive I don't think there's a right way to get through things you just get through in the best you can and hopefully maybe do a tiny little bit Better every time a really important piece of this for me is that there's a difference between coping and processing in The middle of depression or anxiety or panic attack or fill in the blank. That's coping it's doing what we need to survive and Like slowly improving on those things slowly figuring out what's what's best for us But then there's processing after so as I come through this Continuing to invest in my mental health continuing to invest in Self-awareness and what I can do to better take care of myself But that's hard work and I don't need to worry about that kind of hard work when I am trying to breathe I need to worry about Breathing and you focus my energy on that and getting through Just fighting through and existing and that doesn't always look pretty and that doesn't always look right And I put a lot of shame and blame and judgment on myself when I'm not doing everything the right way When I'm really really struggling and I want to stop doing that because I'm exhausted and I want to keep breathing And I'm gonna keep breathing and right now This is what That looks like for me my sweet Sophie. She takes really good care of me So I'm gonna lay back down. I'm gonna watch some trashy TV shows with my sweet little puppies I need some more popcorn and Probably get Brian to bring me some real food later wherever you are in the world I hope you are taking care of yourself or whatever that looks like for you I hope you're hanging in there and I'll hang in there, too, and we'll get through it together Thanks for listening guys. I love you. I'm thinking about you and we will see you in the next video Bye guys