Habits & Rituals that preserve my mental health (& maybe will help preserve yours too)

(TW: conversation about mental health, suicide, eating disorders, PLEASE BE ADVISED.)

This may be common knowledge for some, but my journey so far has been anything but the typical, when you think of a typical family and typical upbringing. My mom and dad fought every night until I was 9, which only stopped when my dad moved out and filed for a custody agreement. Full time custody was granted only a couple months later, to my dad, because my mom was a severe alcoholic and couldn't stay sober for the life of her. My dad worked non-stop, so my brother and I went to daycare in the morning, and hung out with my grandparents or with each other in the evening. So if it wasn't Grammy and Pop acting as mom and dad, it was me acting as mom. When my dad wasn't working you could probably find him yelling at me for some minuscule reason, or trying desperately to work things out with my mom, who was either in jail or in rehab. My parents didn't get divorced officially until the summer of 2015, so there was 5 years of painful screaming matches, sh*t talking, and plenty of other fun and traumatizing situations that my parents made me endure. Sadly, my mom then committed suicide Christmas of 2015. This was hard for my family because we now were living as a blended family, my brother, dad, and I, with my dad's girlfriend and her daughter. Tensions were heightened after this situation because not only was there 5 years of tension between my mom and my dad, there was also now tension that had been growing between my dad and his gf for a couple of years that basically blasted open to a "pandora's box" type issue with the suicide. Things proceeded with tension and more fighting nearly every day until, by surprise, I was woken up the night of December 13, 2017, to ultimately find out that my dad had also committed suicide. WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK.

I forgot to mention that with this blended family unit, things were not all peaches and cream on my end. I suffered greatly with being able to have a healthy and productive relationship with my dad's gf and her kid, so I was stuck feeling like the "black sheep" in 99% of instances, and in the moment I lost my dad, my only thought was that I had no one to save me and I was truly, completely alone.

I went on to finish high school and start at a college, all while suffering in silence with severe mental health issues, convincing myself daily there was no way I was mentally ill, because "I was able to get out of bed everyday" and "complete all these seemingly ~productive~ activities". And after a year of being an hour away at college, my depression had completely consumed me, my anxiety was only making the depression worse, and I had chiseled myself down to barely anything physically, because I had also started peaking in a complex eating-disorder after my dad passed away.

The best thing that my dad's gf did for me was force me to get help. I was going to therapy three times a week and to a nutritionist once a week. So yes, 4/7 days of my week were forced to be dedicated to mental health. That might be some people's nightmare, but for me, being forced to slow down, not go to school, work less, sleep more, all these things were prompting me to start healing my deep internal wounds.

It's now been three years since I started my healing process. There is lot of knowledge I have accrued for my "toolbox", plenty more to still be learned, but there are a handful of things that I cannot live without already. These "tools" make daily life easier, and help remind me that I am deserving of relaxation, peace, and enjoyment any time, any day. As anyone can say, these things are easier said than done, but reminding yourself that you are the controller of your time is the greatest asset in being able to support yourself in these ways.

1. Meditation / Using Breathing Methods & Techniques- I group these together because for me, the practice of meditation is also the practice of breath. I often times find myself holding my breath when I am stressed, anxious, or trying to get through something difficult. I used to not be aware of this habit, but the more I began to slow down and come back into connection with my body, the more I noticed. If I'm not holding my breath, my breath is extremely shallow, like I'm trying to not take-up space. So practicing meditation has a lot of benefit for me, however, getting started is easier said than done. I had a lot of preconceived notions about what meditation was, and perhaps like you, I had this idea in my head that meditation needed to be this big thing, with candles and incense, bolsters, blankets, little bells, and a yogi in the center, seemingly in a perfect, blissful, trance. Sometimes it can be like that, if I have the time and feel like setting the space, perhaps maybe my meditation looks like this after practicing yoga. But often times a meditation for me is counting my inhale (1), then my exhale (2), until 10, then restarting, until I feel I've returned to a level of calm. And that is just as much meditation as the other description. Whether it's fancy or whether its simple, the goal is to calm the "monkey mind" and to connect to your breath. And in my experience, both are a challenge within themselves, but taking the time, 1 minute or 10 minutes, the benefits are still the same. Reduced stress, a clearer mind, the ability to take a deep breath, the ability to react to difficult/stressful scenarios in a calmer manner, etc.

2. Balance of Rest / Movement- When I was deep in my mental health battles, exercise and moving my body was a form of abuse for myself. Coupled with extreme diet restriction, I'd force myself to walk/jog x amount of miles a day, stay active for x amount of minutes a day, and make sure I'd always be working on toning my physique in some way. As if life isn't tiring enough. Like I said before, when I began my healing process 4/7 days of the week were dedicated to getting help so by the time I was finished with all those activities for the week, I was exhausted! Somewhere in my brain there was the over-arching thought "but you need to do this because it's what you do", but my exhaustion and need for rest far outweighed that cry. And suddenly after years of not being able to fall asleep until 3am, then only getting a few hours of sleep, I was sleeping for 10-12 hours a day and falling asleep with little to no issue at all. This continued for months until I began to struggle to get out of bed. Which I had to reflect on why this was happening, and for me, it was connected to an internal issue I was dealing with (and not doing a very good job handling). While getting all this rest I was not focusing on moving my body, really only if I felt called to, and at most it was a slow-yoga session that I probably fell asleep in a child's pose during.... I've reflected and I know this period of time was meant for rest and was a continuation of re-connection to my body, but it was also in this time that I began to appreciate and realize I find solace and my ability problem-solve through certain movement of my body, more specifically, through yoga and mindful walking. The goal these days? To prioritize sleep and make sure I get movement in when I'm feeling anxious. Most work days I try to get a yoga session in because it truly transforms my ability to problem solve and not totally freak TF out!

3. Balance of Home Cooked Meals vs. Frozen- another realization for me was that I truly do not enjoy frozen food that much... sorry to all my lovers out there, there's more servings for you now! For a period of time in my life, I was forced to eat nothing but frozen food, and when I wanted nothing more than my mom's delicious home-cooked meals, this felt like absolute torture for me. When I was really ~going through it~, I trained myself into thinking that eating frozen food would be the bane of my existence, so I forced myself to do nothing but cook from scratch. I should mention that I was also a practicing vegan at this time so things were very interesting, so to speak. A huge part of staying mentally well for me on a week by week basis includes the balance of having healthy, home-cooked, minimally processed, nutrient-dense food, coupled with my favourite frozen food items that I will be happy to enjoy the nights I don't feel like cooking. Personal enjoyment/fulfillment on the nights I want to be healthy, and personal enjoyment/fulfillment/comfort on the nights I want to veg. For me this is my practice of food freedom.

4. Seeing a Therapist / Holistic Practitioner- After seeing my therapist/nutritionist for almost a year, my sessions were reduced and I was starting to feel like I could grasp some situations without being mentally knocked 3 pegs down. And just when I had this feeling, I was tested by the universe, and by a series of unfortunate events, our insurance was lost, meaning I could not longer see these people that were providing such great foundations for my healing. I dabbled with trying to convince myself I was "good without therapy". Haha. No one with the amount of trauma that I have endured will ever be good without some level of therapy, whatever that means to you. So I was now on the mission to find something new. And like they say when you are on this healing/spiritual journey I am on, "all in divine timing"; I was going to yoga classes at a studio in Fogelsville, PA and I kept crossing paths with a young woman that had held a Full Moon Ritual I had gone to months prior. She was teaching yoga at the studio, but I knew she had also had her own business involved with yoga and sound healing. I admired her greatly and was completely drawn to her for some reason. One thing led to another and I found myself at an appointment with her only a few weeks after I had lost ability to see my therapist. Her presence was completely comforting, like being wrapped in a warm towel, fresh out of dryer. Within a few moments of a 1on1 appointment with her, I KNEW she was a mentor and a healer for me. She explained everything she did and what her practicing title was. Yoga, reiki, crystal-bowl sound baths, and seemingly the most simple thing, conversation, which I now know is much more than that.

5. Journaling- What do all the wellness girls on youtube (maybe TikTok?) suggest? Journaling. *Insert vomit emoji.* Someone must have did me dirty in my life that I just cannot remember because getting me to write in a journal consistently is like trying to get a toddler to be entertained with something for more than 20 minutes (if you're lucky lol). This has been quite possibly the hardest habit for me to stick to, or even attempt to "practice consistently" in any way. And yet at the same time it is also majorly rewarding for me every time I allow myself to have a session with my journal. Like meditation, I had/at times still have this idea in my mind of "what journaling is/needs to be" and to put it short, its basically an aesthetically pleasing youtube video, par for the course with the idea of meditation, lol. This is not what journaling is. Can it be that at times, perhaps on a rainy Sunday, when the lighting is absolutely perfect, your bed is made, your laundry is put away, you have a candle lit, and you decide it's a perfect time to open your journal up... surely it can. But on most days it's in the lull between after getting ready for work, perhaps waiting for the time to head out of the door, and that has been something that hasn't been the easiest for me to accept. However this, I push through regardless and force myself to carry the journal with me, actually multiple, one for work too, and over the course of 5 journals, there's now a tiny round of applause that has formed that congratulates me and tells me "I did it" when I pull my journal out and accomplish something with it. So if I told you at some point you'd feel good about journaling, and it doesn't need to be a huge thing, would you wanna do it too?

This combination of habits has formed some form of ritual for me, and keeps me mentally-well (for the most part), on a weekly basis. Some days are harder than others, and those are the days I fill my days with more of the self-care habits I enjoy and benefit from. I hope that perhaps these habits can serve you in a similar way they have for me, and if not, I guess you just read an article on a bit of how I take care of myself, lol!

Love, Chloe