If you have or had mental health issues for multiple years, you must be tired of the phrase - "everything will be okay". Out of all the boilerplate phrases such as "take rest, do something you enjoy, go on a trip, pick a new hobby" etc., the promise of everything being okay soon feels the most empty.
I have personally started experiencing that people around us are getting more and more depressed and obsessed with counter-productive things.
So let's finally address this issue once and for all.
When is it going to get better? So much time has passed, why hasn't it gotten better already? Will it EVER get better?
I will try to answer this with well-established scientfic research but before that, what you are going to read next applies to conditions such as depression, anxiety, ADHD etc. and is not entirely helpful for severe diorders such as schizophrenia. With that out of the way, let's talk about neuroplasticity.
Neuroplasticity
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man."
― Heraclitus
It is fairly obvious that a person can change as they accquire new experiences but did you know that your brain physically changes when it has new type of information?
In 2008, a research paper was published about "neuroanatomic plasticity" or neuroplasticity. The term neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections. This means that the state of a brain is not fixed or hardwired. It changes in response to experiences and it does not have a choice, it has to. [^neuroplasticity]
If you are a dancer, learning a few new moves will not change your brain as much as learning to swim would. It's not about new information - it's about new type of information.
Living in a new enviornment, learning a new language or a skill, even having new types of conversations or thoughts - they will all form tons of new neural connections in your brain.
This suggests that we must break our daily loop, get out of our comfort zone and do something drastically different. Unfortunately, almost with every mental illness comes free the inability to function correctly. Some feel exhausted, some afraid and others fighting their own demons.
If we need to get out of our comfort zone but our mental illness won't let us, how will our brain change? How will our situation ever get better?
How the brain gets wired
If you ask me why I do a certain thing, I can point out exactly how I picked it up.
- Perfectionism? Everyone appreciated my results but never the failed efforts. I was made to believe that the end result is the only thing that matters and it must be "perfect".
- Working hard? I saw my sisters pull our family out of poverty with sheer hard work. I know the extent of human potential and what one can do with it.
- Creativity? I spent most of my childhood playing alone which pushed me to design my own games. It wired my brain in a certain way, a creative way.
I can go on but the point is, everything about us is a result of experiences.
We become what we experience, there are no exceptions. A major chunk of our personality is shaped by our childhood. An age where one has little to no control over their life. That's just sad if you think about it.
Sure, you can think of an exception like a good kid raised by a bad family. How does that happen? Well, they must have been influenced by something else - like a movie, some outsiders, or even just a book. Nothing comes from within unless intended, it's all acquired.
The treatment
Things such as proper nutrition[^nutrition], sleep[^sleep] and exercise[^exercise] are known to improve mental health but as pointed out ealier, severly dysnfuntional individuals may not able to do any of that.
This is why, the journey to fix it all starts with a visit to a psychatrist. They will analyse your state and recommend an appropriate treatment.
The treatment may include medication, therapy or both. If your condition doesn't get better, they will keep trying with different medications. You should remember that if a medicine doesn't work, it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you. It's just that our brains are complex and different things work for different people.
Hang in there and keep trying until you find a fit. You might also want to consult multiple psychatrists and therapists to decrease the chances of human error.
What's the treatment for?
We learned in school how vitamin and minerals are essentials for our body to function properly. Just like our body, our brain relys on a variety of chemicals and will not function correctly if their quantity is not in a healthy range.
For example, the process to build chemicals called serotonin (responsible for a stable mood and sleep) and dopamine (gives you motivation to do things) requires vitamin B6 and other things. With lack of vitamin B6, no matter what you do, your mood won't improve and you won't have the motivation to work. See how important these chemicals are?
Apart from these chemicals, there's also a psychological aspect to your mental health - your thoughts. If the way you think is flawed, no amount of nutrition can help you live well. Luckily, different types of therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Trauma-focused Therapy can gradually help you understand your psyche and change how you think.
Both of these things combined or individually may fix your issues completely, leave a few crumbs or only take you halfway there. I do not have the statistics to make any claims but what I do know is that you should see treatment as way to become more funtional not as a guarnteed cure.
From there, use whatever amount of functionality you have restored to do the things you need to do to improve your brain further. Neuroplasticity, remember? You can change your brain by accquiring new types of information? Yes, do that.
I will end this article with a tldr-style list of things to help you but the entire point of this article is to answer "will it ever get better?". And we have a answer, it can.
less internet scrolling, learning new things, proper sleep, exercise, nutrition, self-compassion, mindfulness, interacting with better people, medication, cleaning up your room, having a pet, taking cold showers.
I have several flaws, just like any other person. One of them is that I tend to avoid conflicts. In relationships, I shrug off things that hurt me.
I don't think one should avoid conflicts, why am I like this then? Well as a kid, I saw nothing but arguments leading up to violence in my family. It has been programmed in my mind that nothing good comes out of conflicts.
Let's talk more about this, 'brain programming'.
Why does self-hate make zero sense
Did you wake up one day and say, "I am going to hate my body from now on". Did you ask for trust issues? No. Did you want to be physically unattractive? No.
If we got to choose our traits, no one would pick bad things. This is not a choice you make, so why blame yourself?
This may sound like a excuse to avoid responsibilty for your faults but there's more to it. Before we talk about "faults", let me say it firmly again:
- If you got to choose, you would never pick things you hate about yourself. You didn't get to choose.
- And if you didn't have a choice, you are just a victim. It makes zero sense to blame yourself for something that happened TO YOU.
Why regrets make zero sense
I want you to think about something you deeply regret. Close your eyes, put yourself in the place of your past self, and think what could have you have done to avoid this regret. Think.
We want the best for us, we make decisions that we think are the right. Bad purchases, dating the wrong people, career mistakes - we don't want any of it but we end up making bad decisions anyways because,
- Lack of information
- Human brains are complex and flawed
Let's talk about these in detail.
Lack of information
You wouldn't buy a product if you knew a better alternative is available in the market for a similar or lower price. You wouldn't trust a person if you knew they are going to betray you.
Don't beat yourself up for making a decision where the important information was hidden from you. You made the best decision based on what information you had and that's what any sane person does. I give you a gentle pat on your head for that, good job! ~pat, pat~
Our brains are flawed
Sometimes, everything you need to know is there but you still make a bad decision. Been there, done that, will keeping doing it.
Been in a toxic relationship? I have. Everything was happening in front of me but I still chose to stay. What was I thinking? A lot, I was thinking a lot - but with my biased thinking process.
- I was afraid of the void that would have been left by cutting that person off. I had no 'replacement' for their role in my life.
- I invested too much into that relationship which made me afraid of losing it so I wanted to try my best to save it.
- As I mentioned at the start, I avoid conflicts. I let it happen as long as I could, I didn't bring it up.
I could have made a rational decision of parting ways with them. But, it is very difficult if not impossible to think completely rationally. Each of our decisions are affected by our mental state and internal biases. "Why couldn't I think straight?", it's biology - you don't control it. There are more than a hundred known cognitive biases; it is in fact impossible to think rationally all the time.
I will just wrap this entire section with this,
Regret is like blaming a robot for making decisions based on its programming and input. The input is the information about the situation, programming is the thinking process shaped by life experiences.
Note this down somewhere
The title of this article is a lie, there's nothing to overcome. We just discussed how both of these feelings are baseless, they are made up by your mind.
Do you have an issue? Start by knowing that you received it, you didn't ask for it - no need to hate yourself. Second, try to fix it if you can otherwise talk to a therapist.
Do you have a regret, think you made a mistake? Start by knowing that you did the best thing your mind could come up with. That's it, if you think you would have made a better choice if you could go back in past - it is only because you are in a different mental state now and you have already witnessed what happens if you choose what you did.
Disclaimer
The purpose of this article is not to tell you that "it's all in your head", your issues are completely valid. I have just made an attempt to provide clarity on how the brain works and why you do not have control over the majority of things even when you think you do.
Find a way to self-acceptance; either through introspection or with the help of a mental health professional.
Good luck!
[^neuroplasticity]: Source: Draganski, B., & May, A. (2008). Training-induced structural changes in the adult human brain. Behavioural Brain Research [^nutrition]: Source: Freeman, M. P. (2009). Omega-3 fatty acids and depression: Scientific evidence and biological mechanisms. Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity [^sleep]: Source: Sleep and mental disorders: A meta-analysis of polysomnographic research [^exercise]: Source: Blumenthal, J. A., Babyak, M. A., Doraiswamy, P. M., Watkins, L., Hoffman, B. M., Barbour, K. A., … & Sherwood, A. (2007). Exercise and pharmacotherapy in the treatment of major depressive disorder. Psychosomatic Medicine