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why getting better feels like getting worse. · feel your feelings with Ethan Jewell

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  Getting better often feels like you're getting worse.
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  And that is a cruel, cruel joke that our own mental illness
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  plays on us because we're sold this idea that our mental health
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  journey will be continuous. If we just work hard enough, if
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  we just take care of ourselves, magically we will start to feel
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  better. We will be healed.
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  But that's not what happens When you heal.
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  You lose a piece of yourself, a very real, although sick piece
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  of yourself. The pain becomes comfortable.
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  The trauma often feels manageable.
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  There is a level of identity that comes with struggling,
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  being the person that struggles, being the person who is hurting,
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  who needs a little extra patience, a little extra time, a
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  helping hand here and there. But the truth is, that's not
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  real comfort. That's not real happiness, and
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  you have to keep pushing through that and get rid of that version
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  of yourself in order to heal. And that is a real, genuine
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  loss. My name is Ethan Jewell, and
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  welcome back to Feel Your Feelings.
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  Mental health is complicated, obviously, everybody knows that.
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  That's not some big secret. But it's complicated in ways
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  that often surprise people, and often in ways that don't really
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  make sense until you experience them.
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  I remember when I first committed to healing, I was
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  trying to learn a lot about healing.
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  I started going to therapy. I was doing research, I was
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  experimenting. I was kind of being my own
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  little Guinea pig. I was trying anything and
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  everything. And one thing I remember reading
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  online is that you might feel worse before you get better.
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  And that didn't make any sense to me because I thought, well,
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  I'm getting better. I'm moving towards something
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  good. I'm moving towards feeling good.
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  Of course I'm going to feel better.
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  That doesn't make any sense. How am I possibly going to feel
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  worse when I'm putting so much time and energy into feeling
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  better? But unfortunately, over the
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  years and years that I spent trying to get better, I learned
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  that that is exactly the case. When you're healing your mental
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  health, you don't expect to grieve the hurt parts of you.
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  You don't expect to mourn over the trauma that you are healing.
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  It doesn't make a lot of sense, but you are losing something.
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  You're losing the version of you that you have been for so many
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  years. We find identity within sadness,
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  we find parts of ourselves in that mental illness, and when
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  you experience that for long enough, it becomes deeply
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  ingrained within you. I personally identified myself
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  with my depression and I would think to myself, I am, I am
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  depressed. That's who I am.
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  I am Ethan and I am depressed. But that's the problem.
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  That labeling that gets ingrained in US for years while
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  we are struggling becomes who we are instead of what we are
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  experiencing. And it took me a long time to
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  learn that I am not depressed. I am experiencing depression.
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  I am not anxious, I am experiencing anxiety.
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  There's a very, very big gap here.
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  And I know it sounds trivial. I know it sounds like that
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  shouldn't matter. But the things that we tell
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  ourselves everyday we become, there are many studies out
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  there. Once again, I'm not a doctor,
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  I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a scientist.
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  So I heavily encourage you to look into this yourself.
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  But I've personally experienced this and I've read these studies
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  that tell us we are what we think.
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  So when every single day for years I was telling myself I am
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  depressed, I am anxious. Of course I became those things.
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  I centered my identity around them.
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  I was no longer Ethan, I was Ethan who is depressed.
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  And that is a problem because that becomes a part of us.
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  And when we try to heal it, we have to RIP ourselves away from
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  the core identity that we have had for so long.
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  And it's not just what we tell ourselves.
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  There truly is comfort within being mentally ill.
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  You go to bed at night feeling bad, feeling upset, and you know
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  that you are going to wake up the next day feeling that way.
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  It's consistent. You know how you're going to
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  feel when you surrender yourself to this mental illness.
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  You know that you are going to feel bad, and even though it
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  feels bad, it feels consistent. You know how you're going to
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  feel and that's comfortable. When you are deeply I'll, when
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  you are surviving, it kind of feels nice to have some sort of
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  consistency to grasp onto, even if it's coming from the thing
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  that is causing all of your suffering.
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  We find comfort within the very thing that is hurting us.
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  It feels good to know exactly how you're going to feel
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  tomorrow, and healing rips you out of that comfort zone every
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  single day. You have to get uncomfortable.
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  You have to try to fight this place that you have been in for
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  so long. And it's very, very, very
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  uncomfortable because you go to bed at night and you're not
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  going to know how you're going to feel in the morning.
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  You might feel better from all the effort you've been putting
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  in, or maybe you'll feel worse, and then that will feel like
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  failure and it hits 10 times worse.
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  It is already hard to heal your mental health.
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  But to heal your mental health while also finding a new
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  identity, finding who you are outside of this sickness,
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  outside of this illness that is an entirely new battle itself.
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  Trying to get better can feel worse.
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  And I think that's something that is really important to just
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  talk about. Because if you start trying to
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  heal and you're not expecting that, it can catch you
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  completely by surprise. But if you are expecting it, you
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  can do a few things to help manage your expectations, to
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  help with the healing process, to help you find who you truly
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  are at your core, to help you find who you are outside of your
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  struggles, outside of that illness that you found comfort
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  in. And we can keep going.
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  We can understand that this isn't a linear process.
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  We don't go from point A to point B and we are sold that.
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  We're told by mental health gurus that we just have to
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  follow their, their, their plan. We just have to buy their course
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  and we'll be able to go from point A to point B.
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  We're sold this in movies, in this triumphant arc that we
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  often see the main character go through where they're
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  struggling, where they're in a horrible place, and then they
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  just keep going and suddenly they're in the better place.
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  It it's not that simple and it's even harder when healing feels
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  like failing. So what do we do?
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  I hate to say it and often these kind of solution part of the
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  podcasts sound kind of the same, but the truth is we have to be
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  able to manage our expectations. It all starts with the mindset
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  and that is once again just a a very cliche thing to say, but it
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  is true. So first, we can kind of
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  restructure the language that we use.
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  Instead of saying things like I am depressed or I am anxious, we
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  can say small changes like I'm feeling depressed, I'm feeling
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  anxious. It sounds like it won't do
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  anything. But if you spend years telling
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  yourself the same thing, you become the message that you tell
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  yourself. So if you tell yourself that you
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  are depressed, you will form more of an identity around that
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  versus saying I am feeling depressed.
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  There's a very big gap in difference between those two
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  things, things between those two statements.
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  And if we're careful about the language that we use, it can
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  make a small difference. It's a little change, but it can
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  make a serious impact. Next, we need to understand that
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  we have to get out of our comfort zone in order to heal.
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  Nobody is coming to save us. That is a hard truth that I had
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  to learn early on in my mental health journey.
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  Nobody's coming. There is no magic switch.
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  There is no saviour. There is no new person that's
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  going to walk into my life and suddenly tell me step by step
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  what I need to do. That's a hard truth, but it also
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  is empowering. It's a reminder that you are
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  capable of healing. You are capable of pulling
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  yourself out of this hole, no matter how bad it feels.
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  And you can do it. But it starts with you.
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  It starts and ends with you. So you have to start doing one
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  small thing every day that is uncomfortable, that's outside of
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  the normal things that you do day-to-day.
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  And you have to start pushing yourself further and further.
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  You have to feel those feelings when they come up, no matter how
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  uncomfortable that is. You have to push yourself maybe
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  to to leave your room, to interact with other people, to
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  drink water, to go get professional help, to reach out
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  to a friend. Step by step by step.
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  You have to start ridiculously small.
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  But before you know it, habits will build and it starts with
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  you. And you have to be prepared that
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  it will be uncomfortable, that at first it will feel like
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  you're not even healing, like you're falling further and
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  further behind. Because sometimes healing feels
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  like losing a part of yourself. But you have to remember that
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  that's part of the process that you have to push through that,
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  that you have to be able to lose that part of yourself in order
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  to grow into something new. You have the power.
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  You are able to heal and it will feel uncomfortable, it will feel
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  new, it will feel foreign, but you can do it.
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  All of the tools are right in front of you, you just have to
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  start. This felt like an important
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  message to share because I was thinking back on when I first
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  started my healing journey and how I thought that it was going
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  to feel a certain way and then it didn't.
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  I thought it was going to feel like healing, but often it felt
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  like failing. So if you are at the starting
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  line right now, if you are just beginning and you feel like it's
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  only getting worse, that might be a sign that you're on the
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  right track, that you need to just keep going and maybe one
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  day you'll be so glad that you ever started.
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  That's going to wrap it up for today's episode.
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  Thank you so much for being here.
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  If you need help feeling your feelings, you should check out
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  my music on all platforms under the name of Ethan Jewell.
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  I almost guarantee it'll make you cry.
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  Also, if you like this podcast, one of the best ways you can
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  support me is by grabbing merch. I'll link it in the description
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  below. Please drop me a comment and let
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  me know what you think about today's episode.
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  If you have experienced this feeling of trying to heal and
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  feeling like you're falling further and further behind.
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  So thank you so much for being here.
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  Thank you for understanding that healing feeling doesn't always
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  feel like healing. And as always, thank you for
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  feeling your feelings. I'll see you next time.