When it’s Hard to Get Out of Bed

Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream.

William Shakespeare

Most days, the hardest thing for me is getting out of bed in the morning. The decision to get up and start the day, is the hardest one that I make all day. I’m easily overwhelmed thinking about the day ahead, no matter what I’m doing or how busy I am. Anxiety can definitely make you irrational, and make you believe that things are going to be worse than they actually are. So each morning, it’s an internal battle for me. Weighing my irrational & rational sides. Deciding each day to be bigger than my anxiety and depression. And doing all of that is really hard. Exhausting even. I’m not here to pretend it isn’t, I’m just here to let you know that if I can do it everyday, you can too. Something that has helped me get out of bed is having something to do as soon as I get up. That thing right now is skincare. I’ve never been a person who really cared about what my skin looked like, and I definitely have no talent when it comes to makeup. So doing something for my skin is new for me. But it has become something I look forward to doing everyday. It’s literally 3 steps and takes 5 minutes, but if I do it, I feel like I’ve accomplished something for the day already. I’ve learned throughout my journey with mental illness, that having small goals to accomplish each day helps me carry on with all of the other things I have to do that particular day. They’re goals that I know I can do, but it still feels really good when I accomplish them. They’re small victories to be proud of. I also like to lay out my outfit for the next day the night before. I find that if I have clothes already picked out, I’m more likely to put them on instead of just staying in pajamas (but believe me, I have those days too. I mean come on, who doesn’t love a good pajama day). Anyway, laying out my clothes the night before has helped me get out of bed in the morning. I also work a lot. Which is a pretty big reason why I have to get out of bed. Wednesday mornings I have to be up and ready to entertain people at 7am on the morning radio show I do. I absolutely love it, and I’m up so early I don’t even have time to think about not getting up. So I guess you could say that Wednesdays are my easy days. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Fridays I nanny. While it can be hard to get up on some of those days, I know that I have to, and honestly I want to. I love those babies so much and I’m so incredibly thankful for them every single day. They have saved my life without knowing it, and on those days I truly can’t wait to get to them. I consider myself extremely lucky to have jobs that I love, because loving them makes those tough mornings a little bit easier. It seems that my life has become coping mechanism after coping mechanism. But I guess that it’s a good thing. If I didn’t have ways to cope, I don’t think I could function normally. I’ll give you a few of my coping mechanisms, in case you’re looking for some. When I’m feeling anxious I like to listen to music, or be around my anchor person if possible. I use the term anchor person to refer to the person who knows how to calm me down/make me feel better. That person for me is my sister, Anabelle. She’s the first person I go to, but my parents and my brother & other sister are awesome too. I would highly recommend having an anchor person if possible. I also carry a book with me literally every single place I go. Reading has always been something that has grounded me, I never go anywhere without some kind of book. If I’m feeling anxious in a public place, I’ll pull out my book and read a few pages if it’s possible. Another thing I’ve noticed myself doing is brushing my hair when I’m feeling anxious. It’s always just been something I’ve done. Through recent therapy sessions I have learned that anxiously brushing my hair is more of a compulsion instead of a coping mechanism. It’s a very thin line between compulsion and coping, so my advice to you is to watch it closely. But, also, don’t be too hard on yourself, you’re doing the best that you can in your particular circumstances. Like I’ve said in previous blog posts, something new that I’m experiencing is disassociation. It’s definitely been something that has been hard to work through, but I’m slowly learning. When you disassociate, engage your 5 senses, it will help bring you back. For me, I pet my dog, or drink an ice cold glass of water. Again, just do the best that you can, there’s no guidebook (even though sometimes I wish that there was). I guess I just want everyone reading this to know that it’s okay if it’s hard to get out bed some days, it’s okay to try new coping mechanisms, it’s okay to be honest about what you’re going through. I struggle every single day to get out of bed, but I’m still here, still fighting, still learning. I think that’s all we can really do. If you got out of bed today even if it was hard, I’m proud of you. By now you probably know that I always like to end my posts with a quote from my favorite book, Us Against You, or another one of my favorites, Anxious People, both by Frederik Backman. I think I love both of these books so much because they capture everything I think, everything I want to say so perfectly. I’ll end this post with a quote from Anxious People. I chose this particular quote because I think it’s very true, even if it can be a little bit hard to accept. “We can’t change the world, and a lot of the time we can’t even change people. No more than one bit at a time. So we do what we can to help whenever we get the chance. We save those we can. We do our best. Then we try to find a way to convince ourselves that that will just have to…be enough. So we can live with our failures without drowning.”