"Why do you try so hard?" What the psychiatrist's question taught me about true recovery. Listen to 'Universal Mind' 🎵

Thank you for this encounter on note✨

How are you doing?

It's Mame♪

"Why do you try so hard?"


This article is written for:
"People who try too hard"
"People who struggle to rely on others"
"People who are aiming for recovery while seeing a psychiatrist"

and

"People who have lost touch with
their own feelings."
I hope this reaches you.

This is not a story about being cured of an illness.

It is a record of the process of
gradually learning to listen to the voice of my heart
and getting to know myself.

The timeline is scattered, but
I will write it as clearly as I can, so
I would be happy if you could read it
to the end.

"Why do you try so hard?"

That is what the psychiatrist asked me.

I answered immediately.
"Because if I don't try hard, I won't be able to get by."

Thinking about it now, that answer contained
everything about me at that time.

It wasn't that I liked trying hard.

I thought trying hard was a virtue, and
I also thought that if I tried hard, things would work out.

The past me used to wake up earlier than anyone else.

I would wake up while everyone else was still asleep
and start preparing for the day.

Even for things I wasn't asked to do,
"It's better to have it done"
"I have to notice it first"
I would act thinking like that.

Prepare before someone tells me.

Notice before someone is troubled.

Try not to be a burden.

That had become the norm.

I was happy to be told "thank you."

By feeling that I was useful,
perhaps I was confirming my own existence.

That's why I was afraid to rest.

If I stopped,
I felt like I wouldn't be needed by anyone.

I should be able to do more.
I have to try harder.

That's how I drove myself.

Looking back now,
rather than saying I was making an effort,
I think I was trying to protect my place
by trying hard.

Trying hard was also
something that supported me.

But at the same time,
it had become a habit of putting
my own feelings on the back burner.

Meet expectations.
Don't be a burden.
Try not to be disliked.
Be seen as someone who has it together.

If I did that,
I thought I would be okay.

But in reality, I was always afraid.

If I became someone who couldn't try hard,
wouldn't I be needed by anyone anymore?

Wouldn't I be worthless
if I couldn't do anything?

I held those thoughts deep in my heart.

At one point, the doctor told me,

"You are bad at getting angry."

At first, I couldn't understand those words.

Because I didn't intend to be angry.

But when I thought about it carefully, it was different.

It wasn't that I wasn't angry.

I wasn't allowing myself to be angry.

I hated it.
I was sad.
I was lonely.

Actually, I wanted help.

Before I could put my feelings of "help me" into words,
I would say "I'm fine."

I smiled even when I was hurt.

I pretended to be okay even when it was painful.

Enduring had become
my way of protecting myself.

And before I knew it,
the emotions that had lost their place to be directed
were all directed at myself.

I met various psychiatrists.

I read books.

I watched videos.

I kept taking medicine.

I even thought,
"Will I live with medicine
for the rest of my life?"

At that time,
I thought of myself as a victim.

Why only me?

Why do I have to go through things like this?

I held those kinds of feelings.

Of course, there were events that hurt me.

There were painful experiences.

I can't pretend those didn't happen.

But I gradually realized.

I wasn't just being tormented
by the past.

The fact that I myself had left
my own feelings behind
was also painful.

I didn't know how to rely on people.

I thought, "There is no one I can rely on."

...Later, I realized.

There were people who tried to help me.

There were people who cared about me.

It's just that I
didn't know how to say "help me."

I must not be a burden.

I must not be thought of as weak.

I must be someone who can do things alone.

Such beliefs
built a wall between me and others.

There were times when I envied others.

But I couldn't admit those feelings.

When people said,
"The grass is always greener on the other side,"
I would tell myself,
"That's true."

But now I understand.

The feeling of envy
is not a bad thing.

In it,
there was a wish I hadn't even noticed myself,
"Actually, I want to be like that too."
I was even denying my envy,

making my true feelings invisible.

From there, little by little,
my world expanded.

I tasted flavors I hadn't known before.

I went to places I had never been.

I met people I would never have
met before.

People with ways of thinking completely different from mine.

People who had walked a different life than mine.

Those people
did not think what I thought was obvious
was obvious.

For the first time, I thought,

"Maybe the reason I was in pain was because my own world (perspective) was narrow."

As my world expanded,
my view of myself also changed little by little.

Even now, there are times when I worry.

There are times when I try too hard.

But it's different from the past.

I have become able to notice the voice of my heart.

That I am tired.
That I am sad.
That I didn't like something.
That I was envious.
That I am happy.

At that time, I didn't even know that.

To the question, "Why do you try so hard?"
I answered at the time,
"Because if I don't try hard, I won't be able to get by."
Now, I can give a different answer.

I don't have to live only by trying hard.

It's okay to rely on someone.

It's okay to rest.
It's okay to cherish my own feelings.
I want to live without pretending to be someone I'm not.

Recovery was not about returning to the old me.

It was about meeting a me I didn't know.

And,
it was about meeting a world I didn't know.

Noticing the feelings I had lost,
taking them back one by one,
and rebuilding myselfwas what it was.

In that day's question,
the question,What do you really want to do?might have also been included.
I was finally able to realize

that trying hard alone
was not the only way to live.

It was a detour until I reached that answer,
but it was a necessary time for me.

This time, instead of lightening the heart,
it became a heavy story😌

Thank you for using your precious time
to read until the end,
dear reader♡

🤍　🤍　🤍

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