KIND WORDS FOR UNKIND DAYS

There are some days when it feels like life is ganging up on us. Whatever can go wrong, does. Every time we try to take a breath or get back on our feet, life hands us another blow. We find ourselves feeling lonely, frustrated, tearful, rejected, hurt, fragile, and utterly fed up. Sometimes we begin to wonder what the point is. Depression can jump on these thoughts and feelings and amplify them. Here are some kind words to provide some balance on these unkind days.

YOU ARE ALLOWED TO STRUGGLE

Nobody has it together all of the time. We all struggle sometimes – it’s part of being human. Struggling is allowed. It doesn’t make us a bad person or mean that we’re useless or worthless. We can’t always help it if we’re feeling rubbish and finding things difficult. As much as we can do our best to keep our struggles at bay; it’s impossible to have control of every aspect of our lives. We’re allowed to struggle, and we’re allowed to find things difficult.

YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR STRUGGLES

Even though we struggle (and we are allowed to struggle!) that doesn’t mean that we become our struggles. Struggling doesn’t automatically erase our personality, quirks, and talents. It doesn’t make us ‘useless’. If we have depression, it doesn’t mean that we become a ‘depressed person’. We are a person with depression. A person with a whole life – a past, a future, a family, friends, hobbies, interests, and so much more. We just have a diagnosis of depression alongside all of that. Even at times when it feels as though our struggles engulf us, we are still more than them. 

YOU MATTER

We matter. If right now we’re thinking ‘yes but…’, ‘but what about if…’, ‘no but…’, those pesky thoughts need to be quiet, because we still matter. Even at times when we think that we offer absolutely nothing to this world, we still matter. We are important and we matter. There are absolutely no exceptions

YOU ARE WORTHY

Our worth is not defined by the size of the clothes we wear, how many social media followers we have, or how much we earn. It isn’t defined by how highly educated we are, how sociable we are, or whether or not we are in a relationship. Those of us who earn below the national average, or feel as though we don’t contribute much to society, are not worth any less than those who appear on rich lists or those who spend every spare hour they have volunteering.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF

We might be having an unkind day, but we don’t have to add to that by also being unkind to ourselves. In fact, one of the best ways that we can turn an unkind day around is to be extra kind to ourselves. To show ourselves a greater level of kindness than we would normally. 

YOU DESERVE SUPPORT

We all need support from time to time, and we deserve the support we need to help us move forward. It doesn’t make us a burden. Absolutely everybody needs support from time to time. Sometimes, when the support we need isn’t available to us, it can leave us feeling like we don’t deserve that support. If the right support isn’t available to us, it doesn’t mean that we don’t deserve it, it usually just means that the systems designed to support us aren’t meeting our needs for one reason or another. This is absolutely not our fault at all, people aren’t designed to fit into systems – systems are designed to fit around people, and unfortunately, those systems aren’t perfect. It doesn’t make us any less deserving, though. We are deserving – whatever our situation, we do deserve support.