Getting Back on Track with Mental Illness

The experience of mental illness is different for everyone. Personally, my struggle with mental illness has been a long and complicated road. Along the way, I’ve lost (and gained) many pieces of myself.

One part that always felt so impossible though - was building a successful life and remaining stable while struggling with mental illness.

I always felt like I was drowning and no matter what I did to get my life in order, it never worked. I was always scrambling from one thing to the next, always on the verge of another mental breakdown, always trying to just keep my head above the water. I was always just barely surviving.

So, how did I change my life? Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle just like everyone else. But I have finally have a consistent plan for everything in my life. And you can too!

First though, be sure you are ready, getting back on track with mental illness can take commitment!

First, if you haven’t checked out my my blog post Prioritizing Our Needs: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I strongly recommend you start there and then come read this blog post as a follow up. This will give you a better idea of what your goals and activities should be structured and prioritized like, which can be keep to making sure you’re keeping the correct things in your main focus.

Home

Everything starts with your home life. It’s where you sleep, where you eat, where you recover.

Having your home life in order is one of the building blocks to getting your life in order.

Declutter

Decluttering. I will die on this hill when it comes to mental illness and managing your life through decluttering.

Decluttering was the BEST first step I could do to begin getting a handle on my life.

Decluttering doesn’t need to be complicated. Just start.

This is not organizing, this is not picking things up as you go along, this is simple decluttering.

Decluttering before you pick up the mess and begin to clean helps eliminate some of the cleaning and mess for you automatically.

Decluttering is simply getting things out of your home. This may seem like a scary thought, but in reality, the impact of what happens when you have too much stuff to manage is much more overwhelming and much harder to mentally deal with longterm.

Some tips to follow when decluttering:

• Get rid of and stop stocking up on extra items you “might” need in the future, pick the ones you need and toss the rest

• Let things you aren’t sure about go, keep the things you know you need or want

• When you bring new things home, something has to leave

• Get rid of projects and possible projects that you haven’t touched in the last 2 months

• Everything has a home (this means if you want to stock up on a product, you can only stock up enough to where the product fits in the home you have picked out for the item)

• Paper: only save important documents, instruction manuals can always be found online, old receipts have no purpose, and your bank statements are available online whenever you need to review them

Your decluttering muscle will become stronger the longer and more often you utilize it, so don’t get discouraged if it feels really difficult in the beginning to get rid of some of your things. Just keep going. You can always come back around and declutter an area again if you’ve kept too much after the first round.

Routine

Routine. This is the 2nd hill I will die on when it comes to mental illness and managing your life.

Routines. Routines. Routines. For everything.

The great thing about routines is that they become MUCH easier the more you do them. Essentially, you are creating a bunch of habit stacks that your mind begins to do naturally, with less resistant, and takes much less brain energy to achieve.

Most importantly, first create a DO-ABLE cleaning routine for you to stick to.

My cleaning routine has 15 minute quick clean-ups on weekday nights and a 5 hour cleaning session on Saturday. I live by this routine. Sure, some days it can be hard to start, but it ALWAYS ensures my Sundays are relaxation days and the weekly cleaning is just enough to keep my apartment from needing full on deep cleans.

Finances

Getting a handle on your out of control or the unknowns of your finances is another important step to getting back on track in your life.

Financial stress can be a real burden to bear. Whether you make too little or just enough, you ultimately have the control to bring stability to your finances still.

Here are some main places to start.

Tracking expenses and income

Get in the habit of tracking all your expenses and income. You don’t have to do anything with this information yet, this is just to get in the habit of knowing where your money is coming from and where it is going.

You don’t need to track with anything fancy, especially in the beginning. Pick one tracker and get in the habit of using it.

Personally, I find it’s way more beneficial to have to track my expenses on my own rather than letting an app do it for me. Because of this, I have one tracking system that I use in Notion where I manually log all my expenses and give them labels. One of the easiest ways to build a tracker is by starting to use Notion or an Excel spreadsheet where you can easily add up each column as you go.

Build a budget

Although this sounds like a long process, it’s really not.

Your first budget can be pure guesses across each category with how much you spend.

After your first month of tracking expenses, you’ll have a better idea of just where your budget numbers actually lie. This gives you the ability to look at each budget and also figure out if there are easy ways for you to save money in each category.

Personally, I used the app Mint to build and track my budget. (Yes, I use two tracking systems, you don’t need to!).

One easy proof way to track both expenses and create a budget is in a simple Excel spreadsheet. Make your budget using columns for each category, then track your expenses in each category, using the total sum button to add up each column amount for you.

Start a savings account

This is one area where I always get the most push-back. Many people believe it’s just not in their budget to save money, especially if they are living paycheck to paycheck. Let me be the firs to tell you - you HAVE to learn to save, even small amounts, because it’s essential to be building an emergency fund to take care of any emergencies that might arise and you may not normally be able to afford.

The best advice someone gave me was - start small. Save $5 every paycheck. Put it away into a savings account (preferably one you don’t have easy access to) and begin saving those dollars. It may not sound like much, but you’ll likely begin to realize that you can increase to maybe $10 a paycheck.

The most important part is that you start making savings a part of your everyday life. The only way to get out of the paycheck to paycheck lifestyle is by taking control of your finances and learning to budget and save money for yourself over time. Little by little you will start to get ahead and reap the benefits of being more in control of your money.

Self-care

Self-care is one of the things we HAVE to get in the habit of participating in if we are going to be effective with managing the stress and tribulations of our everyday lives.

Routines

As I mentioned before, routines are most effective because they get us in the habit of doing things without needing to really think about it and with little resistance.

The two routines that I rely on the most for self-care are my morning routine and my evening routine.

If you have neither, just start with a good evening routine to begin.

Contrary to belief, an evening routine doesn’t need to be long or drawn out. The best routines are ones that can be done when you have the least time available too.

What a routine should include is things that are good for your self-care and everyday health along with your non-negotiables.

My evening routine focuses on getting out of my everyday clothes, skincare, feeding my animals, and being in bed before 9:30PM.

My morning routine, because I have more time and I’m less tired, focuses on getting ready for the day but also includes some self-care needs like 10 minutes of Bible reading, 30 minutes of light therapy where I read or journal, and meditation.

Mix it up

Self-care should not just include things that make you feel good or that are fun to do, self-care also includes the things you do to remain healthier.

Brushing your teeth every morning and night is self-care just as much as getting in 20 minutes of reading at the end of your day is.

The ultimate goal is to mix these different tasks up to help ensure you’re getting the best of both worlds in your self-care routine.

If you feel you have additional ideas for getting back on track when it comes to managing life while managing a mental illness, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below!