Maybe you’re to the point where getting out of bed every morning is an intense struggle. Maybe you’re experiencing fleeting glimpses of unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Whatever the stage, depression is a draining mindset. Here’s the good news, YOU CAN CHANGE IT. The operative word here being YOU. Before you click off of this article with frustration, hear me out. I know what you’re feeling, because I was there too. And I defended my depression, I held onto it with all my might. I explained that I had a chemical imbalance in my brain, and that my condition just simply couldn’t be changed. There was nothing I could do but try to dull my symptoms (and senses) with medication.
When people told me I could improve my condition by altering my mindset, I grew FURIOUS. I thought to myself, “How dare they challenge my condition?! They have no idea what i’m feeling and what I go through everyday. Don’t you think if I could change it myself I would have done so already?!” The answer is no, I wouldn’t have. Humans hold onto our sadness. We feel to truly understand the complexities of life and horrors of human nature, we must be saddened by it. Otherwise, what kind of person are we? How can we live in such a cruel and ugly world without having our spirits dampened by it? The answer is perspective.
There are many great evils in the world. There are also just as many beautiful, inspiring things. The truth is, humans can become addicted to sadness. We love the rush it gives us. It’s the same reason why people stay in unhealthy relationships. The dark contrast of the lows makes the highs seem that much higher. But the thing is, eventually there are fewer and fewer highs. You start to get lost in your sadness, and before you know it, you identify as it, you defend it, you feed into it. You sabotage yourself to produce more circumstances for unhappiness. There are many reasons to be unhappy, but the basis for all of them is simply this: Life is not living up to your expectations.
Tony Robbins laid out a formula for happiness. LC=BP, or Life Conditions (how you live your life) are equal to your Blueprint (the model for how you expect life to be.) Think about your expectations for your career, your relationship, your body, your security, your influence and output into this world. Now think about how your current life conditions measure up to these expectations. Are you meeting your own standards? If not, of course you’re going to be unsatisfied. And everyday that dissatisfaction builds and builds until you have reached a state where you feel hopeless. You have convinced yourself you are STUCK in your life conditions, and there is no hope for happiness. But there is. I know at this point you’re probably thinking Magyn, you don’t understand, you just don’t get it. My situation is different. But I do get it friend.
I get it because I had my first suicidal thought at fourteen. It started as thinking about death as an opportunity out of my dissatisfaction. In a weird way, it made me feel courageous. The one thing that everyone was afraid of, was a relief to me. I hid my discontent, and my condition snowballed. I began to identify with my depression, it was ME, and I was it. My subconscious began to produce circumstances that kept me at this level.
I quit trying in school, I told myself I was too depressed to put effort into my education. I failed two classes and fell behind a semester. I told myself I wasn’t cut out for college. I told myself I wasn’t smart enough and the only thing I had to offer the world was my appearance. I tried to numb myself with every drug I could get my hands on. I would wake up at 6 am just to get high, and continue to do so throughout the day. I became physically dependent on Xanax and cocaine.There are chunks of my life I don’t remember from being blacked out. I was sexually assaulted several times. Sometimes I was drugged, other times I did the work for them and was too impaired to physically object or fight them off. I hopped from couch to couch, living with various men. One time I ended up in a Fraternity party house for months. I exposed myself to a world that was consistent with how I felt. A world that brought me misery and pain. I went through several unhealthy relationships, one that lasted four years on-and-off. The climax of this unhealthy relationship came when we began looking for a home to purchase together.
I was terrified. I was about to commit to spending the rest of my life with someone who wasn’t right for me. My subconscious pushed this thought into the VERY far depths of my mind. I refused to believe that this was the reason I was so deeply unhappy. I told myself that I had a chemical imbalance and there was nothing I could do to change my mindset. I began mutilating my body. Watching the blood pour from my wrists and thighs provided a physically painful distraction that took the attention away from the intense emotional pain I felt. When this wasn’t enough to distract me anymore, I made an attempt on my life. I made two, actually. The first time I tried to overdose. The second I tried to run my car off the road. I’m not sure why I thought this would be a good idea. If I hadn’t hit a culvert the crash would have resulted in severe injury, not death, but who knows, I was high of course.
I reached out to everyone I could. My best friend, my parents, my siblings, my boyfriend. Naturally, they coddled me.They told me the usual supportive things you tell a person who complains of depression. What people don’t realize is, this doesn’t work. Now matter what you tell them, it’s not going to change their mindset. This is because their unhappiness is due to an inconsistency in the LC=BP formula. YOU are the only person who can solve your depression, because YOU are the only person who truly knows why you are unhappy. You may have to do some deep reflection to dig up the inconsistencies that your subconscious has buried. But for the love of God don’t go one more day, one more second, simply dealing with the dissatisfaction.
Make CHANGES. Find out what you’re not satisfied with and CHANGE IT. Dump your shitty boyfriend, leave your shitty job, move out of your shitty town, whatever it is you don’t like, FIX IT. I know the idea of change is scary. I know you’re thinking, “I’m too mentally unstable to make those kinds of changes, it will just make my condition worse.” I PROMISE you that if you start to make changes in your life, you will notice progress. Put EFFORT into yourself. Imagine what your ideal life looks like. Imagine the level of satisfaction you could experience if you woke up everyday and LOVED who you were. Imagine falling asleep at night feeling completely satisfied with the progress you made to better yourself. THIS IS POSSIBLE. I know because I’ve done it. I’ve been that girl who begged God to just let her leave this Earth. And now I wake up everyday praising God for the life I have. And it took EFFORT on my part. It took a lot of effort to get clean, to forgive myself for what I let happen to me, to learn to LOVE myself, to feel WORTHY of love again.
Once I started putting effort into myself, everything changed. I wasn’t happy being dependent on drugs, so I weaned myself off them. I wasn’t happy staying in shallow relationships, so I dumped my boyfriend. I then met my twin flame, who gave me Power of Now and kickstarted my personal development journey. I will forever be grateful to Christian for exposing me to the materials that advanced my progress MUCH more rapidly than I ever could have imagined. I appreciate him so much for seeing my potential and supporting and pushing me every step of the way.
Once my mindset started to shift, the changes became more drastic. I wasn’t happy with my body or health so I went vegan, started working out and using organic products whenever possible. I wasn’t happy with my intelligence so I started reading and actually applying myself in school. I wasn’t happy with my mindset so I established a strict daily/nightly routine to mould myself into a person of influence.
I wasn’t happy with my output into the world so I started using social media as a platform to spread motivation and positivity, which lead to me starting this blog. I wasn’t happy with my progress as a model so I saved up money and started traveling to bigger cities with more photographers. I took steps towards where I wanted to be. That’s all it takes, is knowing your self worth. Knowing you DESERVE to live a life that matches your expectations. You DESERVE to wake up everyday and jump up and down because you love who you are. You DESERVE the immense joy that comes from knowing what it’s like to want to end your life to waking up everyday fucking celebrating it. STOP GOING DOWN THE PATH OF DISSATISFACTION. Turn around right now. Make the decision that you are going to fight for your happiness. I know how much strength it takes to live life severely depressed, so I KNOW you are strong enough to turn your life around. I sincerely believe that you are capable of freedom from depression. You have to know it