How People Rebuild Their Lives After Mental Health Struggles
There is an assumption that after one has gone through the worst of a mental health struggle, everything is meant to be put back on track. People wake up suddenly feeling better as if their lives are compiled in front of them as they looked before, or at least how they always dreamed it to look. But that’s not the case.
Rebuilding one’s life after a period of anxiety, depression, etc., or mental health upheaval, is a process in and of itself. It’s not enough to feel better. It’s about understanding what life looks like now better and how to progress in an actual supportive manner.
Better Does Not Mean Everything’s OK
Better is not enough to get one’s life back on track. There are two different stages. One has more good than bad days, but they’re still in shambles. Their relationships need mending. Their jobs or daily responsibilities were non-existent because the person was just hoping to maintain some semblance of normalcy.
However, when people start to feel better, there’s often an immediate expectation to get back on track. But failing to recognize why things fell apart in the first place and diving right into old patterns rarely ends well for those who rebuild. They recognize the changes made and what needs alteration—not just attention to every responsibility that never got done.
Getting the Right Kind of Help
One of the most profound changes for those who rebuild is the type of help they receive. Many people go years without asking for help or support, taking things into their own hands until they realize that stabilized approaches are necessary. For people who’ve been struggling with deep seated feelings of not being good enough, therapy for low self-worth can address the root patterns that keep them stuck in the same cycles.
It’s not someone telling another what to do. It becomes a helpful give-and-take where someone recognizes patterns and suggests alterations that they know will benefit the complex emotions that might arise. Most people who’ve rebuilt their lives have consistent support not because they’re inherently weak but because complicated healing rarely happens alone.
Foundations That Actually Hold
One of the first steps of rebuilding comes from practical means and has to do with routines. Sleep schedules, eating without permission, engaging in mild body movement without an end goal, showering—things that many people take for granted become obsolete when one is in survival mode. Having things back on track doesn’t solve everything, but it’s a sensible foundation for change.
The next challenge is assessing relationships and boundaries. Those struggling with mental health challenges realize which connections support them and which drain them. Rebuilding allows for different choices about where energy should go—but caution is given because not everyone will appreciate others’ changes.
Dealing With Setbacks Without Falling Apart
No one rebuilds in a straight line. There will be days or weeks where everything feels like a long slog again. But it’s in these moments where many people panic, thinking they’ve either failed or nothing works.
These setbacks are not where one began. But instead, now there are tools and awareness that did not exist beforehand. Perhaps one recognizes what’s going on sooner than later; perhaps they know what’s helpful when things get tough. Those who successful rebuild learn to take setbacks as information—not failure.
Understanding What You Want
When it’s been months or years since a person could get through the day without thinking ahead, no one can fault them for not knowing what comes next when they finally start to feel stable. Rebuilding means giving oneself the opportunity to explore what that means without accountability to others.
It’s acceptable if newfound desires differ from pre-mental health struggle desires. Some find new careers. Some realize their partners hold them back and end relationships or find new ones. There’s no right way to rebuild.
Learning to Trust Yourself Again
Mental health struggles often negatively impact people regarding trust in themselves and their decisions. When thoughts have been incorrect or overwhelming, it’s unsurprising that someone would doubt their ability to follow through successfully with choices.
Rebuilding means slowly earning that trust back one step at a time. Perhaps it’s easier to notice when someone made a good decision or trusted their gut or handled something better than expected. But it takes time, and it’s rarely a straight path forward to gain trust back within oneself. It grows stronger over time.
What Life Looks Like on the Other Side
People who’ve effectively rebuilt their lives after mental health struggles often feel more grounded than before because it’s not about feeling perfect .It’s about knowing how to establish relationships with discomfort and other struggles differently from before their plight.
They know what’s helpful and what’s not, they’ve established support systems and coping mechanisms that actually work for them, they understand their warning signs and what works when they come about. Life can still be challenging at times, but there’s a resilience presented with having struggled through something before and coming out the other side stronger instead of defeated.
The rebuilding process is rarely quick and never straight as a pin, but for those who achieve it—and achieve it with durable newfound lives—possibilities are endless since the life they build after addressing their mental health surpassed anything they’d had before.
