Mental Health Matters

Bad Habit & Mental Illness Collide

See, that's exactly what happens with me. If I'm working at Fraser Direct and as I'm working, and while im doing that, causing my nail polish to chip a little on one or so nails, it bothers me so much to the point where I find myself picking at it till most of the nail polish is picked off except for a little in the sides/edges of the nails.

When I first started working on my method with getting out of picking my nails, not just the nail polish, I started painting my nails with coloure nail polish, mouisterizing daily and keeping my hands busy as when I started, I was starting my job at Fraser Direct which was September 21st last year.

And my nails before I started looked a little worse than what my nails currently look now and a thought came to mind "why should I paint them, they'd look terrible (with barely any nail)" but what motivated me was imagining what they'd look like a month or 2 later from that day. And so I did, and around October or early November, not only myself but my parents and sister noticed my nails were looking better, and healthier than they've been in years. I started to really enjoy and like that. Enjoying the way they look, the feeling of healthy nails without the pain from before I started taking better care of them.

I've had some slip ups along the way (picked at the nail polish of 2-3 nails and/or picked at 2-3 nails too short, to the point where they'd hurt enough). But as I was recovering from my depressive episode (in 2nd semester of college), I was still getting into new and healthier habits including better, healthier and positive thinking habits when i slip up with getting into a new habit. Not being hard on myself or beating myself up. And other symptoms that I've had a bad habit of doing for too many years of my life.

I've become a lot better with that but at times I struggle a bit when I have more worries, racing thoughts, and negative thinking habits when I mess up or slip up when I lose little or some control and gain the urge of picking my nails and nail polish. But I'm constantly working on that, which I will be for the rest of my life. We can all live a normal and empowered life with mental illness as Demi Lovato inspires with in her speech around the mental illness epidemic and for Hilary Clinton.

Below is the link to her speech. Check it out.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/jul/26/demi-lovato-mental-illness-dnc-clinton-video?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other