How to prevent a breakdown…

As someone who’s had their fair share of breakdowns in the past, I’ve picked up a few tips and tricks along the way to help prevent such an event.

Even the strongest of people can’t cope sometimes. There will come several points in someones life where it all, well, just gets too fucking much to handle. It doesn’t matter if it’s one thing on your mind, or hundreds, it can get too much, and if we don’t know how to handle it then we crumble. That’s never good.

I’ve failed a few times along the way; picking up twitches, ticks and strange coping mechanisms which aren’t healthy, but stop me from breaking down and being pretty dramatic. However, there are a few things that do save me.

As a rather isolated introvert, I tend not to speak to anyone whenever I’m in a bad place (why do you think I started this blog?), but I must admit things got a hell of a lot better when I opened up to one person. My best friend; low and behold he’s struggled with similar problems in the past. So rather than pretending to listen to me, I knew he actually understood. Going to him whenever I took a bad turn definitely saved me from a couple of meltdowns.

I’ve recently started running my own business, and funnily enough, there’s one key trait I had to pick up which also helped my mental health: short term goals. If we don’t set short term goals then we get lost in a spider web of possibilities, worries and fears. When we have goals, when we have targets we strive to achieve, we are distracted. As unhealthy as it sounds, the best way to prevent a meltdown is to forget our worries in the first place, and having short term goals helps us do that.

The final deterrent of disaster, that is most effective in my case, is creativity. When I am low, I set myself a project. Whether that be writing a song; writing a post; starting a business venture; a health kick, it allows me to apply my self whilst creating something new. You could say that my creativity is just a bi product of my demons, and you’d be right. The saddest part is when someone see’s your work, and praises you on it. Because you know the only reason that work came about is because you got so low you had to do something or else you would’ve broken.

We will all breakdown at one point, but if we take the time to learn how to prevent it, then maybe we’ll be have fewer.

Breakdowns are scary, they’re nonsensical, they’re painful. But we have to bounce back so we can be there for the ones around us. At the end of the day, the people we love are the reason we’re around, right?

Advertisement