Hi,

I am Mara and I would like to share my story about how I discovered NiceDay and what it has done for me. In my previous blog I already gave a small introduction about my experiences with NiceDay and the coaching process. In this blog I will tell you a bit more about my life and how I came to the conclusion that I needed some mental help.

Nothing to complain

My mental health has not been a concern for a long time. Until about a year ago I never felt that I needed help. Although my life has also had its ups and downs, a negative mindset never took over. My mental health was fine, probably also because I had nothing to complain about. I have had some issues with my family, my love life occasionally gave me headaches and I also experienced the necessary stress because of work, study or money, but other than that I had (and still have) a very nice life.

‘The Boyfriend’

After I graduated, my life actually got better and better. My career took off. After all sorts of interesting jobs, I was hired for the job I had been aiming for for several months. As a result, I earned more and I was able to live well, buy beautiful things and make wonderful trips. On top of that came ‘The Boyfriend’. Back then I was actually still processing the previous break up, but despite that, we decided to take the leap. On the first date we were talking about children, after three weeks we were officially in a relationship and four months later we started living together. It was wonderful: the unconditional, romantic love I’ve been waiting for so long was finally there.

Breaking point

And yet: after six months with ‘The Boyfriend’ I started to cry. Sometimes it lasted a short while, sometimes I cried for an hour. Sometimes it was about something small like the household and sometimes about fundamental life issues such as where we wanted to spend our lives. But two months ago was the breaking point because we had fights every nights which affected the physical and mental health of us both.

Vicious circles

And that’s how I ended up at NiceDay: I wanted to do something about the fact that I was crying all the time, improve my relationship and have a better life. In a relationship you always have things to work on together and ‘The Boyfriend’ is certainly not always perfect, but my behavior created a destructive vicious circle which we weren’t able to get out on our own. In addition to me crying a lot, I also demonstrated behavior which I could not explain. I was able to overthink every situation and to get very angry with ‘The Boyfriend’ without a valid reason. When I started at NiceDay, I knew exactly what I wanted to work on:

• Crying
• Tantrums
• Negative thinking

Write down your feelings and NiceDay

I know that giving your feelings space and writing them down is a good outlet for me. That’s how I found the NiceDay app in the App Store! I wanted a nice app to keep track of my feelings. I also found out that they offer psychological help. My first conversation with my NiceDay coach and online psychologist Sarah was such a relief. I soon found out that more women are having trouble with this phase in their lives and the difficult communication with my boyfriend is no exception for relationships between men and women. My coach indicated that by jumping into the relationship with ‘The Boyfriend’ I have given up much of my independence without even considering it. My self-image of an ‘independent, hard-working, young woman’ changed and perhaps I had to find that independence in my relationship again. As a kind of counter-reaction, however, I have developed fear of abandonment that could express itself in the behavior I previously described.

Ups and downs

Throughout the six NiceDay sessions I therefore took steps to learn how to deal with negative thoughts and to transform my behavior. I want to show you the ‘mental journey’ that I’m making, what I have learned from my coach and what I have learned in this process of ‘trial and error’. I learned a lot from my online therapist Sarah, but I still have a long way to go. Since Sarah has told me that I really am not the only one in the world who is dealing with such issues, I hope that I can inspire you with this blog and maybe give you a push in the right direction to seek for help. For quite some time I have felt very stupid: why do I  need mental support? I have a perfect life without “real” problems right? I hope you don’t feel that way, and if you do, I hope that this blog gives you a little bit of support and reassurance to take the brave step to look for help (in whatever form!).

Love,

Mara

Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I worry about myself. I look pale and have dark circles underneath my eyes. I look tired. When I look into my eyes, I miss the shimmer. I laugh, but it is only my mouth that smiles, not my eyes. And when I look at myself for a long time, I tear up. I get ashamed and look away. I cannot handle the confrontation.

Bottle up
I have been in therapy for over two and a half years now. The moment I started with therapy, there was so much pain and sorrow bottled up in my body. Yet I could not get into it. With my current psychologist, it took more than a month before I started talking about what happened to me. I will never forget the session, I cried for the first time. I sat on a chair and I thought: just let is all out. That was the beginning of many cry sessions. Crying makes me feel better since it helps to process and the tears take away a bit of tension. At those moments I do not want to be comforted, but I do want to have someone in the same room as me.

Something completely different is the feeling that I have during and before I start crying. I call it my inner pain. I feel pain in my chest and tension that I want to release. It makes me nervous. I wobble with my legs and bite on the nail of my thumb to reduce the tension. I feel this pain when I do not speak out my feelings. When I eventually speak out the tears  start to flow. During the crying, the inner pain first intensifies, but after a while it weakens. Knowing that it will weaken makes it easier to let myself cry Yet it remains a big obstacle every time to let those tears go. This pain scares me.

Acceptance is key
The result of not allowing inner pain and tears is the feeling of emptiness. Feeling empty is even worse than feeling sad. The moment I feel empty, I know that I am not doing well. It means that it is time to take a step back so that I can get in balance again. The text below describes exactly how I feel when I have blocked my emotions for too long (appeared on @gelukkigdepri).

My skeleton embraces the void in my body. It is black and can not pass through. Sometimes, when the black wants to come out, it hurts. It presses my chest and my stomach. I want to fight against it, but the black does not allow it. It makes me gloomy, influences my thoughts and makes me feel less worthy. Sometimes the black even tells me that it would be better if I did not exist anymore. It scares me. It makes me lose control over myself. Will the black ever disappear? Will I ever find myself back again?

I have to accept that it is not bad to cry and to feel pain. To heal, you have to go through this phase. I am getting better and better in feeling emotions and to actually feel the pain.

It are the first steps towards freedom!

Quote with this story: Feel the thing you do not want to feel. Feel it and be free.

Love, Ghyta