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