Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Just get over it!

Has anyone ever made the comment to you to “Just get over it!”? Or “You need to change your attitude”? Or my personal favorite, “Just snap out of it”? Well, take it from me, when you’re depressed or battling low self-esteem, you can’t just get over it.

As a chronic sufferer of depression and low self-esteem, I started to think about the things I did to “snap out of it”. The first thing was to get professional help, a doctor who diagnosed me correctly, worked to find the right medication, and referred me to a psychologist. The next was to spend a lot of time with said psychologist. I do mean A LOT of time. Changing the way you view yourself is a daunting task, but not unattainable.

Once I turned at least some of my self-esteem to a positive view, I then began doing things that made me feel good. I know it sounds overly simple, but when you do things that make you feel good, that make you happy, it’s much more difficult to dislike yourself. When you do things that make yourself and others happy, the self-esteem meter really goes up.

I do things that make me feel good. I like making people laugh. I love my art. I work hard to make myself needed on the job, and at home. I collect fortune cookie proverbs. I take singing lessons. I wear clothes with patterns, color, and style appropriate for my size.

I’m not saying that my self-esteem is the best it can be, but it’s sure a heck of a lot better than it used to be. It took a lot of really hard work, and lots of help, to get it to where it is now. And that makes me happy, too.