Lies My Brain Tells Me
This blog post has 2 purposes.
To remind me that my brain does lie to me so that I can create distance between myself and my thoughts. That distance makes the thoughts less powerful and allows me to move forward in my recovery.
So that others can get a glimpse into what it’s like inside the mind of someone who struggles with mental illness.
So here’s the list. (There are 17 lies on this list. It annoyed the shit out of me that my brain didn’t have a nice round number like 20 or 10, but my brain wouldn’t be my brain if it wasn’t annoying me right?)
You can’t do this
This is too overwhelming so you should just quit, go home, run away, etc….
You should just die
Binging and purging will make you feel so much better.
Choosing not to eat will ensure that you stay in control of everything in your life.
You’re a terrible friend
You are so hard to love
Your life is unstable
You make bad choices
You are permanently damaged
You will never achieve your goals because you don’t work hard enough
You lack discipline
Any time spent not being productive is a waste of time
You don’t deserve rest because you are not yet successful, you can rest when you achieve all of your goals.
Your body is disgusting
Cutting/scratching/pinching yourself will make you feel better
It’s inevitable that you will die of suicide.
So there you have it. My brain’s list of lies. The thing about this list is that I bet everyone who reads it, even the people who don’t have a diagnosed mental illness, will be able to relate to at least one of these thoughts. Some of them are very common. We all have brains that lie. I guess that’s just part of being human.