Something you lose when you suffer from depression and anxiety is the progressive loss of the ability to properly take care of yourself.
You lose interest in how you look, in going out, in doing things and generally in living your life.
This creates a vicious circle: you look in the mirror and you feel like shit and at the same time you know you have wasted your day, so you sink deeper and deeper in a sense of ‘nothing matters’.
Nothing.
Especially, not yourself.
I know that, looking at my pictures, you couldn’t tell I am struggling because I am a very high functioning depressed-anxious person, but many days just getting out of bed and getting dressed was a victory.
In my worst days, I struggled to dress myself and comb my hair. In my best days, I am the successful blogger traveling the world and smiling for the camera, dressed pretty.
I want to tell you that the first thing doesn’t exclude the second, and that you should never dismiss or minimize someone’s struggle just because you can’t SEE it. This is for mental health as well as for all the invisible illnesses.
Researches show a deep connection between the way you look and the way you feel.
‘Look good, feel good’.
Sometimes looking at the mirror and seeing yourdelf dressed nicely, fit for a productive day, can contribute to feeling better and do more.
During the good days my body automatically reflects it, but the body seems to work the other way round too: if I’m tidy an pretty on the outside, if I feel ‘cool’, it seems to send a very clear message to my mind. A message that says:
you’re worth this. You are important. You can do it.
> It is ESSENTIAL to point out that these are just tricks and coping strategies and they never substitute a psychological and medical therapy, so if you suffer from any mental health condition you must seek the right help from qualified people.
But this project is here to celebrate all those days when we succeed. The good days when we take care of ourselves and we look just the person we’d like to be. Just like the person we truly ARE.
So here’s how #theoutfitproject works:
share a pictures of yourself on the good days. Of the outfit you wear, of the marvelous way in which you took care of yourself.
No one more than you needs to send out the message ‘here I am. And look how cool I am!’
If not for anything else, get dressed just to take this picture. And to love yourself more.
I can’t promise I will post a pic like this everyday, although I’d love to.
And you, who are reading this, check out the hashtag every day and send out some love to there brave people looking fabulous.
Being every picture there’s a little victory.
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