7 Little Things You Can Do to Make Living With Mental Illness Easier

Going through a mental health crisis sucks. These are some little things you can do to make it easier.

Going through a mental health crisis sucks — and once you’re in it, there’s often very little you can do about it, other than to take your medicine and try to keep your head up.

I’m currently going through a mental health crisis of my own. This list is a list of things that have helped me weather the storm in the past two weeks. None of these things cure mental illness, but they do set the stage for positive change and recovery down the road.

1. Declutter your home

Productivity writers are always going on about how you should declutter your house because it’s easier to be productive in a clean home. Every piece of clutter in your house is something that takes up valuable time, space, and mental energy that could be put to better use.

This kind of advice is great for productivity nuts, but it’s also great advice for people struggling with mental illness. When you’re mentally ill you struggle to get anything done in a given day, so the easier it is for you to get things done, the higher the chances are that you will do it.

So if you’re looking for something quick and easy you can do to make dealing with mental illness easier, declutter your house.

If you have the energy, you can do a full Marie Kondo Tidying Festival, but if you don’t, just wander through the rooms and closets of your house and start grabbing stuff you know is clutter and throwing it into a bag.

Once the clutter is out of your house for good, it will be a lot easier to function. Cleaning won’t take as long, and neither will cooking, showering, or taking care of yourself, all tasks that mentally ill people struggle with. The energy you invest in tidying will be worth it.

2. Take vitamins, fish oil, and other healthy supplements

One of the things that frustrates me most about the American healthcare system is how our medical system immediately jumps to prescribing medication while overlooking recommending dietary & exercise interventions.

I understand why, of course. Most people don’t follow diet & exercise recommendations because they’re not interested in spending the pretty serious amount of time or energy it takes to do so. Mentally ill people are especially vulnerable to this because while exercise is a potent antidepressant, it’s a potent antidepressant that requires you to overcome your depression long enough to get to the gym, which is a feat in and of itself.

You know what doesn’t take much of an effort? Taking supplements.

I’m not talking about esoteric supplements like kava kava or aryuvedic products. I’m just talking about a decent multivitamin and some fish oil pills. The kind of supplements we should all be taking.

Vitamins and fish oil are healthy for just about everyone, but they’re especially important for mentally ill people because nearly every mental illness, from depression to schizophrenia to personality disorders, has been shown in studies to respond to some kind of vitamin or supplement for at least some people.¹ In other words, taking healthy supplements will help you get better.

Even if they don’t directly reduce your symptoms, they can’t hurt. Improving your general health will give you more energy and increased mental sharpness, making it easier to do what you need to recover.

Vitamins & supplements probably won’t cure your mental illness. But they’re easy to take, have no side effects, and can only help.

The only caveat is, make sure to buy high-quality products. Grocery store vitamins and supplements, especially gummy vitamins, tend to be little more than snake oil. Spend a little extra for a vitamin that works. I use All-One Original Formula Multivitamin Powder, Nordic Naturals Omega-3 Liquid Fish Oil, and American Health Chewable Probiotics.

3. Buy clothes you like and take care of your appearance

In the past two or three months, I’ve had a pretty serious relapse. I’ve been in and out of doctor’s offices, on and off all kinds of pills, and referred for all kinds of interesting treatments and group therapies. But of all those things, one of the most helpful things I’ve done lately is buying some cute clothes.

Until the other day, most of the clothes I owned were oversized and baggy. I bought them because they were comfortable, but I was beginning to use my baggy clothes as a place to hide. I noticed myself hunching over in therapy and avoiding seeing other people (or even going on a Zoom call) because I didn’t look great.

So the other day, I said “Fuck it” and threw my New Year’s Resolution to buy no new clothes out the window. I took all my clothes out of my closet, Marie Kondo style, said goodbye to the ones that weren’t bringing me joy anymore, and bought a whole bunch of new clothes at my favorite local consignment shop.

The next day, I put on my brand-new-to-me American Eagle jeans and a cute little cotton top, and I realized “Wow, only owning baggy clothes that made me look bad sucked.” Then, the same day, wearing my new cute clothes, I decluttered and cleaned nearly my entire bedroom.

Looking good in the mirror doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been on a medication rollercoaster, that therapy is my primary occupation these days, or that my relationship is crumbling under the weight of mental illness. It doesn’t fix my problems.

But looking good in the mirror does make me feel a little more confident and capable, and I can use that energy to get more done. And that does solve my problems.

4. Light some candles and incense and listen to some nice violin music

This is the kind of cliche people typically laugh at. “Oh yeah, I’m suicidal, and you want me to light a candle? Give me a break.” But I am dead serious. Whether you are suicidal, having a panic attack, or something else entirely, go dig a candle out of the back of your closet and light it and listen to some soothing music.

One of the principal problems with being mentally ill is that life sucks when you’re mentally ill. Anything you can do to make life suck a little less is worth doing. Yes, lighting a candle isn’t going to fix your problems, but being in a room with soothing music and nice candles is really nice, and as I’m sure you’ve realized by now, it’s easier to take positive action in your life when you’re feeling positive, and doing nice things for yourself helps you feel positive.

5. Get into therapy

If you are not in therapy, get into therapy!

1. If you don’t have insurance or can’t afford it, many therapy offices have sliding-scale fees and programs to help people with financial troubles. Most metropolitan areas even have nonprofit agencies that offer free therapy for those who can’t afford it.
2. If you are worried you can’t tell the truth to your therapist for fear of being hospitalized or labeled as crazy, know that therapists are extremely limited in their ability to hospitalize people. They can only forcibly commit you when you are an immediate danger to yourself or others, and even then, only for a few days at most. You are only considered an immediate danger if you have 1) a clear plan to cause serious harm and 2) an intention to act on that plan sometime in the near future. Admitting to minor self-harm, suicidal desires, hallucinations, or delusions doesn’t qualify you for forcible hospitalization. In other words, it is safe to be honest with your therapist.
3. If you don’t want to see a therapist because you are embarrassed, think of your therapist like a diary. You don’t have to tell anyone you write in a diary, you don’t have to watch what you say because a diary is not going to tell anyone what you have to say, and you don’t have to be careful about what you say because a diary is not going to get offended, hurt, or leave. But a therapist, unlike a diary, can talk back — and they often have very, very helpful things to say.

6. Stop listening to depressing music

Believe me, I know how tempting it is to listen to depressing music when you’re depressed. My favorite genre of music is metal music, and metal music is almost exclusively about depression, alcoholism, heartbreak, anger, and trauma. It’s often hauntingly beautiful and extraordinarily deep.

It’s also depressing as fuck. And if I don’t want to be depressed as fuck, I can’t listen to it.

Music has a pronounced effect on our mood. If we listen to happy music, we’re going to be happier. If we listen to sad music, we’re going to be sadder. That’s just the way the human mind works.

Most people want to fight this reality. If they are depressed and listen to happy music, they get angry. “I don’t want to listen to happy music, I’m depressed!” But I think that in some cases, happy music only makes people angry because they want to keep feeling sad.

People don’t think of it that way, of course. They don’t think “I want to be sad.” They think of it like “This happy music doesn’t reflect how I feel. I want to listen to music that reflects how I feel.” But it’s a self-perpetuating cycle. You feel sad, so you choose to listen to sad music that reflects how you feel, so you get sadder listening to that music, so on and so forth. To lift your mood, you need to interrupt the cycle.

I’m not recommending you switch from heavy mental music to bubblegum pop. Just make a playlist of songs you like that do lift you up, even if only a little. Get rid of every song in your library that is about being alone forever, wanting to die, or other similarly hopeless topics. Once you’ve done this, go discover new music that you enjoy listening to and that has a positive message. This is easy to do if you know where to look.

Case in point. Most heavy metal music is about extraordinarily depressing topics… but not all of it. The same musicians who make all that depressing music wrote a song called Maybe It’s Time. Same heavy metal, same guitar riffs, same amazing vocalists, and a positive message that won’t leave me feeling worse than I started.

Or, if you’re a little too cynical to listen to positive music, just try for some instrumental music. For metal lovers, Apple Music has a wonderful playlist called Instrumental Metal Essentials, and I’m sure every streaming service has a similar playlist available.

You’re already trying to heal from mental illness. Don’t let the music you listen to work against you.

7. Talk to a friend or loved one

Talk to a friend or loved one about what’s going on! Having friends around you when things aren’t going well makes weathering the storm much easier. All you need to do is send a text.

Lord knows people with mental health issues often feel guilt about leaning on others. We don’t want to be a burden. But believe me, your loved ones want to help. For all you know, they may even talk about you when you’re not around, saying “I wish they would open up to us and let us help.”

Or sometimes we feel like no one could possibly understand. It’s easy to feel this way when you have a diagnosis like Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia, something more difficult to approach than depression or anxiety. But the people around you can understand; through listening to you and extending compassion, they can provide you with some desperately needed support.

Next time you’re laying in bed feeling isolated and alone, send someone a text. Reach out to them. Don’t reject them before even giving them a chance.

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1: I didn’t cite this because, frankly, there’s too many studies to cite. Go to scholar.google.com and type in “vitamins and [your diagnosis]” to discover which vitamins would be best for you.