Life is too short to be at war with yourself

You're in an arcade, you're playing your favourite game and you've just beaten the end boss. You win 24 tickets, what do you buy?

You get £86,400 deposited in your bank account every day. At the end of the day, whatever you don't spend of the £86,400 is wiped from your account and £86,400 is added to your bank account the next day.
What are you spending your £86,400 on?

As you've guessed, the 24 tickets are the 24 hours in the day, the game is life. The £86,400 is the 86,400 seconds we have in a day, what you "spend" it on is the quality of life you give yourself.

I know 99% of the people reading this will be thinking, "You're full of shit, love. I'm struggling so much today, I can barely think about the next minute let alone the next hour".
I'm with you too, I have 3/4 weeks to find a full time job because after my ESA assessment next week, I will have lost my benefits. I don't have the energy to fight the decision, to go through the torment of not having any money to survive, to use a food bank for the 5th time. I have no energy to feel like a shit parent and a shit person every single day because I'm too wrapped up in my own head to see that if I just applied myself to something, I may actually do OK.

Depression and anxiety are not selfish illnesses, there is a legitimate reason as to why a person reacts to a certain situation differently to someone without depression or anxiety.
However, my decision to let my depression and anxiety hold me back, that's selfish.
Not giving myself a chance because of depression and anxiety, that's selfish.
Beating myself up because of negative thoughts and the process that goes along with those thoughts, that's selfish.

I'm not cured, far from it. I'm just not letting my depression and anxiety define me.
I have depression and anxiety, yes. I almost certainly have other undiagnosed things going on too.
Every single day I have thoughts of self harm, of jumping in front of a car or a bus, starving myself until I'm thin.
I am not my illnesses.
I am not an illness.
I am a human being.
I am real.

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