Teenage Mardek player here (30y now), I've been following the blog the last month and wanted to add my contribution to the "people who really enjoyed Mardek" pile. And now for a story about my own health which might give some inspiration/validation.
I was at a low point in mid 2021, filled with self-loathing and a very broken ego (I had a very high image of myself before) and did volunteering for the first time ever because of it, with the idea of it being a good way to eventually spring back. I can attest, for me at least, that it worked wonders, I started therapy (not the first time) in April and volunteering in May of the same year and the combo was very validating and worked wonders on other goals for the year. 2023 is actually the first year I'm setting formal goals since beforehand I would never stick to anything besides gaming all day.
I write this to encourage those very goals for your 2023, I believe they are foundational for everything else.
A final heads-up, change is very slow, I spent 6 months getting over a relationship with 3 months of those with weekly therapy, that was "just" a relationship, when the trauma runs deep the work is that much more tough but it is very important imo to keep track of something, just to at least see progress and feel motivated, it's very common to feel like nothing has changed after 1-3 months and it's also very common to feel like it should have changed and have a need for positive feedback. I can only talk about my mechanisms for this type of stuff but what I do is keep track of habits that are fairly indicative of mental health: how many times did I binge eat, how many times did I do hygiene correctly, how many times did I exercise a bit even if just a walk, how many times did I actually try to learn something, bedtime habits, book reading, etc. I did and still do most of these on a monthly count basis and use it as feedback, if I take a look at the data right now it shows irrefutably the very slow build-up to a better day-to-day life, but while the data is parsed in minutes, living through it took actual months, this is why I find it very important for motivation. I also track my mood on a 1-10 scale daily, at the end of the day. This is very customizable of course, and if it ends up feeding emotions of not being enough and whatnot it's better to scrap it altogether, it's a method but not THE method.
Long post but hope it gives some food for thought and here's to an happier 2023!
I was at a low point in mid 2021, filled with self-loathing and a very broken ego (I had a very high image of myself before) and did volunteering for the first time ever because of it, with the idea of it being a good way to eventually spring back. I can attest, for me at least, that it worked wonders, I started therapy (not the first time) in April and volunteering in May of the same year and the combo was very validating and worked wonders on other goals for the year. 2023 is actually the first year I'm setting formal goals since beforehand I would never stick to anything besides gaming all day.
I write this to encourage those very goals for your 2023, I believe they are foundational for everything else.
A final heads-up, change is very slow, I spent 6 months getting over a relationship with 3 months of those with weekly therapy, that was "just" a relationship, when the trauma runs deep the work is that much more tough but it is very important imo to keep track of something, just to at least see progress and feel motivated, it's very common to feel like nothing has changed after 1-3 months and it's also very common to feel like it should have changed and have a need for positive feedback. I can only talk about my mechanisms for this type of stuff but what I do is keep track of habits that are fairly indicative of mental health: how many times did I binge eat, how many times did I do hygiene correctly, how many times did I exercise a bit even if just a walk, how many times did I actually try to learn something, bedtime habits, book reading, etc. I did and still do most of these on a monthly count basis and use it as feedback, if I take a look at the data right now it shows irrefutably the very slow build-up to a better day-to-day life, but while the data is parsed in minutes, living through it took actual months, this is why I find it very important for motivation. I also track my mood on a 1-10 scale daily, at the end of the day. This is very customizable of course, and if it ends up feeding emotions of not being enough and whatnot it's better to scrap it altogether, it's a method but not THE method.
Long post but hope it gives some food for thought and here's to an happier 2023!