I’ve been sick since Monday. The kind of sick where you stay in bed, sleep most of the day, and just convince yourself you need “one more day” of rest to get better. And to be fair, rest is important when you’re sick. But this week, it turned into something else for me. It became a spiral.
On top of being sick, I’ve been feeling the weight of everything else… job applications that don’t seem to go anywhere, feeling like I’m not making progress with my degree or my data analyst course, being overwhelmed with life, even struggling with my own self-worth. It all adds up and starts to feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy: the less I do, the worse I feel, and the worse I feel, the less I do.
By today, Sunday, I was ready to spend another whole day in bed. But then, for whatever reason, I opened TikTok. That’s where I stumbled on a girl named Kylie Perkins and her “tough love” playlist. And something about it hit me. She wasn’t saying depression isn’t real or that I should just “get over it.” What she was saying is that even when you’re depressed, you have to move. You have to do something or else you’ll stay stuck in it.
At first, I resisted. But then I thought: she’s right. I could either lie in bed all day again and continue feeling worse, or I could try a different choice. So I got up. I made my bed. I showered. I hydrated. I took some medicine. They weren’t huge things, but they were something.
And you know what? That one little video didn’t magically fix my life. It didn’t erase my problems. But it was enough of a spark to get me moving. And maybe that’s the point… you might not find the same motivation every day, but if you can find something each day to pull you forward, that’s progress.
Today, it was Kylie’s tough love playlist. Tomorrow, maybe it’ll be that same thing or maybe it might be something else. And that’s okay. The important part is to keep looking for those sparks and not let yourself get completely swallowed by the spiral.
If you’ve ever had a video, a song, or even a piece of advice that snapped you out of your funk, I’d love to hear it. Share it below. And if you want to check out Kylie’s content, I recommend it. Sometimes, tough love is exactly what you need.