Dear beloved readers,
I had a pretty great week, really no complains. Yes, I have been drinking more coffee than normally and yes, I am rereading The Catcher In The Rye for the 10th time or so but let’s face it, I never claimed to be the most normal one around here or anything.
Between all that caffeine and the metaphors that book holds, I also decided to go back to good’ol Tinder – I know, after that catastrophe that was my last relationship, if we can even call that that, I promised I would never go there again, but in all honestly, think of this as me trying to figure out more about whatever goes through the male brain than me trying to find the love of my life. I mean it, I have been noticing things and pretty much doing an in depth research and soon, I will probably be writing one of those ‘Understanding Men 101’ books. Y’all will see.
The thing is, even if I did have funny, light things to ramble about today, a dear beloved reader reached out to me, and you know my number one rule, I never turn my back to you guys. I meant what I said that you can always come to me and I am always here to help. Curiously, I was meaning to write about this long ago, so whoever you are, thank you for reaching out and trusting me with this.
This subject in particular is very close, very delicate and at times can be even triggering to me. I think anyone who ever faced mental illness and felt on their own skin what the hell that is all about, can say that no matter how long ago you faced it, you never forget, you never see this as irrelevant because even if no one feels the same pain, once you faced your own little living hell, you never look down at another person’s hell. That is called empathy, and sometimes I feel like even if this is something that 11 out of 10 teenagers are facing, no gives a crap.
So after hours thinking and trying to decide what to do with the subject requested, a subject that to me ends up being hella personal, I chose to write this one for not only the person who requested, but to everyone who is facing either depression or anxiety, and even though I am well aware that there are a thousand other mental illness out there, those are the only ones I get to speak about, because like I said, those were part of my little living hell, and I am here to talk, open up and somehow, do the best I can and try to help. And I hope this inspires someone, anyone to keep going this battle that many will judge as unnecessary or even as an exaggeration but a battle that the ones who felt on their own skin just will never forget.
A lot of people truly believe that you sharing your story and what you are feeling is the best you can do to solve your problems. I do, in fact, believe that sharing can help you and make things lighter and lift the weight off your shoulders, but above that, I believe that your pain will always be your pain, and you and only you have the power to make the decision of what direction your path you should take. Therefor, even if sharing and talking to people may help and relieve your pain, the mission of getting better, requests a little more than just that, so here are a few things you should keep in mind and be ready ’cause here comes a long one…
• Don’t think that just because it’s taking too long to heal that it’s just not healing at all;
That old saying that claims that time is the answer to everything sometimes is wiser than it sounds. There will be days, and I am not going to lie to you, a lot of days, that you will feel like you are stuck in time, that minutes will take hours to go by, days in which everything and everyone around you will feel as if they are flying freely while you sink deeply without even being able to cry for help.
You will talk to people that were through something similar, and you will feel just so inspired by them, because if they could make it, if they could heal, so can you, so will you. And this inspiration lasts around five minutes until you go ahead and ask yourself how long will you take to get there, to get better.
And that’s just another really stupid question, because really, this is not the type of thing that we can count the days until it fades away. It’s not the type of situation that comes with an expiration date, and most definitely, there is just no way to guess when it will stop hurting. But I guarantee that little improvements, small positive changes, they will come, and they will come in the simplest, sometimes dumbest ways in your day to day life.
It’s not gonna be a random day that you just wake up and suddenly you don’t feel that dark cloud taking over you or that nervous anxious feeling running down your spine. Sometimes in a song that plays on the radio and reminds you of a simpler time in which the world still made sense, and all you know is that as long as the song is playing everything is back on track. You will feel it in the warm hugs you receive from the ones that still didn’t give up on you, even if you already did long ago. During hot showers that seem to freshen up your soul. In a smile that you let go during a deep conversation with your grandma and that makes you think of how long it has been since the last time you genuinely smiled and you get to the conclusion that if it is happening naturally again, you must be in the right direction. And maybe, still far far far away from where you wanna be and far away from being 110% again, but at the same time, even further than when you were when your battle started. So you may not be where you want to be, but at least you are not where you used to be, and that itself is already a little conquer, and already a huge step.
• Don’t try to make anyone understand your pain;
The idea of discussing such a personal subject with anyone, a professional, your mother or even your best friend, will sound terrifying, but at the same time, kinda like the light in the end of the tunnel. And in the beginning, it may even feel like this huge weight being lift off your back. You will find yourself able to open up about this little unforgiving pain that lately has been consuming your whole body and stealing your precious hours of sleep, and everyone will seem to be so willing to listen and attempt to help.
And in fact, a lot of them will try. But this is still your battle, and even if, in theory, a lot of them try to fix you, very few will be the ones able even to listen to you. Because this is such an abstract battle, it’s a battle that just the one who carries the scars and the pain with them know how to survive, a battle that very few people will understand. And you know happens when people don’t understand? They judge.
Mainly, they do it because they are pathetic and insensitive and they lack in the quality I mentioned previously called empathy, but they do it because in their eyes this is a huge exaggeration and something not meant to be taken seriously, just a huge infamous joke, a cry for attention. They will judge because they never felt the same weight that is pressing down your chest, suffocating you, the weight that has been there day after day for long while now. They judge because as far as they know if you have a roof over your head and food on your table and is still too young to have a legit reason to be so sad (yes, they also refuse to use the word depressed), then you just isn’t, you just couldn’t be. And really, if you think like that, there’s no possible reason for all this sadness. But we are not just a body, we are feelings and emotions and there’s a whole psychological side to this, and sometimes our minds get ill, and just like when we break a bone we do everything we are capable of to fix it, we need to give our minds the same care when everything inside them seems to be in pieces.
Telling someone they can’t be depressed because they have a wonderful life, is the same thing as saying that someone can’t have asthma because there’s a whole lot of air around them.
Not everyone will understand, because this is not an universal pain. So don’t look for the ones who claim to understand, the ones who promise to fix you or even the ones who roll their eyes at you. They never faced your battle, they don’t know anything about what you’ve been through. Look for the ones who will try. They won’t promise you a bright, colorful world, but they will at least attempt to make your darkness a little brighter.
• Some days will be worse than others;
Believe me, the path until you are healed will consist with one step ahead, and five steps back, will consist with you being up all night questioning everything you know you should avoid. It will be confusing and a lot of times it won’t seem as if you are don’t this right, sometimes it will feel like you are stuck in the same spot, walking in circles or even running towards a complete different direction. But it won’t always be like this.
Some days it will be almost impossible to deal with this, you will look at yourself in the mirror and you won’t recognize the person staring back at you. You will watch you favorite movie or listen to your favorite song or read your favorite book and you won’t feel anything. Food will lose it’s taste and not even a scalding hot shower will be able to warm up your soul.
And that’s exactly what your mind wants you to believe. That it will feel like this all the time. That your life will work like this from now on. That no one will be able to identify with this feeling. That therapy and medication will help but they won’t cure. That there’s no reason to keep going, to keep trying.
And I need you to know that all of this is a big fat lie. A dangerous, unforgiving lie. Similar to being shoved in a dark room, – sometimes you can see a shed of light coming from under the door, but you know that door is permanently locked. And all you know is that you will live in that darkness forever.
But it’s important that you know that you won’t. That your way to that door will seem to take an eternity, and that once you get there and try to open it, it will probably be really locked. Not because you are stuck in there forever, but because it’s not the right time to come out just yet. And when will that time come? You just will know.
The key is you.
You and only you have the power to leave this room. If you were capable of seeing the light, even if just for a second, just a little shed, you know that there’s more in this world to you than a simple dark room. You will make it. Even if during the darkest days you feel like there’s nowhere to run, and all you have to do is simply wait until that pain consumes you and every living fiber of your being. You, and only you have the power to find the light even during those moments, because if darkness exists in you, so does the light.
• A relapse does not mean you are back where you started;
Maybe the hardest one to learn, at least it was for me. We are facing constant changes and we try to progress along with them as often as possible. So, when we come from days, months, even years of feeling good and healed and we go back to a point in which nothing seems to make sense again, a point in which that weight on our chest comes back heavier than ever and suddenly the air seems harder to breath, it’s natural to panic, after all the impression you have is that you are back at square one.
But that is not true. At all. You’ve been through more stuff in this life that you’ve been giving credits for. You are strong as hell, you got better, you made it. And just like during your battle there were the bad days and the not-so-bad days, now you have the good and not-so-good days.
Realize that it won’t always be the paradise they promised you when they first mentioned recovering. That not just because you have been feeling 110% again for over 10 years that a little relapse already means that you are locked to death in that dark room again. The path will be inconstant and unsure but don’t look at the cracks you still have ahead of you in your road, look at the hurricanes you already faced and look at this as what it is: a little stumble that, after years of practice, you know how to get up and keep going like a pro, not as if nothing happened, but as another lesson learned.
• Don’t push your limits;
A lot of days you won’t be able to find a reason to leave your bed, that everything will just feel like an awful idea and nothing will sound better than spending the whole day staring at your room’s wall. And during those days, trust me, all you have to do is accept that there’s nothing to be done about it.
Allow yourself to sleep in and miss important classes, because the truth is, you won’t be able to learn anything if you go anyways. Allow yourself to fucking cry for hours and don’t feel weak because of that. Allow yourself to be a masterpiece and a mere draft simultaneously. Allow yourself to don’t go to important meetings you have if you don’t feel okay that day. Regardless life obligations, you are still more important, you are still your number one priority, and your well being should always come first.
If it’s midnight, you have a super important test in the next morning but your hands are shaking for half an hour or so and you are not even sure if you are reading about geography or the laws of science or if you are making a mental list of all the reasons why you should just give up, throw that book away, grab your favorite ice cream flavor, and relax. If you score 5 out of 10 on your test in the next day, who cares? You took care of yourself, you allowed yourself a moment of peace after a lot of insanity, and in the end of the day this is worth so much more than any good grade on your report card. And to hell who tells you otherwise.
It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to want to disappear, if you hate yourself at times. It’s okay if you feel like no one cares for you, if you have dark thoughts, if they scare you and if you don’t even want to live another day. It’s okay to feel out of place, as if you don’t belong anywhere, it’s okay to ditch a night out with your friend because you would rather be alone in the safety of your room. It’s okay to feel all of this because everything has a reason, and because we all feel like that from time to time, even if this may seem like an abstract, useless lesson. The truth is, a lot of the chapters of our lives will only prove to be fundamental when our books are nearly all done. So it really is okay to feel this way, as long as you don’t give up before the end of the story.
• Don’t forget that people really can help;
So don’t go around thinking that because no one seems to understand you that it’s not worth keeping anyone in your life. Sometimes, the ones who will help you, won’t be the ones with the best advices or the best listeners, but the ones who will only need a simple look to know that a hug is often all you need.
A hug, a simple act of love, sitting along with you and watching your favorite for the third time in a row just because it’s the only thing that can make you feel better. Buying your favorite ice cream, spending the night up with you. Insisting that you leave the house or that you shower, even if there’s no point of it. Those are the little things, little action, that people don’t often realize, but can in fact help us a lot.
It’s not facing this as a lonely ride, it’s knowing that you won’t always have to be alone. It’s knowing that asking for help isn’t and won’t ever be a sign of weakness. That not everyone will want to see you rise from your ashes and be strong again, but there will be a few who just won’t give up on you, no matter how dark, awful, helpless things may get. Because those people, those amazing people who hold us together when we are falling apart, those are the ones who will be capable of loving us, and nothing but loving us, no matter what.
I want to end this one letting you know, once again, that no one needs to face this battle alone and that I am always here to try to help if you need, even with a silly little funny post or my ridiculous metaphors with clothes and shoes.
And my biggest advice: I only understood who I was after I destroyed myself, and it was in the process of fixing myself that I truly knew who I was. It took me years of ups and downs, twists and turns, therapy, medications, nights up, tears, relapses and amazing people trying to hold together for me to finally get to the point in which I get to help you guys and to share this proudly. Because my battle made me who I am, it may be a chapter I won’t ever read out loud, but it’s the chapter that got me here, and made me what I am today. It is undeniable the part of my life that I carry as a baggage and that somedays, it haunts me more than fills me with pride. But it’s still part of my story and it will always be my biggest conquer.
I still have the not-so-good days, because the thing about depression and anxiety is that, they never really do leave you, do they? It’s not an excruciating pain anymore, or something that keeps me up every single night. It’s not frequent, but those days come and go and life doesn’t stop, the only real difference is that now I know how to handle everything, and I have people who I trust and who are always here for me, even if sometimes the only way I can really let it all out through this blog and half dozen people read it, I still feel like I am not alone in this, and that is enough for me.
This was the longest post ever but I am not really sorry. This was long, but necessary, and I hope whoever requested, or whoever needed to read all of this, feels a little better now. Until next week, carry this post close to your heart, know I am always here for you all, and please stay out of trouble, but if you don’t – oh my god, tell me all about it.
– Your Girl on the Go