As I start to type this, I’m thinking that this might be a part of my upcoming eBook. Spoiler alert: I haven’t fully recovered, as I don’t think anyone truly recovers from depression but I am on a good path. I’m getting ahead of myself, we’ll cover the above, but let’s just start at the beginning.
As I just noted and it might be an unpopular opinion, I don’t think any fully recovers from depression or any mental illness. I think it’ll always be with us, it’s just how we learn to handle it, aware of the signs when they come creeping in. We have good days, which we embrace and absolutely love. We have bad days that we dread and want to be at home, turn off the cell phone and just lay on the couch, curled up under our trusty blanket and binge on old episodes of Friends. I’ve been there way too much in the past year.
When we’re binging our favourite television shows, we’re not at our best, but we’re present. When we don’t even have the energy to turn on the TV, we start to worry. I’ve been there as well, way too much in the past year.
And I’ve been everywhere in between.
I’ve been everywhere in scale. From the worst to extremely good. The first time I got to my lowest was in the latter part of my teens then a few times in my 20s, a lot in my 30s and every year since turning 40. I’m 44.
COVID brought a lot of it on, to be fair. And I think we’re all still feeling the aftershocks of what COVID left behind in its great sweep of the galaxy. Some of us just got out worse than others.
Every time I survived living under a dark cloud where I didn’t have enough trust in myself that I’ll ever see the sun again, I thought I hit the jackpot because I thought I recovered. But no. I just survived that one battle. There’ll be another one coming along, just don’t know when.
The good thing about surviving each battle though is that after each one, I got wiser about what the triggers are. Where I went wrong, what I need to do to change and be prepared for next time.
In 2020, I was battling an unknown disorder that I would later learn is misophonia. I was stuck in my house and was scared that this mental chaos would stay with me forever. I thought that I hit the rest of my life and that I will be spending the rest of my life with panic attacks, migraines and wearing headphones. I didn’t know how I’d survive. Once I learned that there were others like me out there, I found comfort. The comfort gave me hope and I could find distractions with hope. I started to water paint again. Something I used to do since high school. They were distractions but they helped me to slowly get back on my feet. The coping mechanisms.
From 2020 to this past summer when I watched season 5 of Friends in one day, with my phone turned off, eating straight from the cereal box and not bothering doing anything humans do in their daily life. But I got up and – this might sound cheesy – chose life. It hurt for a bit. I took it slow, baby steps. The longer I was on my feet, the easier it got. It got better day by day. I know this by how many times I smile in a day. I’m always laughing, and on those days when I feel laughing takes too much energy, I get sad because I know inside of me is slowly dying. I survived the summer. Currently, on this day, I’m great. I’m doing what I love. I have a passion project I just started that is an Ebook that I’m looking forward to releasing to the universe next year (cross fingers) and my podcast that is on hiatus. I have a wonderful support group surrounding me, and that has been through it all with me. They are part of my army that help me with whichever battle I need to survive next.
So, yeah. I don’t think I’ll fully recover, but I know I’ve survived and proudly wear the battle wounds on my body.
Keep fighting.
