The Hard Look...
I’m always reflecting on my own journey of mental wellness and how I can be of service to you. So this newsletter is dedicated to sharing my journey with mental health, the highs, the lows, and the road I’ve traveled so far.
The theme of this blog:
I’m releasing myself from past versions of me I created to survive.
It’s almost like a movie shot between different time frames when I look at it. You can recall an experience and then the reflection and present moment can add so much knowledge, awareness, and growth. However, when you’re in the thick of it, you may not ever know you’re in the thick of it, you might and you might not care, or you haven’t had a moment that’s required you to take a hard look.
The Hard Look
I reached out for therapeutic help in September 2015, 31 years old. I had just had my family visit and with family there’s conflict from time to time. But this particular case of conflict left me feeling angry and that I felt like something was “wrong” with me. After 3 cancelled and rescheduled appointments, I actually walked into my therapist’s office in February 2016, wearing my favorite oversized hoodie, jeans, and flip flops, and just started crying on the couch. I cried for the entire hour. Yes, I always choose the couch over the chair, kicked off my shoes, and sat cross legged. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong but I knew I could experience more than my current state. I walked out of my first session with an understanding that I was experiencing depression, with a little anxiety on the side. From there my diagnosis for insurance purposes vacillated from depression to general anxiety disorder to adjustment disorder. I honestly couldn’t care what’s written on the paper for insurance. None of those diagnostic labels define me. From that moment, it’s been an unraveling of myself, a learning, a state of uncomfortable willingness, and so much more. I mention the dates, because if you’ve questioned asking for help, I want you to know that it is completely normal to be terrified before walking into therapy. It is completely normal to push away the help you need because you know it might open wounds you aren’t ready to talk about. Healing takes time. Honor your journey.
One of the first things I did for myself was get a volunteer job at the Oakland Zoo. Why? Well it gave me something to wake up for on the weekends. It gave me another day to be responsible to someone else other than myself. Someone was counting on me to get up, brush my teeth, put on relatively clean clothes, and help them. I loved every minute of that work. It brought joy when sometimes joy was really hard to find for myself. Plus, once I was up for the day, it was harder to go back to doing nothing. Once I was up, I could run errands on my way home, talk to people while I drove home, and cook for myself when I got home. It added more structure and productivity for me at a time when that was needed.
The second thing I did for myself was really commit to moving my body. I refocused on my running and what I was putting into my body. At a time when other things felt out of control, running and my body was something I could control. When I moved my body I felt good (aka those endorphins were going). Plus, when you feel dark and gooey on the inside, hearing people say you look great on the outside felt nice. At that time, these things served me. They kept me moving forward. Now, I’m currently exploring, learning, and unlearning some of my own behaviors related to my relationship with food. I’m releasing the need to pass judgement on previous versions of me that needed that sense of control to survive.
The third thing I did for myself was seek community. Now in all honesty, I sought community unknowingly. My communities have been friends at the local pub, yoga classes, running groups, yoga sister circles, Al Anon groups, Hiking groups, and fellow behavior analysts. This was where healing really started to happen. Therapy is great, but when you can take what you are saying to a therapist to a trusted confidant outside the therapy room, you are encoding your experiences with new learning different from before. Where I was afraid to talk to others about my experiences, I found that I wasn’t alone and that I could open up, be vulnerable, trust others, AND trust myself more. And with each step of healing, my community shifts, contracts, and expands, just like breathing.
So some of you might be wondering at this point in the story… What was I healing from exactly? First, I thought it was important to highlight the things I found helpful in my own journey. Second, the experiences I consider myself healing from are my, are not an excuse or sentence for how my life will go. Navigating these experiences as an adult has helped me understand my own behaviors and things I can continue to do for myself.
The things I’ve healed from and continue to heal from:
Having to be an adult when I was still a child
Heartbreaking broken trust from those close to me
My fears of abandonment
The need to please others in unrealistic ways
The need to gain approval from those in power or authority in my life
Loving those with addictions
My relationships to myself and my body
I used to write poetry as a child, adolescent, and teenager. And I can still feel the younger version of me’s deep emotions. She felt so much so deeply, and she still does. In honor of those previous versions of me, I’ll end this with one of my journal entries a couple years ago.