The same phrase has been circling around in my mind for quite some time. A wise person once told me that you can’t get better if you don’t want to. This seems to be a reoccurring issue within my short 18 years on this Earth.
Where shall I start? So my childhood wasn’t the worst. My dad was semi-abusive, my mother went back and forth from a clingy psychopath to the perfect mother. I was I guess considered intelligent, I was in gifted. As a strange child, I didn’t have many friends but the ones I had were pretty good. I was decently bullied, not to extremes but I didn’t get off scotch free either.
I had my first experience with depression and anxiety attacks in eighth grade. Got in some bad fights with friends and my parents were in the midst of a divorce due to my father’s affair.
I had my first and worst panic attack at school. I started my day at the high school where I took a few courses before I was bussed back to the middle school for my normal classes. Two years earlier a friend of my brother had attacked us both, beat us badly and threated to kill us. He had also in the past threatened to rape me. It’s obvious that I was terrified of him. I saw him for the first time in two years and froze. Being a small girl in the middle of a narrow stairwell in our old high school building, I had to get away from him. I felt like I was stuck with the air caught in my chest. I ran as fast as I could to my next class, not really being present in my own body the rest of the day. I don’t remember much about that day other than the horrible feeling of my heart racing, and not being able to breathe or move.
The next year I started high school and found amazing friends through NJROTC. I met my first love through that program. I told him all of my secrets and he told me his. In the end he cheated on me and left me for a close friend, causing me to relive our break up over and over again for the next 2 years.
I fell into a dark depression after that, dragging all of those around me into the dark hole. My current boyfriend who treats me like a princess has sure been my knight in shinning armor. He’s probably one of the only reasons I am still alive. He helped me through my depression from the start, and loved me when I couldn’t love myself.
I fell into a self destructive pattern of alcohol, cigarettes, and self harm. The truth is that I didn’t want to die but I truly didn’t care what might happen to me. I was numb and hated myself for not being good enough to keep the ones I loved around me.
It took a while of arguments about how my life means more to others around me than to myself, how I should love myself and how I am not only hurting myself but I am hurting others as well. I can’t admit I am fully recovered but I have come to terms with my family status, and my past relationship. Everyday I am learning to love myself and gaining the courage I need to talk to others in my life and let them know what I have struggled with.
Honestly I didn’t really want to get better because even though I was numb, at least I wasn’t feeling direct pain. Having overcome that fear and on the path of recovery, I would like to share that the happy times are worth the little amounts of pain.
I still struggle with depression and anxiety but I have found an amazing support group of friends and I can say that one day I will be recovered and it will most definitely be worth the struggle it took to get there.
Don’t be afraid to tell those around you how you feel. I promise you that none of the people I told treated me differently in any negative way, most of them actually opened up their feelings to me as well.
You are not alone. You are loved and you are priceless.