10/22/21

10/22/21

09:55

Andra Day- “Rise up”

At home

For months I haven’t written any posts because to be completely honest, I had nothing to write about, or so I thought. I had no idea what to write about. I had moments where I felt like I exposed myself a little too much. My diagnosis is something I’ve kept a secret for years. It’s a part of me that I didn’t want anyone to know about. So after I shared it on my blog, I had to convince myself why I started a blog in the first place. Sure I want to write a book but over time, my blog became so much more than that. It’s a way to share my experiences with mental illness. I may not have many readers or subscribers but writing it out and sharing is helping me. Even if I have my moments of doubt and moments when I felt like I shared too much, I remind myself that it’s okay.

Some things that came up for me were being judged, looked at differently, people feeling sorry for me or just people saying to themselves that they knew something was “wrong” with me all along. I feared it so much. That fear of being judged runs deep. 

I struggled with exposing myself to my followers so much that for a while I debated whether I should continue sharing and posting and that’s just sad. I’ve had to convince myself that this is good, that I’m reaching people even if those people don’t reach out to me. I hope they read my posts and thought “thank God I’m not alone”. But some people may feel the way I still sometimes struggle with. The shame that comes with accepting you have a chronic illness. An illness that may or may not have changed your outlook on life. An illness that you’ll have forever. The thing is with mental illness, there is still hope. With medication and certain lifestyle changes, there is hope, Even if some days feel like there isn’t any in sight. 

For a while now I was also feeling very discouraged. I tend to write better when I’m feeling the worst. I started new medication this year and for a while they felt like they were working. Then suddenly it just stopped. I started sleeping longer hours, doing absolutely nothing but working simply because I didn’t have the energy or motivation to do anything else. It’s been a rough 2-3 months. But now I feel like the regimen I’m on is working for me. I started waking up earlier and even went on a run which may not seem like much but if you only knew how hard that was for me, you’d understand. The relief I’m starting to feel makes me feel like this might be it. I might be stable for a while, hoping at least. I’m glad I’m starting to feel better because I was already starting to hope I would have a manic episode, which tells me how much I was actually struggling. A manic episode isn’t the way to go because it wouldn’t be good for me or anyone for that matter. 

I know I’ve talked a lot about manic episodes but I’ve never really talked about what they look and feel like to me. But I’ll leave that for another post since it’s probably going to be pretty long. But let’s just say, I finally feel relief from my depression when I’m experiencing one. But it’s not the good kind of relief because that alone comes with it’s own challenges.