Embracing the Mess

Having a mental illness is a strange experience to say the least. Trying to accept it, is an entirely different struggle. Imagine growing up and feeling like something isn’t quite right. You aren’t entirely sure what seems to make you different, but you see it. The inconsolable crying, the dark thoughts, the panic attacks, feeling like so many things don’t make sense. You don’t necessarily want to talk about it, because if you do then people will know there is something weird about you. Then, if you talk about it and people dismiss it, you feel like never talking about it ever again. A tricky balance to say the least. And there is already the icky awkwardness of being an adolescent and growing and changing. Sprinkle that with some depression, anxiety, learning disability, and a developing physical illness and you have yourself quite the messy cake.

It wasn’t all bad. I found myself connecting to other weirdos, other people who were struggling. I always had other misfit friends and we navigated the shit storm together. But that wasn’t enough to come to terms with my own existence. I needed to focus inward and accept the me that was kind of a spazzball (I mean that lovingly).

Once I formally got diagnosed in college, I felt a sense of relief. This was quickly followed by confusion and shame after sharing my diagnosis with loved ones. I didn’t understand what was so bad about being mentally ill but the reactions sure made it seem like the world was falling down. That this great secret should be boxed up tight and sunk into some far away lake. It’s funny though, overall I was glad I had a name for the things going on with me. Accepting how it affected my life, well that was another story.

I was always trying to fit other people’s ideas of who I should be. It was such a struggle to try and jam my neurodiverse body into this rigid mold. I was missing the mark. And it kept happening. I wasn’t the person people saw me as. When I tried to talk about my symptoms I was often dismissed. After a while I just pretended like I was doing fine. Truth was though, I was barely hanging on. I had little support due to sabotaging my closest relationships. Turns out, I didn’t trust people very much. I had a big old backpack of trauma I needed to unpack. I was living alone and I was scared. I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if I had another breakdown. I knew it could happen. In fact the conditions weren’t far off from it being the case.

I felt trapped in my own life. I was scraping and hoping I could keep going. Most days I was setting 5-10 alarms to get up for work in the morning. I rarely cooked, I just didn’t have the energy or the motivation to take care of myself. Part of accepting my mental illness was acknowledging that my life needed to drastically change in order for me to keep going. I didn’t know exactly how yet but I would soon find out.

In the process of moving and letting go of the have to’s of how I was told to live my life, I started seeing the truth of how I felt. I was tired A LOT. I felt sick and was anxious majority of the time. I didn’t really understand how to have meaningful relationships with people. I had a lot of trauma to sort through. But accepting that I couldn’t just push my struggles under the rug was actually quite hopeful. It hurt and I was terrified to make different choices because what if things fall apart? But I had to feel that pain to move forward. I’ll tell you what, attempting to heal is messy. As my therapist said, sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. So I’m here today to say that pretending isn’t a solution. It may be terrifying to face your issues but it’s worth it. It’s the path of self love and finding out what works for you. It may be a messy journey but at least you can be authentic within it. Compassion for oneself is a beautiful and vital form of love that I think we should all strive for.

Keep growing…i’m rooting for you!
-WhimsyCat