In a few hours I’ll be turning 25. An age that 10 years ago I would’ve never seen myself reaching. Because exactly 10 years ago I tried to commit suicide, and let me just first say failing at that has been my best failure yet. I’m grateful that it was a failed attempt because the thought of dying now is not something I want. It’s true what they say in most cases, it’s not that we want to actually kill ourselves but the pain that we’re feeling, the thoughts of worthlessness is what we want to escape. I’d be lying if I said last year I didn’t slip and find myself back into that dark place and those thoughts because I did and I as I previously stated in past posts depression is an ongoing battle, but it’s one that I’m going to conquer.
Ten years ago, when I was 15, I was in place of extreme depression and unhappiness. Nothing I or anyone did helped. In fact, I stopped trying because I never saw the point anymore. I gave up. At that time living just wasn’t worth it anymore. I’ve always been aware of the things I have and that my situation has been better than most, which is why it’s important to always remember mental illness doesn’t care about what you have. That even with the world of things, and every living creature loving you, you can still have depression. I want to remind those who are in situations where some people will deem perfect, that you’d have every right to still talk about your mental health and get help. You are not complaining, you are not being ungrateful. Like I stated in my first blog post I went undiagnosed for many years because some adults thought I was being an ungrateful brat by being depressed. Once again depression and mental illness knows no gender, age, race or living environment, anyone can get depression. Depression is an illness and chemical imbalance, those with clinical depression actually have different brain scans than those who don’t. It is important to treat it as the illness that it is, regardless if it can be directly seen or not.
It’s important to note that making the choice to get help and a proper diagnosis is what improved my life tremendously. Even though I didn’t stay with the idea of therapy for me, I’d always encourage people to get help. Not every battle we have to face alone, and while at the time it may seem like everyone and everything is against us, it’s important to still put yourself out there and reach out. Since that day life hasn’t been an easy journey by no means. I’ve been through some painful experiences but the main thing is that I made it through. Every obstacle that I have ever faced, I’ve overcome. I never gave myself the credit for the strength that I have. That’s something that I don’t think we do enough of, give ourselves credit, and that’s what honestly changed my view on life. One day, a couple months ago, I woke up and was honestly completely tired of finding things that I didn’t like about my life. It was from the way I looked, to my voice, to how my life is going, and then and there I decided enough was enough. I’m tired of being down all the damn time. So, I started a list. I began listing out every single positive thing that I could find with my life. From my skills, to my car, to my family and friends, to even looking at finding the things I liked about myself. I started to train my brain to think positive.
A Ph.D qualified professor who specializes in the science of positive thinking stated; “Our brain is not designed to create happiness, as much as we wish it were so. Our brain evolved to promote survival. It saves the happy chemicals for opportunities to meet a survival need, which only releases in short spurts which are quickly metabolized. So we take steps to stimulate the happy chemicals, but in the process we end up with a lot of unhappy ones.” She goes on to explain that our negative feelings are actually a survival instinct to lead us to meet our needs to reach happy feelings. But our brains are wired to keep looking for obstacles, which in turn can be very overwhelming for many people, especially those whose brains don’t release the needed amounts of those happy chemicals. She specializes in training our brains to think positively, which keeps us in turn happier and improves the downfall of depression.
The first step I took was to become more observing of my thoughts, which is not an easy task with anxiety, I felt like I had more negative and worrisome thoughts than anything. But becoming more aware of it, did help me to put it in check and work on solving what might have been bothering me. So if I was stressed about a design I was doing and having negative thoughts towards my skills, I would stop and think to myself okay no there’s a solution to this problem and also remind myself of how hard I worked to reach as far as I have. I also read back some of the positive words I’ve had clients tell me about my work, which helps. It’s important that when you find yourself going down a negative thought process to become self-aware so you can switch to
positive thought instead. Along with this, and at the end of each day, I go through the positive things that happened to me. Sometimes we only think of the negative and think that’s all that occurred that day, but often times it just covers up the positive. Keep in mind these accomplishments don’t have to be anything grand, simply making it through a stressful day is a positive, eating properly for the day is an accomplishment, doing the laundry is an accomplishment. Sometimes these seen as easy tasks can become stressful, so it’s important to recognize the strength it took in doing them.
Another important step was exercising. Healthy body, healthy mind is a very true statement. Exercising helps to not only relieve stress and tension in the body, but it also releases endorphins which helps you to feel better. It also gives your mind a break in separating itself from the various things that might be stressing you out and focusing it on something else. You don’t have to push yourself and do two hours every day like I do, but even a 20 min workout will help. The important thing is to start. Along with this I would encourage everyone to also make time to do something you enjoy and love. Not every second of your day as to be spent on becoming rich and successful, in fact most rich and successful people take at least an hour to unwind and do something that relaxes them. Whether it’s playing video games, watching a movie, reading a book, giving yourself spa time, whatever it is, give your body and mind it’s needed break, from your usual everyday activities.
The biggest helper but also the most difficult task for me was inner healing. It was sitting down and writing out everything that has ever hurt me and caused me trauma. From my teen years and every negative thing that was said to me. From getting my heart broken and being in a toxic relationship, to almost losing my parents, to having a friend die and regretting how we left things. To almost losing one of my best friends last year. To leaving my job and being unemployed for a while. To every argument I’ve had to every time I’ve cried. To every negative thought I’ve had about my body and the way I look. Every time I put myself down and thought I wasn’t good enough. I laid it all down. That day I cried so much, I did nothing but stay in my room and just let it all out. But within the crying I felt myself start to heal. I forced myself to face everything across the span of several days, it took a toll on me and left me exhausted beyond words. But I began to heal, and each day got better, facing what left me feeling hurt helped me to heal. Because in recognizing the problem I began to fix it. I began looking at myself and started to find even the smallest of things that I loved and eventually woke up one day completely loving myself.
I began to focus on the positive and stopped worrying so much on the things that I can’t change yet. This still isn’t easy for me and some days those negative thoughts can slip in. But I’m lucky enough to have friends and family who will listen. I’m lucky to have a best friend who I can annoy with my endless problems, who always listens and helps me through it. I’m lucky to have parents that no matter what they’ll help me. I’m aware that not everyone can have this support system and therapy can be expensive. But I need everyone to remember you’re a lot stronger than you think, and some days it is tiring to be strong and you wanna give up, but you’re worth the life that you have, you’re worth the air that you breathe, you’re worth the love that you think you don’t deserve. You’re worth being treated kindly. No matter what the negative thoughts have said, you are worth everything positive. I know there’re a lot of people out there whose situations are awful but don’t end it. Give yourself the chance for it to get better, you have so many more years ahead of yourself, you’re worth it getting better. The best failure of my life was July 7th 2010.
I want to dedicate this post to every single person who has ever made me happy. Every single person who has helped me, who encouraged me. Those who support me and care for me. Those who love me, especially on those days when I didn’t love myself. Any person that has ever helped me financially, who bought me a meal in those college days when I couldn’t afford it. My friends who walked with me to buy lunch or to classes across to my next campus across town. Any friend that ever gave me a ride home or picked me up when we went to hang out. To every person who has been there for me when I’ve cried. To the ones who looked out for me when I had a little too much to drink. Those who invite me their house, who invite me for holidays. Who was there when both my parents were in the hospital. To the friends who have grown apart from but who have been there for me, you will always hold a place in my heart. To the ones who are still here thank you for being here. For every time we’ve laugh, cried, smiled, every dance we’ve done and every song that we’ve sang off key, I’m grateful for it. I’m grateful for every single one of you in my life. I love you all and thank you for being a part of my 25 years.