Warrior Wednesday | Disclosing to Strangers

Sometimes the process of getting your life together means confronting unpleasant things. Sometimes it means getting right up in the face of all the ways you’ve hurt yourself and trust me, it feels bad enough without witnesses.

Sometimes there are witnesses.

It was painful, and hard, but I had to disclose to someone exactly how off course my life had gotten and why. I can’t exactly say I’m ashamed of having mental health issues; I like to think I’ve gotten to the point where I can advocate for myself as a person with a chronic illness and not as The Local Crazy. But there were still some bad feelings there. I was hurting, for myself, for the ways in which I’ve suffered. I was ashamed—perhaps inappropriately, but it was what I was honestly feeling nonetheless—I was ashamed of myself for not turning things around sooner. Even though I’d been trying. Even though I’m doing my best.

I cried. In public. In front of strangers. It was okay.

I spent a few hours being sad, being ashamed, crying sporadically. I took my meds on time all day. I ate three meals. I drank a lot of water. I was okay in a few hours.

Recovery doesn’t mean not having the bad feelings, but letting yourself feel the natural flow of them. You experience the bad things, and you let go of them when you’re ready. The things that would have wrecked me for days or weeks before don’t do that anymore.

Sometimes, the process of getting your life together means letting unpleasant things pass. ❀

Butterflies and Jellyfish

Hello internet. It’s been a while.

I have to confess, I viewed this blog as a sort of comfort space, a place I could dump my brain thoughts when the rest of the world wasn’t cooperating with me. That kind of intention meant that as I worked through another part of my recovery, I neglected to spend any significant time in this space, really thinking about what it means to have a mental illness, mental illnesses, chronic mental illnesses… etc.

But I don’t think that these topics should be taboo, and I don’t think that they should be scary, and in all actuality I’m doing much better now than I have been these last few months. It’s in the spirit of this newfound stability that I return to this space with a greater sense of purpose and intent.

I went to an animal park and spent time at the butterfly conservatory as well as the aquarium. I love butterflies. I love fish. It seemed like a good idea at the time, so I packed up my good walking shoes and my Summer Solstice playlist and spent my treat-yo-self day making kissy faces at marine life through glass.

I like these spaces. Although they’ve a reputation for being noisy, busy places full of screaming, crying children, I found that by going alone I was free to be quiet, to find pockets of solitude in which to watch these life forms and reflect on my own life.

(I’m sure there’s a metamorphosis metaphor here somewhere. Butterflies. Jellyfish.)

The truth is, I’ve been making a lot of changes in my life from a personal and interpersonal perspective. Some of them are scary. Some of them are hard. Some of them are exciting. I’m watching my friends go through their lives with the same sense of flux—Stardust and his wife are expecting their first. Sunshine’s feeling the stress of providing for his family. Buddy is as happy as I’ve seen him since his divorce. Sunflower’s going through her own divorce amidst a slew of family medical problems.

Reflecting on these realities while amidst the cool, calm quiet of the aquarium and conservatory, I was struck by how simultaneously beautiful and mundane everything is. Butterflies, bugs rendered beautiful by their color. Crickets, abhorred in some cultures and consumed in others. (Full disclosure: I ate one.) Sharks, sublime predators embodying our fear of the ocean’s power to utterly obliterate us next to a tank of turtles irrevocably harmed by human interference. Lionfish, beautiful but dangerous.

And in life I find the same. The parts of our life we understand to be Big Decisions and Events are things that everyone experiences sooner or later, on their own time, in their own way. Being able to contextualize the suffering I’ve experienced in this way didn’t make it hurt less, but it did make it more meaningful.

I still don’t disclose to strangers. Hell, I don’t even disclose to all of my friends. The stigma is still real. People still judge what they don’t understand. (Depression is not being sad, a mild inconvenience doesn’t give you PTSD, no amount of yoga will ever achieve the same effect as the antidepressants I just increased doses on, and childhood sexual abuse is way more common than you think it is, full stop.) But taking the time to be close to nature in this way helped me to solidify a thing I know to be true—that everything changes—and apply that knowledge not only to the natural world but to my world.

Things that used to be catastrophes are upsetting, inconvenient, annoying, and sometimes even distressing. But I’m also a lot more stable than I used to be, and things that used to knock me flat on my ass barely even faze me anymore.

This is what it’s like to live with resilience. It’s nice to realize the muscle I’ve been flexing is stronger.

If you need me you can find me in the dark corner, nose pressed up against the glass, staring at adapting, changing things almost as beautiful as I am. ❀