Breaking Down the Wall

There was a brief moment in my life when things felt balanced.  The patience I had so carefully honed in preparation for motherhood was readily available for my kids, my husband, my friends, and my associates.  I thought I was "healed."

Then reality struck.

Myths abound when it comes to mental health struggles.  There was one in particular that I believed: the depression and anxiety I was feeling would eventually heal if I did everything right.  So I took my medication regularly, I wrote lists of gratitude, I practiced deep breathing, and felt good for awhile.  Almost a year.  And then life took one of it's many twists and turns and I found myself back in the place I thought I had escaped.

Except things were different this time.  After years of quiet struggle - questioning, worrying, and bullying myself into believing I was clearly an evil person who could never be changed - I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression.  The specific diagnoses have changed over the past year but the reality remains: my desperate pleading for peace wouldn't come just by praying it away, nor should I continuously punish myself for things that were beyond my control.  Like any medical condition, I needed to take care of my physical and mental health so I could live the best life possible.

Suffering silently doesn't become me.  I want to break down the wall of stigmatization that society has built around those who struggle with mental illness.  Even mentioning the words "mental illness" are enough to shut down communication amongst associates because people are vastly uneducated about what mental illness really means and unaware of how people with mental illness live day to day.  I imagine most of this ignorance derives from popular media representations of mental hospitals, schizophrenia, and depression.  There are countless songs, movies, and books devoted to those who are "crazy" which perpetuate the fear.

I've lived a fairly successful life because of or in spite of  (my perspective varies by how I'm feeling that day) my mental illnesses.  It's time to reclaim my existence from those who've told me I need to hide who I am; living authentically and living out loud is more important than shielding people from my reality.