My Student Identity | Article

By Raquel Lyons

Technically, if you remember my article a little under a year ago, “OCD and Identity”, you will remember that “student” is more of a label than a facet of one’s identity, but to make things simpler, for now I am adopting my wonderful new identity as a student for the three and a half months this semester will last.

 

What does my student identity comprise of?

 

First, I have had this first week of school to figure out what works and what will not work according to this new identity change. A nurse I had spoken to for a very long time in my last hospitalization, discussed with me the importance of my job as a student. He described from his own self-disclosure of dealing with anxiety and depression and having once been a procrastinator that making school his number one allowed him to focus extensively on the work he had to do and making sure he did it. He practiced a lot of mindfulness while doing the schoolwork, being present in the moment and not judging the experience for anything beyond “it just is.” By using mindfulness he was able to enjoy the process of schoolwork rather than focusing too much on what the outcome was going to be.

 

This has inspired me quite a lot as I have already gotten down into the books (so much text!) and have decided for at least the beginning of the semester that I will be hitting the books heavily during the weekdays. My best time to work will be mornings and early afternoons to late afternoons at the most. I definitely have to put away the books by seven pm, as anything after that distracts me from getting to sleep. I also want to have my weekends spotless of any academic work. I do not want to even glance at a textbook over the weekends.

 

I want to stay on top of my schoolwork and may be even slightly ahead. Now, I’m certain these expectations will change as the semester goes on, so I am aware that I will need to adapt my style to whatever circumstances arise. That will be…interesting to say the least.

 

Another thing as a student I will be expecting myself to do is attend classes.

 

I will also need to get enough sleep. This means I have to make my nine pm sleep schedule a priority. So far I have been having trouble staying asleep throughout the night and with less naps to no naps during the day, it is already starting to wear me down. Luckily, I have school only MWF so my TuTh’s are more open.

 

Hand in hand with sleep is getting enough to eat. Making sure I eat plenty before classes is a must and number one in my proper self-care.

 

I will also require breaks during all this intense academic work. So far, I’ve experimented and came to find that I cannot take Internet breaks. Otherwise, I just get lost on the Internet and wind up procrastinating. So, instead I will use listening to music and art as breaks, or reading for a different class entirely.

 

Another motivating factor for me on this new identity is that I want to be able to do the fun things I enjoy. For instance, I still have about nine books out from the library and I absolutely want to read all if not most of them. Having the weekends and evenings open will allow me to do that–plus blogging and vlogging? Gwah, I miss those.

 

While the nurse had school as his number one priority, I am tweaking that a bit in order to have my health and wellness (physically and emotionally) as my number one priority.

 

This leads me to my concluding point that all of this identity stuff is founded in ignoring the OCD, the depression, self-harm and suicidality. So far, I have been able–with waning focus–to push aside OCD’s intrusions so as to continue reading. But, in the future, will I be able to do this? I’m not sure.

 

I know that so far I am extracting a LOT of inner strength in order to keep up with my own demands and expectations. My trepidation is that this will require more strength than I am able to expel. At the same time, my cognitive reframing says that I am stronger than I think and I am stronger than I feel.

 

Lastly, I need to work on giving myself more credit. Putting this new identity forward is no easy task, and so I need to remind myself that while it may only be the first week, I am a shining badass unicorn!

 

Stay strong, peeps.

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Just wrote this and edited it today, hooray!! It’s up already and now it’ll be up on here! Then it’s time for me to video my first article at least this weekend, hooray!! 😀

Hope it’s good!!

Winter Woes | Article

By Raquel Lyons

 

I think it is accurate for me to describe about a year ago this semester (i.e. spring 2016) as the written perspective of where I have been in recovery. Then, in the fall 2016 semester, I wrote articles from the perspective of where I am. And now, for spring 2017, I will be writing articles in the perspective of where I am going.

 

It feels as though not much happened over my winter break, yet, some things are definitely changing. I would like to explore these changes in this article now.

 

First, finals really kicked my behind. The sudden change from social interaction to what felt like sudden isolation was enough to ruffle my feathers. I certainly put in the majority of my work during that finals week than I had throughout the entire semester (which means I need some serious newly enhanced expectations for this coming semester). But even I had my breaking point. Somewhere within the dark four days of working on finals, procrastinating on finals and then avoiding finals, the feeling of depression came knocking on my doorstep. Once the enemy returned, life just got weird.

 

I began two weeks of extensive suicidal planning. I had obsessions and compulsions all over the place and read many, many forums about my method of choice. I scratched myself in order to avoid a compression form of self-harm and engaged in a few other self-harm tactics.

 

In between this happening, I made a YouTube channel. I made videos out of my articles, Ink On Skin videos and a few vlogs. I like the IOS videos as they are creative and have some awesome background music. I use my webcam to film for now, which I am justifying as the best thing to use since it does its job and my camera is too backed up with photos for me to go through and delete them (i.e. it requires more than one step and that’s enough for me to avoid doing it). I came to find that I enjoy the basic level of editing that I do and brainstorming how to create a video out of the words that I’ve written.

 

In reading out my articles for my YouTube channel, I got a better, more comprehensive understanding of what I’ve been writing about for nearly a year. One of those revelations is that I am awfully repetitive and yet it was with that repetition that inevitably helped me out in the end.

 

Instead of following through with my plan for suicide, my parents found out about what I was planning from a blog post I had written and confronted me about it. The idea of the hospital came up again, and when I went to see my psychiatrist the following day in January 2017, it was decided upon that because I was already harming myself outside of the hospital that I needed to go back on the inside.

 

Thus, my sixth hospitalization was born.

 

The first couple of days I was on the unit I was not behaving with the idea of recovery in mind. In fact, I came onto the unit prepared with methods to hurt myself and in retrospect that was not the nicest of actions. I did advocate for myself and asked for a one-to-one which I received for a half day. A one-to-one is essentially when one of the mental health specialists follows you around and keeps an eye on you. After that I graduated to marking off my own fifteen minute checks on a sheet of paper by the nursing station. And then, over the weekend I was meant to do reverse checks with the staff which meant I initiated the check-ins–which I mainly did when I was not either napping or reading.

 

The good thing about this breakdown of check-ins is that I was not relying on other people in order for me to feel safe, rather I was learning to trust again that I could keep myself safe. Alongside this theme, was the question posed to me of where the mental health conditions were stemming from for me. The answer to that, as of yet, I am not quite sure. In part, I think it stems from a fear of death. And then suicide became a way of controlling the uncontrollable.

 

Beyond this, someone I spoke to told me to think of my mental health conditions as a time that has come to pass. That the conditions have served their purpose and now it is time for me to move forwards and let go of them. There was also the mentioning that I am labeling myself as well, which will not be easy things to let go of.

 

Yet, with time, I think I’ll find my way.

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This article was written January 16th 2017. I just finished up my second article and will be uploading that momentarily. I’ll probably make a life update post after my last class, too. 🙂

 

❤ ❤ ❤

It Has Begun

School that is.

I think I actually have Day #2 of Recovery Restoration all set, but I won’t be able to get to it tonight. I barely have time to get to THIS post tonight, so, bleh.

Basically homework. Homework (NOT whorework, Jesus Christ fingers!!) means I can’t get that done today. Also, I am going to have to stay off the Internet when it comes to breaks. Yep, yep, yeppity yep. (As of today it just leads to procrastination). Poo.

Also I mainly just slept today. And procrastinated…

BUT I started reading and have accomplished some readings already, SAY WHAT!?

So that’s pretty awesome 🙂

I’m currently working on a reflection for my psych of aging course. Then I have to read for said course and finish an 8 page reading for my experimental methods course. Already did my sociology work, whoo!

I’m hoping I can be in bed around 10p. I may have to push out some reading assignment until tomorrow, unfortunately. I’d like not to, but I have to pack for school and pick out clothes and that’s going to take time that I won’t have tomorrow morning. Especially if I try to stay up a little longer. Gwah.

 

So, that’s me at the moment. I have both an article for a video and a post I can do soon and then I have to start writing some new material. Got a great idea for this week though 🙂

I’ll be around, folks! *salutes*

Hope you guys are well! ❤ ❤ ❤

Recovery Restoration Volume #1 | Project Day #1

Today’s Prompt ~^~ Invitation

….That moment when you’re clocked in for work but cannot form any of the words to either write your article or your blog post (to invoke some creativity and words). *sigh* It’s that pal, writer’s block again!

As I switch back and forth between writing this post and writing the article, I want to invite you to a new project I am working on now! 😀

I am gearing up to pitch the idea to every connection I have, and of course, I’m broadcasting it onto my social media accounts (i.e. here, DA and YouTube).

The concept is pretty simple (and quite creative!).

I’m calling the project: Recovery Restoration (because alliteration is my new thing for now).

The concept is to create positive, hopeful and pro-recovery artwork (including but not limited to drawings, coloring, photography, writing, etc.) that can be not only inspirational to you but to others as well! On the back of the pictures we discuss what the artwork means to us, what we may have been doing creating it, and where we are in our recovery journey when we made it. Then, we place photographs of the artwork into some type of scrapbook, photo album or binder (depending on individual program’s protocols) and donate the works of art to nearby inpatient units!

This way it is a creative and positive experience for those creating their mental health story, and then giving back to others in their own recovery journeys to help convey hope and the idea that we are NOT alone, and that there is peer support available to them that they can hold on for. 🙂

I’d love to know what you guys think of it!! I think it could be a wicked idea. I’m having the place I was at hopefully think it over and consider it and I’m gearing up to propose the idea to another sister program and to NAMI and so on and so forth. I’m thinking the sister program would be good about it, as I’ve seen similar artwork sharing already on the TVs they have (on the campus at least).

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To further begin this project, I am submitting each day for the next 24 days, a picture of my own Recovery Restoration Volume #1 photo album. This is especially nice as I’m using a selected amount of my artwork from my first round of my recovery journey from my first and second sketchbook up until “The End Of the Line” drawing (which you saw a few days back). I can probably include some more when I give away my work to the units, but for now this is my start up version and something I can use to show after IOOV presentations 🙂 Also it’s 24 because that’s how much space I have in my album.

So, this is what the album looks like!! The dimensions are 4×6.

And in no particular order, this is Day #1’s submission:

With this description on the back: ( that does NOT want to be sent…. grrr.)

For this one (my computer wasn’t working at home) I hand wrote the description and may either have this as the option or use my initial idea to have typed print on the back as the description. Any who, it says:

(never mind it’s worked)

THUS CONCLUDES DAY #1!

Come back tomorrow for Day #2!! 😀 And let me know what you think of this idea in the comments 😀 😀 ❤ ❤ ❤

 

 

 

The Denial Marathon

Today’s Prompt =~= Marathon

Denial: a psychological defense mechanism in which confrontation with a personal problem or with reality is avoided by denying the existence of the problem or reality.

Marathon: a long-lasting or difficult task or operation of a specified kind.

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{This would be better if I had written it in the morning as I began it, but alas, it’s evening now but this post is in my way before I can make other ones… sooooo, without  further ado…}

Do I have to write this post? I ponder. Do I really?

It’s embarrassing to admit that I’ve been continuing to self-harm in that form of bruising that isn’t bruising. It’s embarrassing to say I’ve been looking up videos about cardiac related topics and there is a MASSIVE causative link between my doing that and then acting on this annoyingly budding form of self-harm.

I don’t want to talk about it on the blog, let alone to a large audience of people in real life, but I know that I have to. The more I talk about it the more I pull it away from an action dealt with in the shadows and the more I rub off all the swirling clouds of denial that encompass it.

Because, I have to say: Hi, hello, I’m still hurting myself, just in an invisible way.

It leaves no traces of my actions, not outwardly physical at least. I don’t have a clue if it’s making changes internally, but my newest theory is that what I’m doing is cutting off some circulation of my bloodstream and that is dropping my BP, raising my HR and causing me to get dizzy and nearly pass out (only nearly though). I’m probably losing brain cells I can’t afford to lose. It might be like playing Russian roulette, or it may not be “that serious”. Either way, even if my intention isn’t necessarily or always self-harm, the consequence is that it’s self-harm.

Sure, yeah, other people can do it and video record it and put that shit up on the Internet, but that doesn’t mean I can, should or that it’s okay if I do. They are also often advised to be careful because again, this isn’t exactly a studied phenomenon so who knows what damage or not damage is transpiring.

So here I am, many breaks and avoidance minutes later, as I don’t inherently want to be talking about this subject matter.

 

I know in order for me to get over this, I’m going to have to continue going up higher on the accountability mountain to tell my story and my struggles. I’m vowing to myself to face the music tomorrow by telling Craig (and later with my therapist). It’s gotta end somewhere.

So far, I’m nearly two weeks clean from scratching and 1 day clean from bruising.

That’s all I’ve really got now, I’m exhausted and need to sleep to prepare for tomorrow.

 

Thanks for all your support, peeps! ❤ ❤ ❤

“It’s The End of the Line”

Today’s Prompt <-> Unseen

 

“Have a hard time letting go…

It’s the end of the line for you and I…

Was lost in limbo long enough for two,

But my Identity was Wasted on You”

This is my new theme song for the second part of my recovery. Be prepared, for we are going on an unseen mission, from one pole of recovery to the next pole of wellness.

It will be a rocky journey, and I can only promise that I will strive to balance my unhelpful pleas for help with actual sayings of help in real life. I can only promise that while I may-no, will-struggle, that I’ll do my best to go down fighting. I’ll be spitting in the face of my adversaries and I’ll be gathering all my strength and wisdom to keep plowing on.

I will not do this alone, I understand, and I too, hope you know that as well. We ARE all in this alone, TOGETHER. We are on separate paths able to see each other from afar. The fog may be strong at times, and we WILL persevere.

Here is one of my newest hallmark drawings for this new journey. Consider this my Volume 2 of Recovery to Wellness.

The drawing is very conceptual in nature. It was heavily inspired (thank god I was able to use my iPod eventually while inside!!) by the song above, “The Line” by The Dear Hunter. Some of the lyrics I’ve highlighted especially in the quote box. (I’m actually planning on doing another drawing inspired by the second part of the lyrics in that box).

The concept came to me when I spoke to a nurse for a lengthy (impressively) amount of time while I was in the hospital (I got out on Wed). He advised me on many things, some involving working hard in school and making that my number one priority (which I slightly disagree with as my health and wellness should be number one but same difference) while I’m there as it won’t be forever and people listen more to peeps with degrees. XD

He also spoke with me about mindfulness and self-disclosed his own struggles with anxiety and such.

Any who, the point I’m trying to get at (and I’ll get back to that other stuff in the future, someday, trust me) is this person conveyed the idea that if I am to move on into mental wellness from my mental illness, I am ought to move on entirely. That means no keeping any little boxes of mental illness in my life. It means getting rid of it ALL.

Which is…daunting and intimidating and necessary. Because only when it is all gone can moving forward occur. There can’t be any left for you to ride on as a crutch (“I’m too depressed, I can’t go out today”) or for you to keep for shits and giggles. It’s ALL gotta go.

So that made me link up to this song. So, it’s hard to let go of what I’ve used as an escapism of twisted sorts for the last couple of years. It’s not happening over night, but it’s a process. The self-harm, suicidality, OCD and depression have run their course, is what he advised me. I needed them then, and now I do not. They served their purpose and now it’s time for me to move on without them.

It’s just like what I said about a month ago, I’ve got to move 11 blocks up the street. I can’t spend the next five years or more years stuck in this rut.

It’s time I dig my way out again.

It’s time for the wall to come down.

It’s time I start shining and start thriving. And to help inspire you all out there, who read my ramblings, to do the same. ‘Cause we can do this!! I’m with you til the end of the line 😉

So back to the drawing!! (And may I interrupt myself to say I don’t believe there’s a version of recovery that’s a cure all for mental health conditions, however, if you read on my explanation of the drawing you may see what I mean when I say getting rid of ALL of it.)

The balloon is meant to signify the mental illness or whatever it is that afflicts you (the stick figure).

The collar is where the balloon is attached (save from the last frame) at the neck because that’s your life source (and it has taken over your life).

There are chained hands at the beginning but those fall away.

A happy mask that also leaves next.

The collar breaks (changing from gray to blue dotted to blue).

And the end of the line comes, where it’s time to let go of the mental health conditions and live YOUR life again. The balloon, as you can see, is still present. It is shriveled and broken down, yet still it exists. This is to convey that mental health conditions will still be there in your life, YET the shining power and inner strength and beauty of RECOVERY will OUTSHINE THEM.

Here are these elements in closer forecast:

Also, you may have noticed, I’m changing my artistry signature!! I am moving on from HMD (in reference to my DA page) to RtW! For RecoverytoWellness, of course!!

I also made two other WIP’s during this hospitalization. I am behind on uploading artwork for you peeps, so you can see that changing in the future. I finished reading “The Shadowkiller” tonight which is awesome and got in more orders of mental wellness books as well as my DBT workbook!! 😀

All of this and more will be shared with you all soon.

I have to be writing my returning article of the semester soon, and with that essay I want to finish it up tomorrow to send it off for the deadline.

I’m also discovering, just before the semester, that the Internet has become unfulfilling for me. I think I will be narrowing the time I spend online in response, as reading books feels fulfilling and working on myself feels fulfilling too.

I’ll figure out the details later though. That’s all I have for now, folks!!

I have another fabulous art idea that I can’t wait to share with you all, and see if it’s possible we can all make it happen!! I think you’ll all like it, too. 🙂 I just gotta come up with a catchy name for it….

OH! And I have a NAMI presentation on Wed. And going up to school on Tuesday for a Mass Media meeting and Monday hanging with friends AND DOGGGGSSS TOMORROWW!!!

I also have incentive for the next 4 months to self-care and manage well on in life, because then my Mom may consider us getting another doggo! 😀 But, I’m getting all a bit ahead of myself… 😉

This is enough for one evening.

Thank you ALL for your kind support and amazing, compassionate selves!! ❤ ❤ ❤ I’ll see you in the next one.

Another Trip Inside

Hello peeps,

This will be merely a short post to say that I’m saluting to you all and heading inside for my 6th hospitalization.

I’ve been tempted lately and quite tempted at that, and it feels wicked weird typing this out.

But I’ll be gone for a week and hopefully come back with a fresher mind, a sense of genuine calm and a new therapist in tow and a refreshed gaze to look upon recovery with.

 

Good luck to the rest of you out there!! Have a good week, okay? ❤ ❤ ❤

Changes that Last?

Today’s Prompt ~~ Crossing

How do we make changes in our lives that last?

How do we go from mere survival to thriving and striving forwards?

How do we grow out from the potted plant we are into the roaring, amazing jungle that we know we can be?

I don’t know these answers. But I would like to. It just takes time, maybe even, the answers themselves take time for us to truly see.

Maybe it’s not only about the path we’re on at the moment but the crossroads that we linger at that allow us to see the vital things we were missing out on before.

Maybe it’s not about journeying alone down one path but remembering that all paths are connected. We are human beings, social creatures in which we have the ability to impact one another’s lives. Maybe it is time for us to stop seeing our journeys as lonesome and cumbersome and more as the gifts of finite time in an unpredictable universe.

Sometimes I think the sunlight shining through the branches is the same sunlight shining through the branches we saw back in our journey five miles prior. It’s just that now that we’re at a different place in our journey, that we may either notice it more, or maybe not even at all.

“Everything changes,” is something I’ve said before. I believe in that.

 

So if I were to truly believe in the idea that everything changes, I’d have to recognize that this moment in time, too, shall change.

 

I feel uneasiness about that. But change is not necessarily for the worst. It’s scary, yeah, but it doesn’t have to be bad.

 

This evening I am pondering what makes a good hospitalization experience for me. What is it that I am seeking and not attaining? What is it that I am lacking in and not maintaining? What is it about my recovery journey that’s different now than it was before?

Am I seeing the sunlight through the branches or are there too many other doorways open before my very wall?

These are the tough questions. It feels to me, at this moment in time, that maintaining is harder than getting out of and through the acute crisis. Maybe that’s me saying that because I haven’t had a traditional crisis in a while. Or that I’ve been scratching my way towards one and not receiving one.

 

For now, I have to think of that answer about the hospital experience, about what I think I’d like to get out of my next one and how reasonable those expectations may be. Maybe the crisis chat online will actually go through as well *rolls eyes* I suppose until it works I can continue pondering that more, maybe even writing it out itself.

At a crossroads again, this time safer but a crossroad nonetheless.

 

Thanks for reading. ❤

This Wall is Mine and Mine Alone. But Could you Knock it down with me?

In which I begin writing an optional essay that turns into my cry for help. I’m going to edit out the cry for help bit, as I think this essay is shaping up pretty well, but this is what I could get out of me tonight. Please, please read it. The prompt is about walls and what walls you have faced in your life or while pursuing your education, how have you gotten around them, climbed over them, knocked them down or do they remain? So essentially writing about your experience with walls. Length is to be 1,200-1,500 words. Due date is Monday January 16th 2017.

You can tell when it starts to turn into something else. My concentration was waning and waxing and I got kind of bored with it and not wanting to talk about it but I kept plowing onwards and so you get this. Again, I’d be editing this baby up. I think some parts could be kept though, fitting the theme and all. It gets emotional and vent-y rather than cohesive and sound. Sort of like blurbs of thought rather than one thematic piece. I would sincerely appreciate comments here. it’s hard to admit but I really need help. January 6th is my two year first suicide attempt anniversary, TW for mental health/suicidality in this post, by the way. I’m sure you can figure out the rest. *sigh*

Raquel Lyons

3 January 2017

Essay Entry:

This Wall is Mine and Mine Alone

I have hit a wall. Behind closed lips my words are strangled, my fingers cannot type out the phrases that linger and slosh around in my brain. I want to write, I have so much to say, but very little comes out. I have met this wall before. We know each other well. It stands with its white brick high into the cloudy sky, thunderstorms rolling into the forecast. We stand at odds of each other, this wall and I. I do not know who it is exactly. I do not know if this wall represents all that I truly am or everything that is not me. But it stands in my way, once again. And I am left with the question–do I work around it or do I lay behind it, waiting for it to crash upon me? My tentative answer is: I do not know, because I do not know who this wall represents. It is everything and nothing all at the same time. My mind yells at me to run and yet I cannot look away. This wall is here for my protection and for my enslavement. This wall is mine and mine alone. This wall is my burden to carry.

At the age of six, I was diagnosed with scoliosis. What was meant to be a preventative surgery to correct one problem led to my first wall appearing: the scoliosis got worse. I was in the prime of my teenage years, and so with that, came rebellion. I did not have to listen to my doctors, I did not need a back brace, I was fine, I was great, and I certainly had the power to choose to do what I wanted to do. So after a year and a half, I stopped wearing my back brace. It would have been different, I think, had I been open to other treatment options (even though those were limited). But I was not open. I was closed off, clammed up, and I did not want to talk about, let alone think about, the scoliosis. I just wanted to be normal and okay, and I thought if I acted like there was not a problem, then it would go away and I would not have to deal with it. Because it was too difficult to deal with it, I was not ready and the wall of denial was so much easier to fall back to then acceptance was. But for three years I stayed within that all-encompassing wall. It was my greatest wall yet, and with surgery and self-forgiveness, I was able to break down that wall and walk away from the forest I had become lost in and chained to. I was free and I had myself back, renewed and different and grown. It was beautiful.

It was beautiful until the next wall came a year later. This time it was in the wicked form of crippling procrastination. It was a decaying wall, filled with uncertainties and what, I at the time, did not realize were symptoms. That fall semester took me down a few pedestals, knocking me back with hurricane winds, landing me on my rump as I faced what I thought was the lowest low of my life and the lowest grades of a semester. It was full blown procrastination that impacted every square inch of my life to a negative degree. I was struggling, yet in 2014, I knocked it down with organization and a change of my major, a major that actually fit my studying habits and ability to learn. I had won again, and the freedom felt lovely for as long as it lasted.

Then, this wall came. The white bricked wall came for me. In fall 2014 I was diagnosed, much to my own surprise, with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder on self-harm and suicide obsessions. I had not even known I was dealing with a mental health condition, for the time I had entered college two years prior. The walls of my denial were strongly kept, as over the course of those two years I recognized I was dealing with some hefty anxiety but refused to call it such. I also recognized that I probably had something underlying going on, but I did not want to deal with it, hoping it would go away. That notion of thinking has yet to work out well for me. With the OCD came many anxious times–instances where I assumed I was suicidal when I genuinely was not, to fear of acting on merely having a thought without intention to do so, to staying frozen in a stairwell, unable to move and many, many sleepless nights in which my nightmares involved the OCD and my struggling against it. I felt frozen within my mind staring at many actual, physical walls in a distant, blank stare. I saw through the walls and watched the horrors of my mind gradually take control over me. I did not know how much more I could handle, before secondary depression came knocking on my wall.

Then, with its presence, there was a shadowy doorway that opened up. But, instead of light coming through, it was a gray veil of distorted thoughts. It was a doorway to a way out of the walls; it just meant falling from a great height.

And, what is problematic about mental health conditions like depression, is while consumed within them, they seem so factual, so true and so innocent. It is like befriending the storm that rains down upon you. You become soaking wet with its vile nature, yet it convinces you that you are dry and have been dry all along. It distorts reality in a way that the unreasonable becomes reasonable.

And so I sit before this wall of mine now. And I consider who it is that makes up this wall. Because there is a doorway wide open to my right and a pathway into light on my left, and this wall before me. Although, no that is inaccurate, behind the wall there is a doorway open and a path of light. It is the wall itself that I have to look at. It is the decision before the wall that stands out the most. The wall inherently poses the question for me–who will I listen to when I need to listen to someone the most? And the answer is, I do not know. Words try desperately to spill out before me, as this is the first time I am setting my focus into staring through the wall, trying to determine what next course of action to take, but I am exasperated. I do not know what to do. How can I not know what to do? I know what I should do versus what I should not do, but the very thing I should not do is the thing I want to do. How do I balance this? How do I overcome it?

This wall will not leave me alone! For weeks my brain has been unraveling and I cannot take the near constant obsessions and upcoming compulsions any longer! I just want my brain to shush, for the wall to disappear into nonexistence, for the world to keep spinning and for me to carry on about my day as per usual.

Why THIS wall? Why ME?

They are impossible questions to answer, for the wall just is and I just am. Acceptance twinkles in the far away branches, but now is not the time for me to go prancing in its roots.

I do not know what to do. The raindrops are falling and I am getting wet, yet my brain tells me that I am fully dry. I do not know who to believe. I am shaking my head and slamming my palms against the white brick, I wish the wall would make the decision for me, I cannot handle this anymore! Pain lurks beneath the piggyback of my emotions, and I cannot find my voice, my voice, my voice! Where has it gone?

It feels inherently that the most compassionate of souls are the ones who have trudged through the deepest of turmoil. But we all have our limits, do we not? I do not think I know what the right decision is anymore. I am just buying my time now, with dread drenched upon my sleeves and a heavy weightlessness sinking my toes into the mud. I do not know what happens next, and I do not think I can begin to guess. I just need someone to know. I need someone to acknowledge the wall and someone to acknowledge the desperation lacing through my tears. This wall is mine and mine alone, but please tell me, that I do not have to carry this burden alone.