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First, some background.
I truly started dealing with mental illness when I was in University.. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder and panic disorder. I went into counselling and eventually went on medication. I was also diagnosed with OCD a few years after my first diagnosis with depression. I also found, during those years, that I was obviously season affective as well. Winter made EVERYTHING worse.
I spent quite a few years on meds, but finally decided I needed to try life without the medication. I weaned myself off (with my doctor's full knowledge and help) in 2003. At this point, I have not had to go back on the medication.
Early in 2006 I finally started to take care of myself properly. I had worked my way through a lot of my issues, including being abused emotionally and physically when I was a child and all the attendant issues around that, like lack of self-esteem. I realized I deserved to be happy and I looked at my life to see what was making me unhappy. The big answer to that was my physical health and my weight. I started exercising and eating better and I lost a lot of weight. I truly believed I had crossed that bridge and would never go back.
In September, my beloved greyhound Quinn passed away. I started downward then.. but I was still fighting. Unfortunately, we had a very bad winter... very little sun... lots and lots of snow...
I was already struggling with my grief over Quinn's passing and then I was facing depression and anxiety and OCD all over again. I have been fighting it tooth and nail. I haven't written off the possibilty of going back on the meds... but I wanted to give it until at least the spring to see if the returning sunshine and all it brings would help. I lost control of my eating and I have gained 40lbs back. My internal dialogue really became negative and self-defeating again.
Now to my light bulb moment. When I originally faced myself... when I did my internal inventory and worked on accepting me and loving myself... I never really faced down my mental illness. I had been off meds for a couple of years and doing really well. I knew at the back of my head that it was still there... but it hadn't been part of my reality for long enough that I never really looked at it. When I was learning to accept, forgive and love myself... I never learned to accept and forgive my mental illness.
How I expected myself to be able to eat healthy and exercise and live in happiness when my brain chemicals are screwed up is beyond me.. but that is what I have been doing.
I told my partner last night that I feel like I've been wandering through a forest... and now I've finally found the path. I need to look at myself and my mental illness. I need to accept it as a part of who I am. I need to forgive myself for it. |
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