I made myself get out of my apartment today. Took my laptop. I’m typing this out at a booth in Potbelly. This is what healing looks like.

I spent almost two hours on my couch before this. It started out as a nap, which I needed. But it turned into a a slow spiraling depression fog. Have you seen Maid on Netflix? The depiction of her depression, how she gets sucked into and enveloped by her couch while dissociating, unable to escape-  it’s the most accurate visual description I’ve ever seen of the alternate reality that is mental illness.

It feels futile to try to explain how impossibly hard it is to break free of that fog. To be fully aware that staying there isn’t the answer, that lulling yourself into a dissociative state will only provide temporary relief, knowing full well that you could just… GET UP. You could just move, go, do something. And still not be able to do that.

I’ve wasted entire days this way, this Tuesday being one. But today was not one of those days.
This is what healing looks like.

I just finished the last of my sandwich. I knew that I needed to get something in my stomach before Barre3 class tonight. It will be my 5th of the month. I dread the classes, and then I’m always happy I’ve done them. It’s not just not looking forward to the physical discomfort of pushing my limits, it’s the anxiety of showing up at a new place with new people, my vulnerability shining bright. But I’m going back, despite cancelling my last class because of that depression fog. I’m going back and not taking the baggage of days before this with me. 

And I fed myself- something that’s easy to neglect.
This is what healing looks like.

I’m frustrated and sad and overwhelmed. My hands are shaky from… nerves? I guess. But I am writing this, and acknowledging that even while feeling those things, I still also feel so hopeful, so proud, and maybe even a little at peace. 

This is what healing looks like.

I graduated from PHP this week. That was a 5 day a week partial hospitalization program. I know I promised to answer questions about it, and I intend to blog more soon so feel free to comment with what you’d like me to address. I completed 15 days in the program, but it was drawn out over 5 weeks because I was out with covid for 2 of those weeks. 

I’m now in IOP (intensive outpatient), and that will likely last another 3 weeks. My med management has been transferred out to my personal psychiatrist. lOP is strictly group therapy for 3 hours, 3 days a week. 

I’ll admit that what I feel right now is not what I thought I would when I first began. I thought, assumed… hoped? That at this point I’d not feel frustration or sadness. That I’d have “things figured out.” And I do not. In a lot of ways I’m still the same woman who started the program 5 weeks ago. 

But now, I can inhale and acknowledge my discomfort, and exhale and know that I’ll never be rid of it, but that I can certainly live with it. 

I don’t know that I’ll ever have a happy ending to write here. No major shift that will decidedly mark the end of this journey, the natural final chapter in a yet-to-be-written memoir. 

I could very well spend tomorrow unable to get out of bed. I could very well have a panic attack tonight. The only difference is that I can draw from this experience to remind me that none of this is linear, there is no state of arrival.

There is peace AND there is discomfort, there is growth AND there is frustration, there is hope AND there is pain. I get to choose how to move through all of it every day. Then, the next day, I can do it differently. 

There can be more days, better days, more chances.

This is what healing looks like.