I’m feeling really good, and I’m gonna have a positive day
When I first started to see my counselor, I was afraid of getting better. My fear came from a lack of self-esteem. I thought if I wasn’t “sick enough,” then I wouldn’t deserve counseling and I would have to stop seeing her. And I didn’t think I could handle that, so I didn’t think I could handle being well. I also didn’t think I could handle it because if I became capable of daily functioning, it meant I would have to function every day, which was overwhelming to me. There was also a very strong fear of pain. If depression was about numbness, denial, pushing-back a massive, looming wall of self-hatred and despair, then getting better meant opening myself to all of that. Feeling it. Being vulnerable to it. I felt like I was willingly breaking a dam.
I’m not where I want to be, mentally. I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow, or the next day. But sometimes I have moments of clarity. I’m having one right now. Right now, I’m telling myself “If you can’t get it across in writing, that doesn’t diminish the importance of what you’re feeling.”
Accountability and the possibility I can change have terrified me in the past, and they are still pretty scary to me now. It’s difficult for me to think that I have the choice to learn something new, do something new, think of myself differently.
But right now, I want to get better. I am so glad to have done the work I have done with myself and so eager to do more of it. I can tell that my life will be better when I’m better. I want to make up for lost time. I’m ready to be the me who looks at her past selves and loves them. I saw a me I could become and I want to meet her some day, when time and hard work carry me to her. I saw myself winged.
Am I ready, even, to forgive myself?
