What’s Next?

It has been a hot minute since I have felt like I have had the energy to put words to metaphorical paper. I have had a rough few months. Mental illness has been winning the battle. I have allowed it to take over and to consume too much of my being. I am re-engaging in the war. It is a battle I fight every minute of every day. Most days I don’t feel like I have the strength to continue on. But I do. Taking life one moment at a time seems cliche, but it is my truth.

I have been slowly making changes to my life to improve my mental health. A lot of these changes have been hard. I have changed medications, had adverse reactions, felt like I was going to die, and rebounded. Medication helps about 45% of the time. I wish I could say it worked more reliably. I wish I could say it was magic and it made me better. It takes the edge off. But I am learning that I have to take the bad to get to the good. I can’t dwell on the bad, that’s the easy way out.

The hardest decision I have made was to quit my job. I feel like a failure. It is impossibly complicated to express what it feels like to admit you can’t do something that “normal” people do daily. I had been at my job for 8 years. It was a wonderful job, I had fantastic and supportive coworkers, my former boss is one of my best friends. But I had to walk away. I hope in time everyone I worked with can understand why I had to do it. I always fear that I am seen as weak, as a quitter. The biggest realization I had was, I was in the healthcare field, I couldn’t help anyone else if I couldn’t help myself. Walking away was the only way I could help myself.

So, here I am. It has been one week. I still feel empty. I still feel worthless. I hope that in time these feelings will change. Until then, I will keep going one minute, one hour, one day at a time. Depression is a liar and a thief.