Reflecting Back on 2019

What a year this has been. It’s been a year that has dragged on, it’s been a year that has flown by.

When I left the Bad Situation in December 2018, I was terrified of 2019. What it would look like, what it would mean to me. I was afraid of the unknown and change. But for us to grow, our old selves must moult and die.

In the last dredges of spring 2018, I had willingly, hesitantly, worriedly added my name to the waitlist for an intensive therapy outpatient program. I waited and waited and by late summer, I received a call that I was next up on the list. I balked and asked to be pushed back until the next opening. I wasn’t ready, I didn’t have my affairs in order. I didn’t have my head on straight. I used all of these excuses to stay stuck and safe, even if it was slowly eating me alive.

Then in the fall of 2018, I received yet another call. It was time. I had to stop being afraid and take the plunge. I left the Bad Situation in December 2018, rushed to get my affairs in order, and finally, in January 2019, I entered treatment.

Half of 2019 was spent healing myself. I look back at treatment and am proud of myself. It was the hardest thing I had ever done, but it was also the most rewarding. It was twelve weeks long. Twelve torturous weeks of walking through hell. Dealing with the past, facing consequences of a reckless life spent (mentally) ill, immersing myself in past traumas to finally face them and let them go. It was cathartic, and it wasn’t easy. But I survived. I found my strength and resilience. It was in me all along. I just didn’t know it until treatment.

I do miss treatment, I miss the structure, the cathartic verbal purging of my soul and mind, and I miss group therapy. But all good and bad things must come to an end. At the end of the twelve weeks, I ‘graduated’. I was healing and just starting my journey.

I look back at the beginning half of 2019 and try to remind my present self that I was so confident in my skin, I liked myself, I liked who I had become, I was strong.

It’s a struggle. A struggle to try and continue to be that person at the end of treatment. To remember that person. The person that exuded self-like and confidence. I did fall back into my old behaviours a few times this year, but that was to be expected. I’m still struggling and still learning how to execute all that I learned in treatment. 

Reflecting over the past year…

On this day last year, I was struggling.

I remember the day exactly. I had woken up feeling good. I had gone to the library to rent a stack of cookbooks to find inspiration to make my dad an appreciation dinner for taking care of me; his adult kid who can’t even take care of herself most days.

Then my mood had taken quite a beating.

There had been a woman with her companion snickering and laughing and making rude comments about me and the stack of books I was checking out. She had even gone so far as making a grand show of waiting impatiently for me to finish, despite there being other unoccupied self-checkout kiosks for her to use. This stupid little interaction had bothered me, eaten away at me. Something so silly and trivial had impacted me. When I look back at this interaction, I roll my eyes at how this grown woman had acted and how I had let it affect me.

 

This time last year, I was on the precipice of a breakdown, relapsing, trying to leave an abusive relationship/environment, my self-care had become non-existent and I was on the waiting list for treatment.

I was a mess.

The past doesn’t define you.

Nor does it confine you to live a certain way.

Coming home, Coming Back to Myself.

| April 2018 | June 2019 |

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I’ve come a long way–survived hell and back, and back again–to finally end up here.

I mentioned before but for three years, I was in an abusive and toxic situation/relationships. It was soul-crushing and destructive. I worked hard in group therapy to re-wire my broken mind and I’m still struggling with the ramifications of leaving the situation behind me.

Even before those three years, since the winter of 2015 (when I was first diagnosed with having bipolar disorder), my life started to crack at the seams. Until finally, my life fell apart, myself with it.

I fell so hard and like Alice, I tumbled down, down, down the rabbit hole, free falling for years until group therapy. There, I learned how to climb out of hell, only leaving it behind after I walked through it.

a view into my heart

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting recently, perhaps it’s because I recently turned the big 3-0 (ouch) or I’m in a much better place now. It’s both reasons, I think.

Thinking about why I’m here–not in the philosophical, “what is the meaning of life?” sense (when I find the answer, I’ll let you know), but more so, “why am I here?” in this spot, this point in my life, right here, right now.

 

I’ve been practicing a lot of radical acceptance and turning the mind. Turning the mind is when we’re struggling to accept something or we start to fixate and ruminate on this one thing, we have to consciously turn our minds away from obsessing over it and turn back towards acceptance.

We have to think, “if I can’t change it, I can change how I think about it.” If I can’t do something to change what I’m struggling with, I need to accept it (in all of its painful glory), and I need to reframe how I view it. It sucks, especially if you’re like me and you like to needlessly worry and make yourself feel bad. Hey, I’m not judging, that was my favourite hobby for years, it’s just not very productive or healthy.

So I’ve been accepting that this is where I am and you know what? That in itself is a victory for me and if you think about it, it’s a victory for all of us, regardless of where we are in our lives. For the longest time, I didn’t feel alive, I didn’t feel present; I wasn’t here.