Five years, four months of my life is documented on my first blog. My blogging training wheels. When Vivian turned eight months old, I made a decision to tell my story. From the beginning I wanted to write openly, with my real name attached to my writing. But time and again I was advised to stay anonymous. Think of the children, they said. What if a mother of a child in their school finds your blog and won't let their kids play with yours because you're bipolar?
Read moreA Life I Love: Blogging for Mental Health
Sometimes it’s hard to come to terms with the reality of what life has thrown at me. Why me?
Sometimes it’s beyond scary to admit that I’m struggling. I feel so alone.
Sometimes I fear that my friends will turn their back on me if they know the whole truth. How am I going to share everything?
Sometimes it’s terrifying to look back at what happened in the past because of what could have been. I’ve changed so much in such a short amount of time.
Sometimes I look around at all I have, the decisions I’ve made, how far I’ve come and I am in complete awe of my life’s fullness. How did I get so lucky?
On days like today, when the sun is so far lost behind the piles of sheer white and grey clouds, I find myself wrestling with my emotions. On days like today it’s so easy to remember if I let myself go there. The dark days, the weeks and weeks of bleak, dull depression that had wrapped its claws around me like a cat that caught a field mouse. The not being able to pull myself out of bed in the morning and the falling asleep on the couch in the late afternoon because it was so much easier to dwell in my grief than it was to push it aside to try to function normally. I haven’t felt that heaviness, the crushing weight of desperation, in seven years.
And for that I have so much gratitude.
But on days like today, twinges of it come back. And I don’t push them away. I let them come and I let myself acknowledge them, if only for a moment. Because I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to ever forget what I’m fighting for every day.
My mental health.
Not only for myself. But for my family. For my incredibly laid-back, fun-loving, funny, intelligent and handsome husband. The one who was by my side from the first day it all hit to the present. He is my better half and has all the qualities that I lack which is why we fit each other so well.
Together we completed our family with first a boy, and then a girl. Two little people who everyone says look just like us. I couldn’t be more proud of them, of their personalities which shine and twinkle like the stars in a deep black clear summer night sky. Each night, as we read stories before bed and snuggle in close, and every morning, when I nuzzle their still-sleepy noses to wake up so we can start our day, I take time to breathe in their scents. It’s hard to believe that they’re mine. I will always be their mom. He will always be my son. She will always be my daughter. And I want them to always be proud of me.
My life is the reason why I keep fighting. My family, my friends, my heart. They all deserve to see me succeed.
Each day may be a new battle, but every one I win makes me stronger for the next fight. At the end of the day, when the sun is setting and I see the brilliance peeking out from behind a mess of clouds, I know I’m staring into my future.
And I’m nothing but enthusiastic for what lies ahead.
