What do you want me to say? That I cry every day? Yeah, pretty much. You want to hear about what an overachiever I am, but most days, I’m afraid to get out of bed, to open my eyes, to feel what I know the day will make me feel: broken and pathetic? What else is there to say?
I wish I wasn’t like this. I wish…
Ugh. But that’s so passive. I’m not passive anymore. You want to know why I get out of bed every day?
Hope. Hope, and the knowledge that comes only from experience: if I don’t get up now, it’s going to be harder to get up later.
Like a drug addict: each relapse brings an increasingly torturous recovery.
I don’t know how I get through each day.
No. Lie. I do: self-awareness.
I can say, I’m just happy I’ve made it this far, and if I’ve made it this far, I believe I can make it the rest. The worst is over, I think. I’ve gotten the right meds. I’ve rid myself of the noxious people that surrounded me. The ones I couldn’t—my immediate family—I’ve halted in their path of deprecation. And I’ve gotten rid of my worst habits. I just have to keep working at it. That way, one day, it won’t hurt. I’ll be normal and happy, and everything will be perfect.
Or I can be honest with myself. The worst is constant. The worst will never be over. The therapists avoid the point: will I ever be okay? “It takes time,” they say. “We have a lot of work to do,” they say. They aren’t lying, but our idea of okay and their’s are very different. We’re thinking, One day and forever after, but maybe for the rare occasion, it won’t be so hard to get out of bed, to be around people, to be me. They’re thinking, You’ll be functional and, possibly but not probably, be able to live your days without medication. I know this is what they’re thinking, because I’ve asked them point-blank, “will I ever be able to function normally off meds?” That was uniformly their response.
Or am I wrong? Are my experiences rare and bias? Has anyone ever met anyone who has been “cured” of “real” mental illness, what amounts to a chemical imbalance with environmental factors? I’m not talking about, “my mother died and I’m depressed because of that.” While that suffering is valid and not to be minimized, I’m talking about those of us who find ourselves in repeated patterns of abuse, day in and day out, no matter what we do. Or those of us who self-hate to the point of self-harm. I’m talking about real, I wish I could stop and I’m trying, but I can’t or don’t know how to control this mental illness. Those are the people I’m talking about and to: it gets better. I know it does. I’m here, and I’m better. But don’t go into recovery thinking, “I’m going to be normal one day.” No, darling. The point is there is no normal. I recently had the man I thought was so well-put together, had never suffered any abuse, I thought he was so normal, tell me he suffers from horrible self-doubt, to the point where he feels sexually inferior compared to most other men. I had a girl earlier in the year go from telling me she had the perfect life and the perfect family, that she had never been traumatized or objectified, to telling me she had been forced to give her brother oral sex at the age of seven.
Thankfully, no one is normal—at least, not the way most of us have been taught to think of “normal.” Thankfully, this also means you’re not a freak, as perhaps you’ve always feared you are. There’s some good news amidst all this exposure: it makes room for self-love.
But don’t go straight for that. First, you have to learn to survive. For instance, disown the brother that molested you. Quit the job that keeps your ex around. Of course, preperations will have to be made. Of course, people will be mad. And yeah, you might suffer a lot more before things get better. But you’ve made it this far. You’re strong.
Once you know that, understand that, you can learn to thrive. But the Peak of Normality you envision, where most of the human race is rumored to be congregated, is really a valley of denial and self-delusion.
Healing starts with self-awareness. Banish the “normal.” Banish the people who purport to be normal. Banish the media’s lies about normality. Hell, banish the mainstream media as a whole. Turn to yourself for some answers. Don’t worry if you don’t have any. No one does. Even me, here: you see I’m still figuring it all out. But I can tell you this much, and no mental health advocate will argue with me: Forget Normal; forget others’ words and opinions. You’re the authority on yourself. Trust that. Easier said, than done? Yes. But you can’t tell me what you’re going through now is easy, either.
…
Okay. Go. What’s stopping you? Fear? Yes. I know. I’m sorry about that. It’s inevitable. At best, it may subside with time. But it’s not like you’re living fearlessly now. I know I’m not. I’m scared every day. I’m scared every time I post. Yet the more scared I am, the more important I know it must be for me to go through with it.
So, come. Hold my hand. We’ve banished Normal. It’ll try to weasel it’s way back in, but we’re okay with that. We’re strong. There’s bound to be some suffering, but we accept that, even if we don’t like it. Instead, we’re going to close our eyes and imagine “stability.” It may look a little like normal at first, but you’ll see that stability is more centered around you, not others.
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