Tag: Personal Essay

2022 is the year that I changed my life. I will admit that for the majority of my life I secretly wondered, if I would ever dig out of the dark cave I was in. I hope to never fully go back, do I assume I have full escaped no. That is the gift that is mental illness, it never goes away. It ebbs and flows. I feel like I can easily fall into the dark, it is comfortable in the way you know how it is gonna feel and doesn’t take a ton of maintenance. This change has been a decade in the making, don’t think I woke up one day and was like things gonna change. It has taken till recently for me to realize change comes with time and not in one choice but in a million little choices. It has been little choices to become a better me since I asked for help in March 2012. Am I a fully functioning adult to American standards; probably not even close; don’t care I am becoming whole after being merely a shadow. There have been pivotable moments in this past decade looking back; that March day in 2012, Aug 2017, all of 2018, Dec 26, 2021. Those moments are very different some heartbreaking and some so bright they were blinding. I am so grateful for the friends that have stayed for the ride; I hope you stay for a while longer. If not I promise our time together helped shape the person that is here today. This time a decade ago we were about to start our journey as a military family, I don’t look back fondly as that time as a whole. It was the start of the little changes, the military made it possible to start the deep dive into why; why I fought happiness so much. The answers were not easy; to find or accept. I faced them. Keep facing them as more come out of the dark. I am bound and determine to not let the darkness swallow me whole, like it has been my whole life. Do I know how this fight will end, no but everyday I am here that is a day I am winning. I am alive sometimes with just sheer Spite the darkness and sometimes spite alone is enough. Hopeful the next decade, I can focus my spite elsewhere.