A Rocky Start to the Year

So 2018 has been challenging so far.

I’ve been an advocate for mental health for a long time, and I’ve always found myself in situations where people come to me to seek help, perhaps because they don’t know who else to turn to.

I don’t know if it’s because I talk about it so openly that others feel comfortable reaching out, or if it’s a situation similar to the law of attraction; that I’m put in the lives of other people because they need help in their times of crisis.

This year I found myself in crisis.

A loved one developed a mental illness, and it’s been an everyday struggle to see how easily the deterioration happens – and when it does, as someone who’s so closely entangled in their lives, you ask yourself a hundred and one questions; could I have detected this earlier? Could I have forced help upon this person? Was there anything more that I could have done to have avoided this chain of events?

To be frank, I didn’t cope very well either.

I had a lot of anger because I could not express myself without fear of retribution while the disease was active and rampant. I had to learn to tolerate the harsh words that made my heart bleed, telling myself again that it was the disease, not the person. I spent so many days crying from helplessness, wondering how this story would move forward.

And at a point, I identified that I was in crisis. At that point I had to reach out to my friends and loved ones, spent days on end texting and calling and talking to others to help ease the burden I held to myself, because I had to make sure I was mentally and emotionally ready to ride out the waves of anger and hurt that were sure to come.

It’s not a story I am ready to talk about openly on the Internet, mostly because it d
oesn’t involve just me, but I can say this much – it isn’t easy.

I write this as a reminder to myself that this too will pass.

That this individual is now getting the help that is required. And that maybe one day, we can all move on together with our lives and continue to forge ahead.

In the meantime, I am very thankful for my support system – without them I would have crashed and burned, and this would be a very different story.

There are days where the outlook still seems very bleak, but I know I have to find the strength to be someone else’s strength today, and tomorrow, and the day after – until perhaps one day, we will break through this mental barrier together.

In the meantime, I will be there.

That’s a promise.