I did it. I won. Today's the day I took back my life...

(I know, I know... It's been a long time since I blogged, but today I have a good reason... ha ha)

Since at least high school, I have struggled with the overwhelming burden of mental illness.  I don't know where it came from, and I can't remember exactly when it started (I was a happy enough little kid,) but by the time I had reached seventeen or eighteen, it had become a constant in my life.  That dark cloud was an almost permanent fixture, and I was always, always worried about something.  (In fact, now that I think about it, the worry started when I was a lot younger, and my mom will back me up on that.  If I didn't have anything to worry about, I would worry that I wasn't worrying... because there was always something worth worrying about.)  These things were consistently a big part of who I was, but I kept it to myself for a long, long time.  In my family, that's what you do.  We don't really talk about things like feelings, and emotions, and all that stuff... if you're sad, you're sad, and that's something you have to deal with, because that sadness or worry or despair is yours.  I am not saying that is the right or wrong way to live, and I don't blame my parents or anything silly like that, it's just how things were when I was growing up, so when I felt those things, I just kept them to myself.  Frankly, I just thought that that was the way people lived - you were miserable, and every once in a while something good happened, and then you went back to being miserable again.  That was life.  My life.  I realize now that my generalized anxiety disorder and major depression kept me from doing so many things.  It ruled my life and haunted me for more than fifteen years.  In fact, 'it' was more me than me, if that makes any sense.  I was completely under its control, for pretty much half my life.  How sad is that? 

Then one day in January of 2009, I decided I had had enough.  I WOULD NOT spend another year of my life perpetuating this horrific cycle of pain and anguish and loneliness.  The empty feeling in the pit of my stomach WOULD NOT eat away at me for another twelve months.  No more would I antagonize over things that I could not control.  I drew a line in the sand, and I dared any of these feelings to cross it.  I started taking steps to make myself well.  I started seeing a Life Coach, who helped me find myself and learn about who I was.  I consumed everything she gave me with relish, and did every exercise she suggested, because discovering things about myself and my personality type - why I did what I did - was so intriguing.  I couldn't get enough.  I learned to be mindful.  I learned to take a chance and to do things differently.  I learned that, just because that's the way I did things all along, it didn't mean that that was the way I had to do things now and forevermore.  I started changing the way I live my life; the way I see the world around me.  All these changes made me want to keep going, and to do more. 

On March 24, 2010, I checked myself into the emergency psychiatric ward at St. Joseph's Health Care, and told them I needed help.  That was a big, BIG, scary step for someone who usually likes to keep things to herself and live in her head, but I knew that that was what I had to do, so I found the courage (I'm still not sure where,) and I did it.  After two months of outpatient psych care, and another couple medication changes (I'd already been through six or seven in my 'career' as a class-A head case) my depression was deemed 'treatment resistant' and I was bumped to the head of the six-month waiting list by the director of the Mood Disorders Clinic, Dr. Lawrence Martin, who then became my psychiatrist.  I worked with him and his fabulous nurse, Cathy, and together they found the right combination of the right medications, while helping me work through a multitude of issues and 'bad wiring.'  The Mood Disorders Clinic gave me access to a 12 week course of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which I excelled at, because it was a lot like school, and I kick ass at school... ha ha  It involved a series of two hour group sessions with twenty or so other lost souls, with lectures, and homework, and a lot of hard work.  But it was worth it.  By the time I completed it in April of 2012, it had helped me to totally overhaul the way my brain functions; to control my worry; to live in the moment, and to take things as they come.  And all along, I kept going to my doctor's appointments, and I kept working away at myself.  It was hard.  And a lot of times I wanted to quit.  But I didn't.  I kept at it.
 
All of these things have brought me to today.  Today I was DISCHARGED from the Mood Disorders Clinic after much blood, sweat, and tears.  I am stable.  My mental illness is officially 'in remission,' and I am more myself than I have ever been in my life.  It has been a LOT of hard work getting to where I am.  But I did it.  I am sharing this not to brag, or to garner praise from the people who knew me when, or to make myself look good... I am writing this to share my story with others who are in the same boat - the same leaky, holey, oar-less boat that I drifted aimlessly in for so long - and to tell them that it IS possible to conquer your mental illness... it DOES NOT have to rule your life... you CAN win.  All it takes is one little step... and then another... and then another.  Little steps add up, and before you know it, you've surmounted the insurmountable. 

Don't get me wrong.  My discharge today doesn't mean I'm 'cured.'  It doesn't mean I will never have to deal with mental illness again, or that it will never ever rear its ugly head down the road... but it does mean that when it does, this time I'll be ready for it... and if I did it, so can you.  

So proud of myself, I could spit... ha ha