It is 6 AM.
I have not slept since the night before. This is not uncommon. This week is different than the others. 6 months have passed since my 2nd attempted suicide. I celebrated my 30th birthday fighting for my life and literally my mind, amongst other terrifying things…there’s no real way to ease into this. The week I was discharged, Cudi shocked the hip hop world with his own mental health crisis/ revelations. Join the club, I thought. Suddenly, it seems everyone is awake and mental health conscious, but not really. As weeks pass I see more media dialogue centered on self care and mental wellness. I see so many healing people with yoga mats and smoothies, books and romances, writing of the aftermath and confident boasts of overcoming and been there’s…my healing has scabs and pus and blood and tantrums and so many tears. My world was/is still spinning. With the exception of the discovered or referred few transparent survivors, there is something missing for me in all those stories to self love…the stage of healing that shows how truly, truly ugly it is. The how, the how many times, the how long. The true process of starting from ground zero and building yourself back up with nothing but God. The truth is healing is not a one time thing. When you think you’re there, you’re not…when you’ve endured trauma it never really goes away. You learn to live with it, grow through it and come out light on the other side. I’m constantly between the learning to live with it and growing through it part, the coping some days, but desperately wanting to survive part. I’m at the beginning part… again. The more stories I see of people who feel like I do, the more determined I feel to get to a place where I can transform from healing to healer. This is the becoming the light part…the stepping into my truth, not asking permission and literally becoming my own source of light part…scars and all. Day by day my journey becomes less about me…I have hit a wall. More has shattered than ego and soul and joy. Everything I have formerly known stands trial. This wall is forcing me to reflect, to re-learn how to eat, talk, feel & think again. I hit the FUCK out of this wall…or did it hit me? I am learning purpose at 30, self love, how to heal..so much…so much…healing. so much unlearning. I am writing so much that I am coming alive again. Such a weird concept to explain to people who may not understand mental illness, but I’ll try by being honest and transparent about the days my space never sees sunlight or days my feet barely touch ground. To explain the days the thoughts come so fast they swallow me. I become a mermaid in a tank faced pressed against glass desperate to know what it feels like to live above water and breathe air. How some days my daughter parents me into believing in laughter again, making mistakes and getting back up. How pen and paper becomes a down feather blanket and poetry writes me back to sanity. How the longer I try to hold onto it, consistency slips through fingers like egg yolk until the sadness comes to take it’s place…again. I’ll try, I’ll start here….and continue. Today I choose to live stigma free, to be transparent and honest about who I am and what my healing looks like. Today I choose writing over death. Purpose over fear. Stigma-free over un-lived potential.
