As long as I can remember I've battled severe depression. I've been on a myriad of anxiety meds. I've been in and out of therapy sessions for years upon years and the door to mental hospitals has been a revolving one. On top of that, my formative years were filled with enough trauma to scar anyone for a lifetime. And as soon as I had gotten into the familiarity of being suicidal and my PTSD was just a background buzz, I found myself in the middle of a decently toxic relationship with little respect for my boundaries. In sum, it's been a rough past five years.
Now, in the midst of five years of tears and sobs and panic attacks and suicide attempts running so rampantly, you can imagine I came to be quite the pessimist. And, well, I'm still working on that one. But after my most recent string of depression, a solid year of hopelessness, I had convinced myself of a few things. One, that I was always going to be depressed. That it didn't matter what medications I was on or how many styles of therapy I tried, there was no point even attempting to be happy because I was destined for a life of pointless depression. Two, even the small glimpses of hope were going to be destroyed by some other shoe dropping. A divorce ending with one parent across the country. A relationship that destroyed me from the inside out. And surely, many more surprises down the road.
Nevertheless, I've been stable for the past month and a half. And dare I say, even happy? And that is a big fucking deal for me. I'm feeling confident. Caring. Attentive. I'm waking up every morning feeling excited to be alive. And today, I finally made the connection.
A month and a half ago Hook Over Heels took off. I began getting consistent sales. I built up a decent following. A month and a half ago I started my business. Coming out of a toxic relationship (which was round two of dating him), I had given up a little bit too much of myself for him. But the even bigger problem is the years I've spent perfecting my self-appointed title: Queen of Self-Destruction. A well-earned title, between the self-degrading comments and self-harm habits, but clearly not a great one to have. And in the midst of convincing myself I was destined to be a worthless piece of shit, I told myself that when I would cut at the end of every day, that was for myself. It was essentially self-care. But it wasn't for me, it was for the depressed person I had convinced myself was all I was.
When I started my business, the last thing I thought about was it boosting my confidence and self-esteem. But hell, that's the biggest thing it's done for me. Because for the first time, this is something I'm completely doing for me. Not for the depressed shell of myself. Not for the traumatized, self-destructive queen who likes to take over my life. But I did it for me. The passionate, ambitious, confident person I'm looking in the mirror and seeing for the first time.
So, I guess I want to say thank you. I'm not saying my pessimism or depression has fallen away; I'm sure the Queen of Self-Destruction will continue paying me visits. What I'm saying is that starting this business has made me begin to see what everyone else sees when they look at me. I look in the mirror and see a person, not a cloud of depression hanging over my head. I'm saying thank you because without each and every sale, each and every follower, I might still be seeing that cloud more than the person I am. I'm saying thank you because I needed this. I needed to feel happy when I looked in the mirror and saw the person staring back at me. She may still have bedhead and panic attacks and bad breath, but she also has kindness and empathy and drive.
Thank you for giving me a platform to be myself, and a place where that's enough.
Comments