6 Months of ME

It took me a good 10 minutes to figure out what to name this entry.

Do I name this blog "success"? Do I name this "recovery"? Health? Steps in the "right" direction?

It's hard to determine if I'm having success. If this is true recovery. If I'm really healthy. If I'm headed in the "right" direction. But then I tell myself, struggling with mental health leads you on a road of a life long term of recovery. Am I healthy? I'm healthier. I choose healthier coping, yes. Do I fall? Yes. We all do. And if we lie to ourselves that we don't than we're in denial. No one is perfect. We all have our demons we may give in to, the things we're trying to stay away from and may do from time to time. If we can choose healthy things in their place we can rightly reward ourselves and agree that "yes" we are taking care or ourselves and may be headed in the "right" direction, wherever that be leading us.

From the age of 9 I started hurting myself. It's safe to say that much younger than that I was fighting a demon darker than I knew how to handle.

By the age of 13 I had my first hospitalization and suicide attempt. I really don't know statistics from there on out, but I do know that from September 2016-September 2017, there were 6 attempts alone.

In the last 6 months, AS OF TODAY, there have been 0 attempts.

0. Zero.

I have not been in a hospital for 7 months and 23 days.

I may not have it "all" together. I may not have the "picture perfect life." 

I may go to to therapy every week, the psychiatrist every month, and have an intensive case manager that comes to my house a couple times a month....

But this has been 6 months of me, living, breathing, no attempts, in MY community OUT of a hospital...

When you've spent more days than not in a hospital from 13-29 years of age, this is kind of a win. So I'm not sorry to write a post about it. This is kind of important. And if it's not to you, well then, I'm sorry you took the time to read it.

since my last attempt

since my last psychiatric hospitalization

The storm will NOT defeat me

“The storm is out there and every one of us must eventually face the storm. When the storm comes, pray that it will shake you to your roots and break you wide-open. Being broken open by the storm is your only hope. When you are broken open you get to discover for the first time what is inside you. Some people never get to see what is inside them; what beauty, what strength, what truth and love. They were never broken open by the storm. So, don't run from your pain — run into your pain. Let life's storm shatter you.” 
― Bryant McGill

I read this quote on someones wall tonight and it really had me thinking.
WOW. Yes, and sometimes seeing such beauty, seeing any amount of strength, it scares us. What is the "truth?" And love? Are we capable of such a thing? Someone to love us? I mean, sure. but to love ourselves? How dare we. To think that these things are inside of us is such a scary thing. It's a new concept after the storm has wiped us down for so long and tried to take away all of those things and mask what was good.

It's the rewiring of the pathways and living out of lives and believing that there IS goodness in us, in our TRUE and GOOD selves AFTER the storm that is sometimes JUST as HARD as the actual storm itself.
YES, there... 
And why?
Because we still have all these painful memories we're finally feeling strong enough to process, so there's that.
I have PTSD from multiple sexual traumas, from childhood, a few times in my teenage years, and at 19 and 23. The pay back for that is not the discussion here, it is part of the big storm I am referencing.

We're trying to function in life, but we don't believe in ourselves, so when we have setbacks, we're extra hard on ourselves and can't find the good in ourselves quite yet because that rewiring of the pathways hasn't been successful yet.

And to even begin to structure our days, to find a way out of this antagonizing pain we have lived in our whole lives. How do we ever get out of such a rut? 
We work as hard as we can, we get up each day. We challenge ourselves. And damnit, we fight. Because we are warriors. 

Not every day is a good day. But I'll tell you right now, March 6, 2018, age 30 is better than March 6, 2017, age 29. And I'll take that as a win. I am out of the hospital for 7 months and 17 days and on March 12th I'll have gone 6 months with NO suicide attempts. (From just Aug 2016-Sep 2017 resulted in 6 attempts, I call the last 6 months a win. Will not even go IN to what my first hospitalization at age 13-the last 16 years have looked like.)

Like I said, not every day is a good day. It can't be. Or you wouldn't appreciate the good days. I'm doing better than I ever have, for what that's worth, I'll take it. Somehow, someday, I'll be on top.