Today's my birthday and I wanted to make a post about recovery. Last year I spent my birthday in the hospital because I was still attending a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) to treat my depression and anxiety. I've been spending a lot of time lately looking back at the past year because technically I have been in "recovery" since I've left the program. Now kinda marks one year of recovery. I've been talking to friends who were also in PHP and reflecting a lot on how the past year of recovery has gone for me. It's definitely been a lot harder than I expected. I think my expectations were unrealistically high after leaving the hospital program. I expected my life to be perfect afterwards because I was now equipped with all the skills I needed to fight my depression and anxiety. I kept on thinking of depression and anxiety as just a short stage in my life and that if I worked hard enough I could eventually get to the destination of being mental illness free. Yeah, that was not the case. This past year has been hard hard hard. Every month I struggled with some new debilitating aspect of my anxiety and depression and it extremely worsened during quarantine. I felt like a failure a lot of times because I went to the Hospital Program so I wouldn't feel suicidal or want to hurt myself, but I still struggled with suicidal thoughts and the urge to self harm. The prospect of being mental illness free seemed less and less possible. The problem was, though, my goal was to get back to where I was before. I was hoping to get back to my high-functioning, workaholic self who couldn't take breaks. And no matter what I tried I couldn't get there. And that was because I wasn't meant to get back there. I never realized that since my hospitalization, I have become a different person. It's not possible for me to get back to exactly who I was before. I'm currently on the path and journey of learning who this new Efe is and how I can best meet her needs. And yes, it's really scary. I have a lot of fears that my friends won't want me around any more because I can't achieve the standards of who I was before. But it's a been a really amazing process of discovering how much my friends truly love me for who I am. It's hard to write about my recovery journey thus far because I feel like I'm still in the middle of it and nowhere near done. I feel like I have so much more to learn and that's what makes it so hard to feel like I have the right to speak on the experience. What I have learned though is that there is no magical pill, therapist, book, spiritual practice or anything that will cure you. As there shouldn't be. Nothing worthwhile comes easy, and the process of healing and discovering yourself is something that is worth spending the time doing. I've spent a lot of time in the past year looking for miracle cures and throwing myself 150% into different things with the expectation that they would "fix" me. It led to a lot of disappointment on disappointment on disappointment. I eventually learned to slow down and accept that growth takes time. I accepted that I'm only 20 (21 now!) and I have a lot of time to make mistakes, grow and get better at handling my anxiety and depression. By the time I turned 21, I expected my life to be perfect and for all my biggest struggles to be gone. But I still have bad days, I still have bad months. I still forget skills and relearn them as I need them. I'm nowhere near where I expected to be. But that's okay. Because I'm okay. One of the other biggest things I've learned is acceptance. To take every day as it comes, feel grateful for it and to have patience with yourself. I've accepted where I am now, and I've also accepted that it's not about the destination but it truly is the journey. Just with little (OR BIG!) milestones in between to show you how far you've come. Here's to 21 years and all that are to follow :)
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Naija SunshineHi! My name is Efe and this is my mental health blog where I'll be talking about my experiences with mental illness, as well as my thoughts and tips. Archives
September 2021
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