First, I would like to preface that this article may cause some people to feel sad, nervous, uncomfortable, angry, or triggered. That is okay — this is a safe space to feel exactly what you feel as you feel it. This is a narrative about issues with mental health. You are not obliged to read this article if you know you would be better off not having read it. I understand.
Additionally, I would like to say that I am in a good space and have been in communication with and under the guidance of health professionals throughout this entire journey, following their directions and safety protocols. Please do not see this piece as a suggestion to cause yourself harm or ignore the instructions of your doctors. PLEASE, if you are struggling with mental health, PLEASE call your doctor or reach out to someone you trust and ask for help.
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Today I’m writing to you from a place of vulnerability and resilience, in hopes that sharing my isolated journey will help others feel a little less alone in their own journeys. This is the journey of unstable mental health.
Since I was a child I’ve had what six-year-old Sage would describe as a “shadow man” lurking in the dark corners of my life. He never made a sound, but the words of this featureless shadow man of dark energy berated my thoughts. It was a silent scream that came from somewhere I didn’t understand. The shadow man is like a parasite attached to me — he is not mine, however, it has become my burden to carry him.
As an adult, I’ve been able to identify this shadow man as the dark and malicious manifestation of my deepest insecurities, regrets, fears, and feelings of unworthiness and silenced trauma.
This shadow man is anxiety, depression, PTSD, and abuse in a form that tracks me like a bloodthirsty hound: always ready to bite when I’m finally reaching a harmonious state of being. But there is always something that makes that harmonious vail snap, which most recently was the death of my Grandma.
Since I was young, I’ve struggled with suicidal ideation I couldn’t quite understand and impulses to harm myself I used all my being to refuse. It was like a ghost pouring poison into half of my brain while the real me was screaming in my subconscious to “swim like a motherfucker.”
I’ve battled these demons on my own. Usually in silence. Always with a sense of guilt and shame. I can’t tell you how many dreams I’ve had where I literally had to murder the demons my shadow man sent after me that only understand the action “attack.” The images are horrifying.
So at 21, I decided to try medication — a new weapon in my armory as I pursued the fight for peace head-on. It was supposed to help make my anxiety and depression manageable, and it did!
Until it didn’t.
Once I felt like my current dosage was no longer helping, after 83 days of incredible progress, I upped my dosage to double the mg I was taking at the time. My grandma had died three weeks before this.
On the first day, I was bubbling with enthusiasm and energy I’d never had before. I even baked a cake, which is not a hobby that the usual Sage would ever pursue. While I baked the cake I realized that I canceled on one of my best friends to bake a cake in my empty and low-lit home.
The next day I was sobbing and wanted to smash my head through a mirror. The thoughts only got worse as the weeks continued. I didn’t want my instability to scare the people I cared for away, so I hid it behind empty, exhausted eyes and an overly apparent smile. I felt guilty in my grief and horrors because I didn’t want to make those around me sad by sharing that my brain was not in my control anymore. And I feared that soon my body wouldn’t be either. I remember waking up one morning, dreadfully, and being shot with adrenaline as I noticed marks on my left arm that resemble those of self-harm. I was horrified as I questioned when and how they got there. Did I hurt myself last night? How did this happen? How do I not remember?
The marks faded, my being shriveled, and my silence grew. The marks were from my bedsheets…
No one should be in a space where they can’t even recall if they have brought harm to themself. So I reached out for help: I told my partner, my therapist, my doctor, my friends, and my family to the degree I felt comfortable. For the most part, with my peers I was met with, “I hope you feel better” or “OMG I totally relate, I’m having a hard time this quarter too.” Not only did this make me feel worse but it made me feel taboo — a source of insignificance and discomfort. It was a conversation no one was willing to have. I was inconvenient and the “friend with mental health issues”. But guess what? It wasn’t my fault.
It is never our fault.
Simply, my body was on a medication that it could not handle. And no, I was not alone. I am not alone.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE.
Mental health issues are real and it is not something to apologize for.
I will not apologize.
Instead, I will proudly claim that I was not okay and that is okay. I am healing and that is okay. Healing is not linear and that is OKAY. I am worthwhile, I am beautiful, and I deserve to be happy. I am allowed to take up space and make myself known to others. I am allowed to say that I need support and I am allowed to ask for help without feeling like a burden. Because those that truly love me will never perceive me that way. Because I am worthy of their love and attention and most importantly, I deserve to feel the joys of feeling safe in my own psyche and the bliss of looking in the mirror each morning and embracing, in my soul and heart, the gentle warmth of the words “I am beautiful, I love myself” and know them as truths.
If you have experienced or are experiencing your own shadow man, know that you are loved and important. Know that you have the power to fight- even if it takes you longer than you would like. I promise you the journey is worthwhile because the first laugh after a sea of storms is the sweetest feeling. And yes, you’ll notice it in silence — but then you’ll know that your journey in this fight has been worthwhile. You are so capable, WE are so capable. Because each golden glimmer of joy is worth all the sorrows and the wars we must fight within ourselves to get there.
No one said self-love was easy. And no one said the journey of mental health and attaining peace was successful on the first try. The key: is that we keep trying, we keep fighting.
And if no one has told you yet today, you are not alone, I see you, and…
I love you.
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