Lately I have been able to consistently take my prescribed medication, something that wasn’t possible before because I was quite horrible at keeping track of taking something like medication every single day (hello depression my old friend). So, the experience of having the opportunity to feel ”stable” recently has been… eye opening to say the least. Before, I had a bad habit of keeping my feelings and problems to myself, not expressing them to others because of the fear of possibly being a burden to them once I share such sentiments. Opening up about my mental illness altogether was something that I believed that I couldn’t do; mainly because of the thoughts of ”no one will care” or ”how dare you show weakness in front of others” and so on (it was quite horrible, my mindset that is). Within the past year or so, however, this thought process of mines has transformed and changed quite significantly. I have met individuals who showed no fear in admitting that they were experiencing hardships in their lives due to their mental illnesses, and had no qualms with expressing how their illnesses have effected them yet they have continued to stay strong because of what they have gone through. It was admirable, and with their help I have come to terms with who I am and have accepted that the individuals who is myself can be loved and appreciated even if I have all of these scars and flaws that are hard to talk about. So, getting past the self acceptance and conquering the stigma behind acknowledging/talking about mental illness as a whole, the next conundrum was the amount of word ”vomit” that came from me when explaining simple things like how I am feeling. Unfortunately, the simplest of conversations would turn into ”trauma dumps” where I would reveal my tragic origin story to whoever so much as extended an ear to what I had to say, which of course is a problem. Sometimes sharing to people things that can be heavy subjects can weigh a lot on the mind (a talk they may not have been ready for either), so my current goal is to be mindful of what I am actually communicating with people. It is a struggle and quite the paradox, since at the beginning I felt it not okay to share, but when given the freedom to do so there are still restrictions and boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. It is progress though, and I am at the point in my life where reflection of myself and the choices/the way in which I behave determine my confidence/strength to move forward on a path of self-care and acceptance. However, as I always mention in my posts, being able to have the chance to talk about my life on a platform such as this is comforting! Since I can share as much as I have so far about myself, I consider it progress that hopefully those who possibly read this also share with me the strength to keep moving forward with confidence!