The last couple weeks have been a journey to say the least. My meds started to kick in, the depression is not as horrible, but now I feel so guilty and worthless that I pretty much failed this semester. I loved this class, yet I missed so many classes and let the missing assignments pile up. I thought I could be better. I thought I was better than this. Because of my parents, I tend to keep school stuff to myself out of fear of being yelled at or specific reactions because it bring me to a very negative mental space, and I do not think remembering and feeling that again is going to do anything but harm. Due to this, I have an extremely hard time accepting help out of fear of judgement and failure. Because to my parents, at least the way I interpret it is that I am a failure until I get a degree. Do I know thats not true? Deep down, yes, but its still something that weighs on me most I had no chance to morn the losses though, I had too much going on, and I honestly don’t think I wanted to sit with those emotions. I do that alot, I just make a joke about it, and keep going. Im in survival mode and working in therapy to try to work on the things that put me in survival mode and it is hitting nerves I didn’t know existed. It is terrifying. I am more traumatized than I thought and have way less control over my own emotions than I thought. I hate that, I like having control, I like being able to turn off my emotions and shove them down, to not remember the bodies and hands that have forced themselves on me, or the mouths that have screamed at me so loud the neighbors could hear, or the insults that brought me to my room sobbing alone for hours. I do not want to remember those times, to re feel that pain that I worked so hard to mask and shove down, but I have to. I have to because I have a boyfriend and I wanted to enjoy things with him, I have to because Im tired of feeling worthless each time I walk into my childhood bedroom, I have to so I don’t keep allowing abusive people in my life. I have to because I want to thrive, not just survive. But then the question, am I capable of thriving? Ive only survived my whole life, I am so sure and so unsure at the same time that it needs to happen now. I cannot continue with my brain this distorted, if I want to help people for a living, I must help myself first. So I have to ask myself how bad I want it, do determine how capable I am of thriving in this life.

“It gets better” is a phrase I have heard alot recently and its starting to drive me crazy. Ive been through this part of depression before, I know it gets better, I am still fighting each and everyday to get out of bed and brush my teeth and try and be a functioning human. I don’t want to hear, “It gets better” I want to be told that its okay to lay in bed for a little and if all I did today was drink soup in my bed, then atleast I ate. It is that time of year when people start to feel down because of the weather, but for me, its that in combination of loads of unhealed trauma from my childhood coming to the surface.

When I was little, I was always complimented on how “skinny” I was. I played sports at that time (club lacrosse and soccer), and my mother had full control over everything that I ate. My parents put me in sports as a child and I grew up playing them. I stayed the same “skinny” physique until around Sophmore year of high school. I decided to stop playing club lacrosse for mental health reasons, and I was told by the track team at my high school that I was not fast enough anymore. Then, for the first time in my entire life, I had to figure out how to keep myself healthy on my own when it came to working out and moving my body. I stopped for a while, I wanted a break from it, but I started to hate the way my body looked. I started to stalk models and other girls that society deemed beautiful and would shame myself because I did not look like them. My parents would tell me often to go to the gym because it would be good for me, but at this point I was in a depression. I slowly hated who I had become and who I looked like, and this continued for years and years. During this time in high school, I stopped eating for periods of time. Never having a stable healthy relationship with food, I either restricted or binged and always felt guilty no matter what I ate. I started to gain weight and my family started to make comments on what I was eating. I would get shamed for eating chocolate or would be told to loose weight so I could fit back into my school uniform. Then I began to skip meals and my relationship with food got worse from there. I was constantly on my phone wishing I was someone else and wishing I had a different body. This progressed for years, until last year of college. I met a group of people that made me feel like I did not have to be perfect, that I could be myself around and changed the way I view my body. I still struggle with this a decent amount but I am extremely grateful to have people in my life that always remind me that I do not need to change a single thing about my body and that social media is not always healthy.