Stigma

Something has been on my mind for a while now. When I first got on FB, some of my friends and family would tell me to stop airing out my dirty laundry on social media. All I did was bitch about my life, my dad, my depression, etc. I hated my life and didn't really have any friends to express my heartaches to.

Fast forward 8 years, I don't talk to those friends and family members anymore, and some may say that I still bitch about my life, my dad, my depression, etc.
But, I beg to differ. I don't bitch, I recollect by giving a name to the specific forms that my deepest aches take every day.

Everyone around me expects my life to be great; after all I am married, am extremely educated (intellectually and empathetically speaking) and have good friends, but to be brutally honest, even if I may not hate my life anymore, I am not at all happy. I just can't shake this feeling of loneliness.

Every day I wake up and wonder if today will be any different. I still post about my dad and my depression on a daily basis and even though I have survived the past, I am still fighting for peace. I believe that I am not broken anymore, but I am undeniably bruised, and I want you all to know that I don't think the marred skin that has protected me through years of instability will ever grow anew over the dark welts only I am familiar with.

I say this because I wonder how many of you see my posts and perhaps block them or bypass them. This is not to say that I care if you do. I just need to express my thoughts on this platform so that I can move forward and conquer life whether or not God has given me the courage to do so.

I don't know what I am going through. I have stopped taking part of my depression meds, and maybe that's why I am feeling this way. I am becoming a social worker, and I feel like I am drowning. Part of me wants so badly to give up, and I haven't felt like this in so long. It is so fucking frightening to have so many people around you, and feel like you don't have a soul in the world fighting to keep you alive.

I have tried to uphold this truth that anyone can make it out of the darkness, because I believe it. I wake up every day to prove to my clients and people I connect with on social media that living with a mental illness is possible and that the notion of suicide can be a far-fetched idea if we all come together to fight the stigma, but I just can't today.

I began this status with a purpose and now I don't know what the purpose of it became. It may seem disjointed or might make perfect sense; I'll leave that up to anyone who reads it.

I am tired more so today than yesterday.
Whether tomorrow will greet me with pain or comfort is a mystery to me, but chances are I'll awake with all the energy I can muster to greet her with a smile.