Lost

Lost: unable to find one’s way.

I am lost. For the first time in months, I feel myself slipping off the track of the life I have rebuilt. The life I have worked so hard to live again. A place where I felt safe and free.

Some days, I just don’t have the answers. There are times when I breakdown and don’t tell anyone. I have problems I choose to keep to myself. I have become vulnerable over the past five years, allowing myself to accept who I am, while opening up every wound trying to heal. Some days, I don’t know who I am. Some days, I struggle to maintain a fake facade even I have been convinced is real.

Throughout my day, I do my best to stay positive and be grateful for the blessings in my life. I try to push people to be who they are and find happiness. I motivate others to stay on the track, while sometimes falling off myself. But what happens when you have a bad day? What happens when you need someone? People have placed me on a pedestal I can’t live up too.

I am looked at as put together and despite my years of struggling, I’m fixed. I can’t possibly have any problems because I worked through them. Just because people don’t go around posting their problems on the internet or constantly talking about them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. When it comes to mental health, people have a way of comparing issues, making some seem worse than others. At the end of the day, they all matter and are important.

I’m okay but I have days when I am not and that’s okay too. Right now, I feel lost. I have problems bigger than I feel I can handle. I worry about the people I love, get down on myself, take on others issues (unintentionally) and try to save everyone, including myself.

​For the past few days, my body has undergone more stress than I’ve felt in a long time. I haven’t been able to eat and have been waking up every hour, unable to sleep. I went to work today and my pants seemed looser than usual. My first thought was, “I should try being stressed more often and stop eating again”. Although I’ve been in recovery for five years, old habits have a way of sneaking up behind you.

I realized I have a lot more progress to make before I can consider myself okay. I have a friend who has gone through a similar journey as me, over the years. We would be there for each other when our mental illnesses where controlling us. We bonded over the problems hurting us the most. When I started to change and recover, she was still struggling to find herself. When she asked for help, I could see myself getting pulled back into my old way of thinking and realizing how comfortable it was for me to be in that headspace. If anything, I was scared.

Scared I’ve convinced myself how far I’ve come. I didn’t realize how easy it was to fall back into my old routine, how easy it is for me to destroy any progress I’ve ever made.

In one moment.

In one thought.

In one second.

My advice for people who have struggled with a mental illness, regardless of where you currently stand, you can’t run from this. Whether you like it or not, your disorders are a part of you. Work on them every day and remember recover is one hell of a fight. Allow yourself to feel but know when to ask for help. Let yourself have a bad day but know when it’s more than just a bad day. Do your best to pick yourself back up and continue on with this fight for life but don’t beat yourself up for your relapses.

We are not perfect, we are human. Our hearts all beat the same on the inside. We have all been handed cards to play and we need to do our best to work with what we have been given. Life is hard but it’s how we react to the downfalls that make us strong. Don’t be afraid to allow others to be there and walk beside you on the way back up. Keep fighting the battles in your life, you are stronger than you think.