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As a routinely high functioning individual, it has been fairly easy to publicly obscure my struggles with mental health.
I’ve always projected the image of someone who has it all together, who is confident, self-assured, strong, and happy.
I am many of those things—but I definitely do not have it all together.
The woman I am was certainly not built without walking through fire.
As a survivor of trauma, my strength was born out of necessity and certainly came with its fair share of challenges.
Namely: depression and anxiety.
It took me years to figure out that the difficulty I had in processing big emotions wasn’t because I was crazy, but was in fact a function of what I had survived that had quite literally altered my brain chemistry.
I’ve previously written about my struggles with anxiety, something that had long accompanied me throughout my life—an everlasting presence in the background of my existence that I always knew how to keep at bay.
While I managed these internal struggles, I always knew how to put my happiest foot forward—always being the most outgoing, outspoken, enthusiastic student in school, achieving high grades, managing and maintaining extra-curriculars, playing sports and never missing a beat.
As I moved through university and post-grad, while my high-achieving ways remained, it became harder to act as though there wasn’t a silent war being waged in my mind on most nights when the work was done and I was left with nothing but my thoughts.
I continued to achieve success, receive awards and accolades and continue to strive for more.
But when I realized it was no longer sustainable to maintain in a constant fight mode out of self preservation, I knew it was time to reach out for help.
So, I started therapy.
This helped, to a degree, but on a deeper level I still struggled.
I did the work, I journalled, I meditated, I read countless self-help books and told my therapist all about the trauma lying under the surface but still, I wasn’t “fixed.”
There was still this nagging sense, every time I put my pen to paper to journal about my innermost thoughts, that there was still work to be done and still things about me that were less than perfect.
While wanting to work on yourself is a good thing, it can become toxic when you are constantly convincing yourself that something still has yet to be remedied so you can finally deem things “good enough.”
I began to apply this logic to the rest of my life, thus beginning an incessant and fruitless chase for perfection.
It caused me to stir up conflict where there wasn’t any—both with myself and others—and find faults where they didn’t exist because I had become so accustomed to my own internal chaos.
While the therapy helped and as did entering into a healthy partnership, I still wasn’t “fixed.”
I continued to be high-achieving and high-functioning but it seemed that no matter what I did, my longest standing acquaintances of depression and anxiety followed me, often wreaking havoc in and around me in its wake.
So this year, after mulling the decision for some time, I decided to finally try medication to address the root of the issue.
There’s a lot of shame and stigma associated with taking medication for mental health, some of which prevented me from doing so in the first place.
I always felt like needing to take medication would make me a failure, or that it would be embarrassing to rely on something to prevent me from living in constant anxiety, something that all the self help books in the world were unable to help me quell.
But it was an attempt at moving forward with a little help, something that I’ve tried so hard to act like I’ve never needed.
I will add a caveat that medication definitely isn’t for everyone and there also isn’t a one-size-fits-all to heal all of your mental health woes, but for me it was certainly a start.
It was a start to finally turning off the background noise that had become my normal.
It was a step in the direction of finding and maintaining somewhat of an equilibrium, and to finally put the gloves down with myself and others.
I decided to admit this publicly because for a long time, when I would be approached by people who told me they were fans of my work, or who even went so far as to say they were inspired by me, I sometimes felt like an impostor.
How could I accept these praises and accolades when these people have no idea the internal wars I’ve waged just to exist in this world—a woman who is half warrior half torment, fighting so hard just to get by?
It was hard to acknowledge that maybe these people had a valid point, or that I was worthy of the kind words, because no one would ever know what it took to get there.
It has recently dawned on me, though, that though being who I am has always felt like a rebellion, every bit of me has always been worthy of the things I’ve fought tooth and nail for.
Whether it’s the life I’ve built, the love I have, the career I’ve worked for, or the peace I’m finally learning to be acquainted with—none of it came easy.
Despite all of the things that have attempted to drag me down on this earth, the greatest act of resistance is the woman I built from that.
This is the kind of woman who would do anything to protect herself and those around her, who is learning to not give weight to the opinions of others and who is both strong and soft at the same time.
It's a constant rebellion to be a daughter who pushes back, a woman who doesn’t bite her tongue, a woman who is loud and who enters every room with her head held high and her shoulders back as if there isn’t a single thing on this earth that could weigh her down.
While it would be much easier to keep the silent struggles silent and continue to welcome all of the good things that come now that I’ve not just become acquainted with the darkness but learned to find the light—it feels disingenuous to my story to act like the woman I am becoming wasn’t built from fire and ash.
I’ve realized I don’t want people to just learn from my tragedy. I want to be able to teach from my triumph.
Maybe this can be the beginning of that.