Content Warnings: Self-deprecation
Dear friend,
I’m not sure where you are in your healing journey, whether you have just started, or have been doing this for years, but wherever you are, I hope you’re doing well.
It feels weird to say, and I almost don’t want to say it, as if saying it is like a bad omen, but, after years of running away from myself, things in my life are finally beginning to make sense. Since I was little, I was obsessed with being perfect. Being myself wasn’t good enough, no—I had to be the best that I could be, every second of every day. Anytime I slipped up, I reprimanded myself. It was a vicious cycle, and it was only until college that I realized that this mentality, this lifestyle, was not conducive to a happy life. So since then, I have been encouraging myself to embrace my more human side, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult. There were many instances when I found myself slipping back into my old ways. Anytime it happened, I felt like I failed as a human being. But the thing is, healing was never meant to be a straight line.
It’s perfectly okay to have bad days, days when you feel accomplished for simply getting yourself out of bed in the morning. It’s important to embrace the messiness of healing. Like even right now, although things are pretty good in my life, it’s very possible that a few weeks or months from now, I might hit a rough patch, but that doesn’t take away from the years of progress I’ve made with my mental health.
Healing is about the good and the bad: you can’t have one without the other.
Love,
A friend
