Get Up Again

Some people think it’s impossible for a person to change, that at our cores we are who we are, and anything different is a cover-up. But I think that’s wrong. I think change is possible — incredibly difficult, of course, but possible. 

I have a mood disorder. That’s the way I’ve chosen to look at it, anyway, and the way I’d like the people who know me to look at it. There is (hopefully) less of the stigma attached than calling it a mental illness — it is, but for some reason mental health is not considered as “serious” as physical health problems — and more serious than saying I’m depressed, which to many people without this disorder might sound like a temporary state of being that I can just snap out of. So I have a mood disorder, one that makes it difficult for me to get out of bed, one that can cause me to burst into tears in the middle of a shower, one that may make me sleep 20 hours a day, one that messes with my appetite to the point that I have lost so much weight I seem to swim in most of my clothes. It’s a disorder that can make it almost impossible for me to feel light and happy at a family member’s wedding or my own graduation, a disorder that forces me into smiles that don’t touch my eyes whenever I tell someone that I’m “fine”. It’s a disorder that is very difficult to understand if you don’t have it, and very difficult to live with if you do. 

But I’m living. I’m surviving. I’m not allowing my disorder to define me. I’m recognizing that it’s a huge part of my life, though, and that I will have to adjust my life in order to accommodate my health, the same way someone with diabetes watches their diet and checks their blood sugar. That’s why I’m starting this blog, as a recognition that I am struggling with depression, as well as the fact that I am still living despite it. Hopefully, I can make the changes to my life I need to in order to balance handling my illness and being happy and fulfilled. Just because I have a mood disorder does not mean I am incapable of change; because I have a mood disorder, I have more power to recognize what needs to change, for my own sake. By starting this blog, I hope to keep track of those changes and record what needs to be done.