I’ve been going back and forth on what I’d blog about today. Should it be about triumphant moments or depressing anxiety filled days? I never want to seem to always talk about one side of our lives. I want to fill our blog with every side for all to see and understand our truth.
So after a long deliberating morning; I decided to put the happy moments aside for a moment and talk about what I’m going through right now. Depression and Anxiety.
Hang on tight. It’s going to get rough.
I want to start from the beginning. Where MY DIAGNOSIS first took precedence.
2005.
After struggling with making terrible decisions as a teenager; my loving and very strong parents knew I needed a professional to talk to. To get down to the bottom of what was causing EVERYTHING. They went through our home church to find a good Therapist and Psychologist for me to see.
At the end of the first session, I was given the clinical diagnosis of Depression with Severe Anxiety. I was 17 years old. I was so young yet old enough to be diagnosed with things I never thought would be beside my name.
I had an extremely happy childhood. Full of amazing moments and love from my parents and siblings. I never wanted for anything as I found joy and complete contentment in what God had given me. My parents were (and are) amazingly strong, courageous, honest, hardworking, loving people. They desired to have myself and my siblings so much there are six of us! Their love overflowed so much God blessed them when doctors told them they couldn’t have children. They proved those doctors wrong.
I started to notice a “change” I guess I can call it when I was 14. It was around the same time where I was going through the usual teenage years. The years where you have great friends that turn into not so great friends and you make more than your fair share of bad choices. Those years I wouldn’t want to relive for anything. I’m glad I’ve moved passed them.
But the diagnosis I received during those years will never change. It doesn’t make me weaker or less of a person. But it does make me a person who will forever deal with what I call it the two headed demon. I have depression on one and Severe Anxiety on the other.
Over the years I’ve grown wiser and stronger in how I handle these times where it rears it’s two heads again. But it doesn’t make the moments go away faster.
I struggled as anyone does with depression and anxiety. I’m not special or this amazing person who can tell you how to overcome your struggles. I’m just me. Battling my issues one day at a time.
But I’d be lying if I said going through the diagnosis process for our 3 boys over the last 3 years has made me stronger. It hasn’t. In many ways it’s made me more anxious and have more dark days then I feel comfortable saying.
I have found strength in what I do here. Advocating and gaining knowledge on Autism has given me a drive I haven’t felt in a long time. I have a new found strength in that, but I’m still trying to fight to find strength for me. For my battles.
I don’t know when that will be or if I ever will. But I do know this; fighting for our boys has given me a new purpose in life. Beyond being a mother. Beyond being a daughter, sister, friend, wife. I’m my children’s voice in this life long battle for Awareness and Acceptance.
My diagnosis will never leave me, it will always be in the darkest part of the room waiting for me to stumble and find it once more.
Sadly these last couple of days I’ve fallen into it again. But I will never stop fighting to find my way back to my real self. Never.
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