Music: Nina Simone - Feeling Good

Tea: Strong and dark

Air Quality: a little warm

Life: Calm

Mood: Reflective

Somewhere between here (waking life) and there (dream life) I gathered the courage to hunt down the thing that's been haunting me. And the thing that has been haunting me is nothing by fear, plain and simple fear. I'm stalking it like a tiger that has spotted his prey a mile off. I'm the zone and just waiting for the chance to pounce but until then I have to keep a cool head, I will not allow this fear to get the best of me. In my life I am a fighter who has lost more battles than I've actually won, but those wins are so huge that they overshadow my losses. In my dreams however, I am a warrior collecting the remnants of my enemies and displaying them for future adversaries to see. Be they monsters, former friends or the darkness that likes to threaten me from time to time. I have my wars with the best of them - sometimes I come out on top.

And YES, as an adult I still have monster dreams. There are two different types of monsters I face in my nightmares. When the monsters show up with a face I know that somewhere in my life there is a person who is mistreating or hurting me and when it shows up without a face I know that there is a situation giving me hell and is haunting me, it's either my failure to deal with it or something I can't handle. It gives me pause to look at the whole of my life and do an inventory of my thoughts and feelings about things and people, then question their intentions towards me.

I always find myself being careful when I do this. I don't want to get stuck in the past...meaning replay it to the point where I'm reliving it and can't discern it from my present. This has happened before and it was so hard to come out of that, my therapist all but went on a search and rescue mission for my mind, to bring me current. I would end up repeating the date over and over to myself because I would be that stuck, that scared and that gone. Now I do this (remembering things) with my therapist - in a safe environment where she can help me if need be. When there are things that threaten to have me back in the mental state I was in - like past traumas she's there to help with that. Not to say that I don't venture to remember things on my own, sometimes I do but never in the depths that we go to in therapy. Sometimes I can't remember and it's just the emotion that comes across and being stuck in a past emotion where you don't know why you are crying or angry or whatever else...is tough. Negative emotions hurt especially when you can't remember the situation. It just feels like your anger or sadness is misplaced, like nothing makes sense but you know it does because you are feeling it.

I don't know...and I try not to say that too often. Saying "I don't know" implies that I really don't know- I do but it's just hard conveying the thoughts. Remember when you were a kid and used to go to the swing set and swing as high as you possibly could because you thought you could touch the sky if you did? And if you were the dare-devil that I was...you'd leap from the seat to sore through the air for a few seconds....that right there - that is the feeling you can't describe. That half exhilarated half fear for your life feeling while you hang in mid-air for a few seconds unsure of whether or not your landing will be a smooth one. Odd...I acted on impulse even as a child...hm. Anyway - if you've never leapt from a swing in the air then perhaps the thrill of watching somebody do that with just as much horror and secret excitement to see if they land properly. As kids you lose your sense of self, nothing weighs you down because you are for those moments invincible, unbreakable and "super".

In the height of my illness - I thought myself to be unbreakable. I felt like nothing or no one could harm me - because I believed myself to be special, possessing a godlike power to keep people from hurting me. When did I realize that none of this was true? When I got hurt for surely if I had those powers none of that would have happened...I would have been able to save myself but it was God who saved me and brought me back to reality. He even helped me a time I was hearing voices non-stop...he took them away from me.

I'd hear a voice from the time that I went to bed to the time that I got up in the morning and if I happened to wake during the night it would still be there...repeating my name over and over again as if trying to rouse me from my sleep. I thought, for a very long time that it had to be a demon. That I was possessed and being punished for something - what I had no idea - but that is what I felt. I prayed to God for them to stop and it did. I asked God what it was and he provided me with an answer. It wasn't until my first visit with my therapist that I knew this was no demon. She spoke about the things I had been experiencing and what others had gone through and when she told me what it was - I thought - great...now I'm crazy. She corrected me telling me that there was treatment for it and that I could be so much better. We'd get right down to the problems and sources of my depression and figure out why I wanted out of my life as much as I did. We'd come to make safety plans and set up boundaries to keep me safe, to keep others in the know and to make sure my support system was in place. Over the years we've talked about many a thing, have explored many an option and have prayed together. And we've been on the same page as far as my therapy is concerned since.

This is a journey for me- one that will be life-long because there is no cure for the things I go through. But there is treatment, there is betterment and there is hope. Doctors are finally starting to take mental health seriously. They are looking into ways to help ease those who suffer with less archaic methods than electric shock therapy. There are some that still go through this because their illness is far more complicated than mine and they just need something more. I call it archaic- I don't like it...well I should say, I don't like the thought of it - I've never experienced it. The thought of it makes me cringe.

For now I am on the right path with my healing and I'm glad. I'm able to do more and speak clearer. I'm able to think coherent and cohesive thoughts and I'm able to take little trips down memory lane without getting lost on the way. Life has been a thrilling ride. I can say that now. Before I didn't think so - I thought it was one bucket of fresh hell after the next. My thoughts swarmed with suicide, self-harm, self-hate and anger towards God but God was not the problem, I wasn't the problem and those around me weren't the problem.

Mental illness is the biggest question we have to face that has no answers. We don't know why it happens, where it comes from and what it is exactly other than a chemical imbalance...there's not much more that can be said. What we do know is that-

-it is sometimes hereditary (depending on what you have)

-it can manifest at any age in any number of ways from any type of trauma

-it is life-long (there is no cure)

-it has claimed the lives of thousands

-and a steady treatment of meds and therapy helps

-it is not a punishment by God but in fact, an opportunity for victory to arise in you

-you can get through it

This is all from personal experience that I say these things. I don't just speak to hear or read myself. I find facts in my daily living and share them with my doctor and we go over them. We sit and talk about this stuff, whole conversations of what works, what it is, what can be done and ways to overcome it. And none of those ways involves giving up and allowing myself to be taken by the illness.

Fight for all its worth, fight your hardest. If you even think or feel like something is wrong then that is a sign for you to follow up on it. Question it all you want - but the longer you wait the tougher it will be. Get out in front of it for the sake of your treatment. Find someone you know will listen and help, start building your support system and find a doctor that you trust. You can start with your medical doctor they sometimes give referrals to other doctors to help you. If it's a thing of not having the funds then that's where you need to do some legwork. I can only speak for here in the US and in my area but there are counselors who do this type of work for free, there are services set up for people who can't afford their meds and there are hospitals and community projects that do free group therapy sessions so that you have a place to go and that you know you are not alone.

When I sit down to pen The Building Fund I will provide a list of resources for you. I think that is one of the main things that writing will be about. I want to inform as well. I want to teach and be a beacon of light for those who may be going through something they don't understand. I look forward to doing that someday. God willing he will afford me the opportunity to do so. Until then, I will continue to chronicle m y life here and find ways to help others with the skills I already have and will learn.

Take care of YOU! You are important, you are worth it and you are blessed. Yassss! Blessed - did you know that I pray for you every day and every night before I go to bed? Yes, I do - it is a very specific prayer that I give to God's ears just for you! So please know - that you are blessed. Yes you! I asked him to do it and I know that he did...wanna know how? You smiled just now! :) See!

Have a wonderful day, a blessed day, an awesome day - feel your strength flow through your body and the weight of you on the earth today...you are a force to be reckoned with! I'd pick you in a fight any day! ;)

Until next time...thank you for reading!