To My Former Self Before My Turning Point With Chronic Pain and Depression

Dear Former Self,

You have grown stronger with each new challenge. Stronger than you realize. With each day of physical pain, you’ve managed to conquer it, even if you felt like you were only going to fail. When the pain got so intense — to the point where you crumbled and sat hysterically sobbing on the bathroom floor — you somehow managed to still fight and get through that day. Those little moments might not seem like much, but, oh, they are! See, Self, you never gave up, no matter how much you felt like you wanted to.

I know our Former Self never had to deal with the darkness of mental health challenges, and that struggle feels like you are drowning, despite being able to swim. I know the hospital stay in the psych ward at 25 made you feel like a complete failure, and that your life was ruined. That was the turning point of when our Former Self transformed into our New Self. You see, even in soul-crushing depression, we managed to rise, escape the bowels of hell, blood, fire and all, and conquer our new demons. However scary, our perceptions changed, and we merged together to become one new person.

We now realize it is OK to be different. It is OK to hurt on all levels. Our empathy has grown, for ourself and others. We now understand our journey was not meant to be easy. We’ve learned that life is not meant to be easy. If it were, it would not be so joyous when we have good days — and the good days far outweigh the bad ones. We’ve learned that like the mighty phoenix, a part of us had to die and rise again in order to be a stronger, wiser, braver, version of ourself. We are not the same person. We have more wounds, but the wounds are becoming scars which means that we have truly lived.

So Former Self, you have indeed grown and you are not as “worthless” as you once thought you were. Even though you now have greater challenges, your perseverance, courage and depth have never wavered. You learned you had to go to the darkness in order to truly appreciate the light. You learned you need to take a step back, breathe, and take your life on a day-to-day basis. You learned you aren’t exactly who you were before; however, your New Self needed the tenacity you had as a child to get through these new, different challenging days.

You learned how to wing it, and that some days are truly harder than others — on all levels of your existence. You’ve come to accept you are not perfect, but you don’t have to be. You’ve learned it’s OK to fail. You just have to pick yourself up and try again. So, Self, even though it can be confusing, isolating, overwhelming and scary, you are a lot braver than you ever thought possible. Keep up the good work. After all, you are a wonderful work in progress.

Sincerely,

Your soul