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How Depression Recovery Is a Painful New Beginning

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I am beginning again, a soul reborn, coming clean, ready to live my life with more honesty, integrity, empowerment, intentionality, vulnerability and surrender.

In November 2014, my healing process began. I hit rock bottom and sought out a therapist. My healing process was nothing short of painful, full of anger and grief and darkness. I was drowning but still fighting to hang on to this life.

In January 2018, I hit a breakthrough. Ever since that breakthrough, I’ve been rebuilding my life, slowly but surely, and that growth has led me to this moment — to the way I feel right now. Feeling ready to move on with my life; to fully work toward healing my wounds, to allow myself to be vulnerable, to feel again, to surrender to what is, to stay present in the here-and-now and live intentionally. To be fully honest with myself and others. To own who I am. To forgive myself for past mistakes; to move forward with clarity and grace. To see the best in others. To open my heart to the world again even though that comes with the risk of being hurt. To refine and grow my talents and embrace that I have been given gifts from God to heal and change this world. To forgive others. To channel my energy in healthy and productive ways.

This new beginning is painful in a different way. It has been painful to look back and see the person I was in the past. It has been painful to accept the loss of so many relationships that my depression destroyed. It has been painful knowing people I once loved remember me as toxic and hateful. It has been painful to be rejected from a group of people I once called my best friends. It has been painful, but in order to move forward I need to face this pain and to move through it; “the only way out is through.” Acceptance. Surrender. Forgiving people who have wounded me so deeply, and most of all, forgiving myself. Because I didn’t know. I was doing the best I could with what I was given. I didn’t know.

But now I do know, and all I can do is move forward; for the first time in my life, I feel ready to move forward. The past two months have been painfully lonely, but have allowed me the chance to come home to myself. I’ve been taking care of myself, loving myself, working to intentionally heal myself and allowing myself to feel the emotions I’ve been running away from for years. I’ll spontaneously cry; I’ll cry as I walk to my car from campus, or I’ll cry in the shower or I’ll cry before bed. It hits me at random times. But strangely enough, I’ve never felt more peaceful. I’m allowing myself to just be. When heavy emotions come, I don’t fight them. I embrace them and let them pass. I am done hiding, I am done running, I am done denying.

I am coming back to life — a life I had written off years ago. People say I am different, yet I feel more “myself’ than ever before. Years ago, I saw the girl I am today hidden within a block of clay, and I sculpted and chiseled away until I found her.

Whatever you are struggling with, keep going.

Photo by Vlad Chernolyasov on Unsplash

Originally published: March 20, 2019
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