2018-2019 Janet,
I have a lot to tell you. I’ve been looking at a lot of journals and mood logs that you’ve kept over the years. And there’s a lot on my heart, so I thought I’d write you a letter, to give you my perspective on things. You are going through a lot, and struggling, like everyone does, to understand yourself and your purpose and your path. I want to tell you that this does get easier. But you’ll go through hell to get there. It’s all worth it though.
Something that really stands out to me in these journals is how very hard you are on yourself, how much you expect perfection and how your mood crashes when you can’t achieve it.
I’m here to tell you what I think you already know first, which is that perfectionism is hell— one that you create due to your fear of vulnerability, of love, of acceptance, of failure.
Second, I want to tell you something I don’t think you’ve realized yet, but will someday soon— that perfect will ultimately destroy you, that perfect is unattainable, that perfect will never give you peace or throw you any parties for what you have accomplished in this life. It’s a lie— one you’ve learned, but one you can unlearn. You will never feel satisfied as long as perfectionism is whispering, “it’s not enough” in your ear.
Another thing that stands out to me is your intense preoccupation with, and dissatisfaction with, where you are in life. There’s a lot about you to celebrate. There’s a lot about you to love.
But you are so focused on the future, the what if’s, on where you want to be, on your perceived sense of failure (particularly in relation to your goals as a musician) that you can’t accept yourself or celebrate how far you’ve come because you can’t even see how far you’ve come.
I know things are really up and down for you. I wish I could tell you that this is the worst of it, but the darkest days are only just beginning for us.
In December 2019 you’ll start to spiral and from there your world will rapidly change. You’ll feel it coming, but you won’t know what it is. You’ll never be the same again.
I’m here to tell you it’s all for the better, and that I wouldn’t trade the dark days ahead of you for brighter ones even if I could because we harness our greatest power, show our biggest love, vulnerability and bravery during these times. And it will all show you a light within that you can’t yet begin to imagine.
In 2020 your mind will break, kind of, along with the world. What will already become a very isolating period for many will be a prison for you. You’ve never known a place so dark and painful as this. But it is here in this place you didn’t choose that you find yourself— bright lit with compassion and heartache and resilience. I am cheering you on, I really am.
I know how much it will feel as though you’re drowning. But I’m here to tell you that you can breathe under water, and that as you sink deeper you will find yourself more there. And at the bottom you’ll find grace, hope, brutality and beauty.
2020-2023 will be a mad blur, but you connect the missing pieces somehow.
I see how you struggled to get here to me, now. And I have nothing but love and admiration for you.
After years of hell, just when things start to get better again, they’ll get worse. The past will come to remind you of itself. And you’ll wonder what the point of healing ever was. But in this anger and resentment you’ll learn to love the unlovable. Through all the heartache your heart becomes fuller, filled with forgiveness and softness.
There’s probably a lot I haven’t said here, but we can always talk again. I’m always here to create space for us. I guess I will leave with this—
I am in awe of you, how much you’ve faced, how the world and all its darkness could have hardened you and yet you became somehow ever more tender to the touch, all the more open and sensitive and strong.
I am truly your biggest fan, enamored by you and your courage and your ability to find gratitude in what would break most people’s spirit. I can’t know what’s to come for you, for us. But something tells me whatever darkness lie ahead, whatever lion’s dens are waiting for us, we will come out roaring— not in rage, but in victory, and that we will continue to find beauty and gratitude in the pain. There is beauty on the other side of these years.
Where you are now, at the dawn of these hardships, is not where you will be. And I want you to know more than anything that I am there, too, and that I believe you have everything you need to come out victorious.
When it’s over, I will be here to meet you, to become you, to love you, to embrace you, to lick your wounds, to accept you exactly as you are.
Restlessly Waiting,
2023 Janet
#MentalHealth #BipolarDisorder #Psychosis #MoodDisorders #Anxiety #BipolarDepression
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