The long journey to happiness

Today I’m feeling pretty optimistic. I have learned a lot about mental health over these past couple of years. I have learned there is no one size fits all cause, journey, or solution. I have often wished depression was as simple as a broken bone. You see it in an x-ray, the Dr. knows where and how to treat you, and an x-ray can show when you have healed.

My depression was caused by multiple events spread over many years. My healing journey has proven to be just as complicated. Today I feel good but that does not mean I will feel good all of the time now. I think that has been one of the most frustrating parts of the healing journey. I would feel good for one or two days, leading to feelings of hope. That would be followed by weeks of feeling bad, which would totally squash all of my hope. Several times I worried that I would never feel good. At one point, I saw a chart that someone had posted of their mood over time after starting antidepressants. They had recorded their mood every day for over a year. It was a solid year before their mood was consistently good, more often than bad. Even when they were doing good, there were still bad days. When I saw that, I was able to make more realistic expectations about my journey of healing. I was able to have hope again. Although my expectations were more realistic, they still did not match my reality. My journey was long and bumpy. A better goal or expectation is that the healing journey is a long one, but I will get better in time. As one of my close friends said to me, it took you years to get to this point. You cannot heal overnight.

For some the journey may be a couple of months, for others a year, and even others the journey may be several years. I am now in year three of healing. I have done many things to get better, including therapy and medication. I have been on leave from work, I have done cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness based stress reduction and support groups. I write and I try to accept things the way they are. Finally, I feel like I am seeing a constant, positive growth.

Lately, I have been opening up about Huntington’s Disease. How it has affected our family. I have been looking back, reading old journals, facing the trauma that our family suffered, and is still suffering. Sharing my story through my writing, in therapy, and with a support group. It is helping me to heal. Talking about my experiences is helping to take the power away from them. I feel less alone. I am learning that what seems terrible, dysfunctional, and abnormal, is somehow normal. I have hope again. Hope that by sharing my story I am helping others in their healing journey. Helping others to feel less alone, less dysfunctional.

Feeling alone when you are going through difficult times is really hard. Finding people who are going through the same things that I am has been incredibly helpful. When we were going through the loss of my ex, my kids’ dad, I was terrified. My boys were in the most difficult stages of the teen years. I did not know how to help them. I was afraid of losing them too. I joined a parent support group which was one of the best things I could have done. In the best of times, the teen years can be pretty hard, but parents tend to hide that from others. We worry about our image, we feel shame if things are not going well. We hide our fears and the experiences our families are going through. Very few people go through this stage of their lives problem free. It is a huge growth and transition period and kids are suddenly faced with more choices, opportunities, problems than ever before in their lives. In the parent group, we were honest. Honest about the things that were happening, how we felt. We learned that our experiences and feelings were totally normal. We were not alone. We helped each other navigate through these times.

When I joined the Huntington’s caregiver support group I learned the same. What we all go through is normal. The experiences we face, our reactions, our fears are all normal. We can face our challenges together. Help each other navigate through.

Slowly I am healing. I have hope. Today I feel good; this month I feel good.