Healing is a Choice

Issue No. 5: Stressed Out!
Words - Teri Bradford

"You only are free when you realize you belong no place—you belong every place—no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great." - Maya Angelou

At 15 years old, a friend intervened in a plan I had to swallow high-dose sleeping pills I was given to ease my stress headaches. I was pulled out of school and put into a poorly-rated psych hospital for youth in Kentucky. After my two week stay, the state of my mental health unfairly fell onto my mother's shoulders, so attempts to keep up with therapy and medication for my depression and mood swings proved unsustainable after a rocky two months.

Through conversations she'd tried to have with me about my situation, my mom revealed that struggles with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder run in my family. So does dismissing these issues as "white people things," and coping in the form of anger, blame, and manipulation. My parents' lack of exposure to what addressing mental health looks like led to a stunted healing process for me.

Each time someone insinuated that I was "okay" enough to meet everyone's expectations of being "fine," I became more bitter. I hated where and who I was. I finally developed a plan to numb myself of my emotions, and focused all of my energy on getting to college.  I didn't even like school, but college was a new city and opportunity to bury every bad thing in my life. I graduated with acceptances to many colleges, and with total disregard for my comfort zone, chose the one 18 hours away from my home life.

I could have never anticipated the way I blossomed my first year with a clean slate. It was a slow process, but one new, positive experience led to another and another until I'd done more than I ever thought was possible for me. I learned that I wasn't a “mentally ill problem child,” but a full person with goals and dreams that were bold, exciting, and attainable if I put in the work. I remember the exact moment at 18 years old that I realized I couldn't just leave everything in the past and pretend it didn't happen. My life was just starting, and I would have to process and let go of all the bad things to make room for the good. 

It was an awkward beginning. I stumbled through processing all the emotions that I'd numbed so well I couldn't even identify what they were. It would take me three years after choosing this journey to see a therapist who helped me with this. Meditating, intentional journaling, and beginning to talk openly about my mental health was weird. I found that, for me, self-care wasn’t about bath bombs and yoga the way it seemed to be for other people. Instead, self-care was respecting, forgiving, and showing up for myself. It was also taking care of myself, and doing mundane tasks like laundry and grocery shopping, which I'd never equated to self-love before.

Starting to heal from the inside out was lonely, but empowering. I was an 18-year-old who was setting boundaries. Sometimes that looked like not seeing my family for holidays and summers when all of my friends were going home. I worked multiple jobs at once to be financially independent because I recognized money was used as a tool for manipulation and abuse. I had to own up to when I was the toxic one, the instigator, and/or the source of negativity in past and present situations, while also recognizing I was a child. I chose to be better.

The fruit of this labor first came as forgiveness of myself for things I didn't know I blamed myself for. I worked past needing a real apology, while still holding them accountable as a means to maintain my own boundaries. I forgave every person I resented by telling myself they were working with what they had, same as me.

My work has now begun to reward me with acceptance, understanding, balance, and an incredible support system of people who can lean on me as much as I can lean on them.

Mental health is a lifelong journey. I have days when I'm not so forgiving. I hurt others, or I break promises to myself, and I have to re-make the choice to keep going. I do this because I've proven to myself that I don't belong to an incident, or to a time in my life, or to a version of myself. I belong to no place. I belong to me, and I'm the healthiest and freest I've ever been. It's only getting better from here.