Back From Falling: Part 1

I often wondered what effect stepping out with my story would have on me.  It was a simple question posed to me the last time I spoke, and one that caught me off guard.

"How are you handling being so open about what you've been through? Has it made things easier or harder?"

It wasn't a question I prepared an answer for and found myself standing in front of a room full of strangers feeling even more exposed, if that's possible.  Yet, it was a question I needed to hear.  The answer is a long one, with many factors and an ultimately positive tone.  However it did force me to consider some curious internal responses.  One being this, I have found I seem to posses the belief that I shouldn't be open about not being 100% all of the time.  I feel somehow responsible to only be healthy,  as though I have created an expectation of myself to only be "good".  Free of anxiety, panic, fear, depression.  That somehow I feel fraudulent speaking of my recovery and coping when I am having a bad day, a bad week.  I am grateful I was forced to think on this and it's what brings me to you today.

I crashed.  Again.  I did exactly what everything I have learned has dictated I cannot do.  I went home for the Holidays and complacently landed on my couch, not working out, not eating properly, not taking the time to focus on the feelings that ultimately become "too much" for me if I let them go unnoticed.  Somehow this hurts me so much more at this point, I know better.  I know what I need to do to stay healthy. So here I am again, left fighting back! And I am.

I had planned on going back home, sharing a holiday journal through my blog and instead I find myself here sharing a much more intimate journal, coming back from falling.

So in hopes my transparency provides more help then my "embarrassment" for "letting this happen" again.  In hopes that my exposure is more relevant then the "perception" that I am always good.  Here it is.  I still suffer from Anxiety, Panic, Depression, and I have to take care of myself to manage that.  I have failed to do that and so my next few entries will serve to remind me of exactly that.

And more so, let me share with you what it takes for me to fight back from darkness...