Hi.

Lately, I’ve adopted a survive at almost all costs mindset. It’s allowing for a lot of destruction around me. I watch it happen, and that thing I say about severe mental illness, that it will take you by the throat with one hand and destroy everything that you love with the other, seems more real than ever.

The important thing, though, is that we survive. Life keeps pushing me down. That’s okay, as long as I keep getting back up. It hurts.

I have distant hopes.

I have a hope that I can access outreach therapy like it seems I might soon be able to do after a wait over a year long. I have a hope that my cat will live a happy life. I have a hope that maybe, if this therapist is a good match for me in terms of personality and experience, that I’ll gain trust in her and get better.

Hey though, let’s not count all our chickens before they’ve hatched, or whatever. I’m scared that this, too, will be pulled out from under me, so I cannot put too much faith into it yet. I still have two intake appointments where I have to make my way out of my apartment into an office despite severe agoraphobia before I can even potentially access therapy appointments where someone comes to my home, covered by my insurance.

This doesn’t matter. You know why?

I am writing. To be unbelievably cliché and to quote Sylvia Plath, poet,  sad girl icon and possibly most importantly, a talented mentally ill woman who fought until the last day of her life to get help before accepting dying*, “I am, I am, I am.”

Here is the thing: if I am writing, then that means that I am alive. If I keep writing, then that means I have not yet died. I have not succumbed to suicidal ideation or other monsters. I don’t know how to give advice or write much right now. I do know one thing, though. We must keep surviving. Here I am, writing. Here you are, reading. I am so proud of you for still being alive, whether that is easy or hard for you.

Here I am, hitting publish, and I will be here, again. I promise, if only for myself.

xoxo,
Zelie

*I will get into this online another time, maybe.