Mental illness + life maintenance…

(Source)

I’m not afraid to talk about mental illness. I’m not afraid to live my life literally as an open book for other people to examine, digest and take from it what they can. I’m not afraid to tell people, I often feel weak emotionally and can cry at the drop of a pin over the most mundane of events because when something happens it might seem small to anyone on the “outside” but spend just 30 seconds in my brain and you’ll realize that the small insubstantial occurrence is something B-I-G in my body.

During the year I was losing close to 120 pounds I was not only losing the physical weight I was also losing the emotional weight and coming to terms with what exactly my mental illnesses meant in order to be successful in both the weightloss and the maintenance of keeping it off.

I believe now that maybe I’m not on a weight loss maintenance journey but rather a life maintenance journey. I believe that if I can continue to be open about emotional journey then my body and mind will continue to be healthy and in turn will continue to push forward on a physical level. I can run all the miles I want and lift all the heavy weight I want but if I don’t continue to focus on my emotional well being then the physical portion of this journey will fail to prosper.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about how my mental illness(es) come into play with this (life) maintenance. How when I was doing  emotional exercises along side the physical exercises I was moving forward in a more determined fashion. As both my body and my mind (emotionally and spiritually) got stronger they (pun intended) fed off each other. I found the more I could push my body physically the more I wanted to try and push my mind emotionally and face the demons that sink their teeth deep into my soul. In turn the more I could push my mind emotionally and come out seeing more clearly…feeling more determined…feeling more whole, the more I wanted to try and push my body physically.

I suffer from chronic genetic depression (diagnosed).

I suffer from border line personality disorder (diagnosed).

I have Aspergers.

The Aspergers is medically undiagnosed only because a) they didn’t medically label it until the 90’s and that was long after my childhood and my childhood diagnosis came in the form of report cards that said ” extremely socially awkward”, “pays attention to details” and “prefers to play alone”  b) I don’t need a doctor to tell me as an adult what I already know to be true. For years I was on heavy dosages of medication to help with the depression and when I decided I didn’t want take medication for the rest of my life because I understood that the depression is as much a part of my being as the color of my eyes or the pigment of my skin I began a long journey of Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

The point of all this being is that yesterday’s post was about being aware. In another life I would have allowed the darkness to fester and become an oozing infection that would seep so far down into the core of my being, coming back to “reality” might take months (or years). I would have done what I see other people in my family do and stuffed it into the proverbial paper bag and shove that thing so far into the mental closet and wish for it to go away. Then as expected when another “episode” came along I would shove more crap into that paper bag until it overflowed and stank of past emotions and not having the first clue how to clean it up just sat in my own mental (illness) garbage.

But I’m not living that life anymore.

Yes, I am in a dark place. But not as dark as yesterday. I am aware. I am equipped with the tools to build a bridge that takes me from what seems like despair and angst to a place of comfort and understanding. There are certain parts to my life that are extremely important to the well being of my emotions (having a schedule, doing the same thing over and over again, eating the same types of food everyday, needing quiet space).  Honestly, many of the things that I need to keep my emotional well being in check have been absent (only because I am afraid to ask for what I need).

When my emotional exercises are put to the side (at the fault of my own) the physical exercises become weak as well. Yes I am running longer than I have in a long time but I feel the struggles happening. For me they go hand in hand and when one is lacking (the emotional) then so does the other (the physical).

Today’s run was amazing.

Why was it amazing? Because yesterday I recognized that there are key components to my emotional strength missing. I long for a routine. I long for repetitiveness. I long for social interaction in the form of work. I long for the quiet spaces and knowing when change is coming. I long for what makes me feel safe and I was too afraid to try and explain it because I thought for sure no one would understand the way I think (in pictures and colors rather than words)…

Life isn’t full of unicorns crapping rainbows all over me but pushing myself emotionally yesterday and in turn being able to push myself physically today has helped release some pressure off my being. I’m still taking some time away from social media to continue to focus inward and build that bridge to get from where I was yesterday to where I want to be today.

The foundation for that bridge I began to lay with yesterday’s post?

It’s pretty rock solid.

My life is an open book and for some that would be terrifying. For me it’s life learning. I am an experiment in over coming mental illness, losing weight and ultimately maintaining life. I lay everything out there for people to see because while maybe you don’t need to know that in all things impossibly stacked against you, there is success; someone does.

And sometimes that some one is me.