Let’s have a chat about healing (part I)

TW: self-harm, severe depression, binge eating disorder tendencies, and graphic panic attacks centered around food and intense nausea. Please be safe.

Let’s talk about healing. I’m going to dive right into my own personal experiences with healing from my past if that’s okay with you!

It wasn’t until recently that I discovered just how much the events of my childhood hindered my journey to healing. I’m going to be honest, there are parts of my life that caused trauma that I had no idea about until a couple of months ago when I finally realized that my childhood was not all that I thought it was. Because of this fact there are some things that I won’t be sharing in this post due to them being too real to talk about at this point in time.

So, let’s talk a little bit about mental health. I feel like these posts always circle back to mental illness, but take it as you will. I have struggled with manic depression, self-harm, anxiety, a panic disorder, PTSD, and binge eating for the majority of my life so far and I despise the universe for that sometimes. I’m honestly not sure where to start with this, so let’s dive into anxiety.

I have struggled with severe anxiety since I was in seventh grade, and unfortunately it has only gotten worse with time. This is not to say I haven’t made progress towards healing, instead it is to say it’s been a hard yet slowly rewarding journey. My anxiety centers around being physically sick to my stomach, and makes it difficult to deal with nausea. Whenever I feel anxious about literally anything I get nauseous. It doesn’t seem to matter if it’s a social situation at work, a conversation with friends or family, or simply being too hungry or overly full. Nausea follows me everywhere.

What’s keeping me traveling towards recovering from the awful panic attacks is how far I’ve come from a year ago. Last January I was having between four and five panic attacks a day, no joke. I couldn’t go to target or a Starbucks alone with out getting so anxious and nauseous that I had to lean over a toilet coughing to make sure I wasn’t going to be sick to my stomach. That’s something I find hard to admit to a lot of people, so please be kind. It quickly turned into a panic disorder that I still struggle daily with, but now I work almost full time, regularly go out to coffee shops on my days off, and grocery shop alone. I didn’t realize this growth until my therapist pointed it out the other week. I have grown so much in one year. THAT is what’s keeping me going when I have spells of anxiety day after day.

Let’s talk about the uncomfortable topics of depression and self-harm. I have struggled with forms of depression since seventh grade, and developed manic depression over the past two or three years. I define this as anxious high points and very depressed low points. I hit rock bottom my sophomore year of high school. I was self-harming every day and was very depressed to the point that I and could barely stand up for days at a time. When I think about that year of my life and get some dark thoughts, I remember that this June I am three years clean from self harm. Three years. While that may not seem like a lot, it’s healing to even know that that’s possible for me.

My binge eating I find hard to talk about still, and it’s a daily struggle to eat only when I am hungry. This impacts my health a lot. I am reminded by this by the physical effects due to my back injury from over a year and a half ago that still pains me when I over eat and puts a huge amount of stress on my back due to my lack of core strength. I am very much still on the uphill journey to healing in this regard.

PTSD: another thing that is difficult to talk about in depth. There are parts of my childhood that I didn’t realize were traumatic until recently and am still trying to come to terms with. Growth is still a path to recovery.

Overall, what keeps me going? My family, both blood and chosen. Here’s a gallery of some of those people. Next time we talk I’ll be back with a second part about healing if that’s alright with you : )

Until we meet again,

Stan (they/them/theirs)