Breathing Hope!

Tonight I write to you wrapped in a blanket, with a cup of tea in my hand.   I am slightly messy and unsure of my next steps in my journey of healing, but I can always find comfort in a cup of tea and my LVC throw blanket hugging me. The last week or so has been a difficult time for me.   The uncomfortable and unsettled feeling of where I am currently at emotionally has torn me down a little bit. I have been faced with a lot of anxiety this past week. Anxiety that I thought I had faced head on and worked through but I am finding out that while I have worked through it before that doesn’t mean it will never return. This week I have been faced with flashbacks from some unpleasant events in my life that have contributed to the many struggled I have and continue to face.   I know some day these horrible memories will fade and be a small piece of the bigger story but now they still feel very large and very real. While this is a difficult thing to face I know that with Go...

          Last week I took time away from the blog and sharing to reflect and self evaluate. I spent that week continuing to work on overcoming the many struggles that facing depression and anxiety disorders comes with but something was different about it. Through the struggles and roller coaster of emotions I found myself able to regulate and find inner piece amongst all of the crazy. I was able to find ways, through the many strategies and coping skills I have learned over the years to keep myself going and to overcome the feelings of anxiety before they struck and took me full force into a place that I feel helpless in.        As I began to notice that I was able to handle these feelings I was reflecting on what had changed and after some thought I knew exactly what it was, something I have been working for the past two years, Acceptance. Acceptance of my story, the events that have happened in my life, and most importantly acceptance o...

                         Okay here we go.....  I  really have no idea where to begin or what to say to all of my readers this week besides this: I am overwhelmed!! Extremely overwhelmed. It is a good and positive overwhelmed but there is definitely a feeling of not sure where all of this is going right now. I never expected the response that I got after my post about my story with depression and anxiety last week. I expected the general 50 or 60 people to read it and not much to come of it…. Boy was I wrong!! Over 200 people have read the post and I have gotten responses from a great many of those people. I was sitting at work the day I posted it and left work later then usual. When I looked at my phone it had blown up with notifications. I had text messages, missed calls, voicemails, Facebook responses, emails, you name it there was at least one notification from each social media account on my ph...

I want to thank everyone for their love and support after my last post. Over the last 24 hours I have received many text messages, Facebook messages, phone calls, emails,  and such. I have not been able to answer everyone but I want to let each and everyone of you know I appreciate all of the love  and I am thankful for those of you have shared your own stories with me. I am so blessed to have such encouraging people in my life. As my journey continues I do not know where it will lead but I do know I have a large amount of encouragement and support behind me. Thank you.

                        This weekend for the first time I was open to a large group of people about who I am, what has made me me, and the journey I have been on and continue to take one day at a time. It was a small piece of the story, a small glimpse into my life. I have decided it is time. It is time to share my story and be proud of what has happened in my life to make me the person I am today. It is time for me to be open to people about the struggles I have faced and continue to face. If my story can help one person to see the light at the end of a sometimes never ending dark tunnel it was worth sharing with the world. My first public sharing of my story was a blubbery crying mess but I did it and it has given me the courage to share with the world who I am with no shame at all. This is who I am. This is a piece of my story.            5 years ago I began a spiral into a deep and at the...