Billy's Yo-Yo Recovery Part 1

Billy's Yo-Yo Recovery

Part 1

 This yo-yo recovery as I call it, is extremely draining emotionally. Right now I am so mentally exhausted i can't even cry. Last week I had the best week of peace since before my Dad died three years ago. I miss him so much still. The first year after he died I was in such a dark fog, I remember very little from this time at all. This period is mostly just a blur from my mind being in complete shock. His passing was completely unexpected. On the outside he looked to be in perfect health which i guess is what confused me the most. I expected him to live another 25 years like my grandparents. About a year after my Dad's journey to heaven, I started experiencing severe anxiety and panic attacks. The fear of dying myself and having to confront my own mortality was just too much to handle.

 I have struggled and battled continuously over the past three years to get my life back. I have been slowly getting better. Last week I focused on letting go of the guilt that I had been carrying for so long. The guilt was coming from the helplessness i felt the day my dad died in front of me. I wanted to save him and help him the way he had done for me his whole life. To watch him die slowly over the 10-15 minutes and not be able to do anything was horrifying. Last week i spent one whole day just telling myself over and over again that I was not guilty or to blame for his death repeating over and over again "I Forgive Myself." I felt much lighter afterwards and it seemed to balance my mind and body again. 

 Somewhere this week, depression and sadness crept back in? I started thinking back to my childhood days and how I wanted to really become a somebody, to really show the world that I was special. I wanted revenge for the feeling of not being accepted into the inner circles. When I look at my life now, I feel so disappointed in myself thinking that I haven't done anything of any significance at all. I am staring in the mirror at the one thing I said I would never become and that's a nobody. It seems as though my recovery is just a cycle of feeling better, then feeling worse, and then feeling better again. During the times I'm feeling good I am scared to let go of it, I really loathe going through those dark days. I keep asking myself "How did i get like this?" I so want to be over this already! 

 I never understood what it meant before to be in a state of depression. I just thought those depressed people need to start thinking positive. Thinking positive has been an effective weapon at times, but there are certain underlying issues that have to be dealt with still, which was a lesson in itself. These three years have crawled by in one sense, but in another sense they have flown by. I know that I have learned so much from going through my Dad's passing, it has made me much more appreciative of life. Through these kinds of trials I know God teaches us so much, but the pain is almost unbearable at times. I have made tremendous progress when I take the time to sit down and really examine it, but I fiend to have my carefree life back again.

With every one of my journal entries I vow to always end on a Positive note. 
My mother has been here the whole time for me, helping me work through the pain and anxiety and I am extremely indebted to her for that. She tells me on the days that are really difficult that I must keep going, I have to get off the mat and fight back. One of her favorite lines of wisdom she tells me is
"Fake it till you make it." Often we must trick our mind out of depression. 
If we pretend to feel good and happy eventually we will be. 
I hold on to my faith each day that my return to  normality is near.