Part 2 - Start/ End

The story is long and complicated, so I'm just going to start from the end. As I mentioned, it's a happy one.

Right now, I'm better than I've been in more than two years. I feel like I have a lightness about me that lasts throughout the day. It follows me even in moments of anger and impatience, and stays by my side despite sleep-deprivation. I'm reminded to breathe deeply when faced with stressful situations, not by reason or intellect, or because the words of my therapist echo in my head (even though, if I'm being honest, sometimes they do), but by this lightness itself, this better feeling.

Even when negative thoughts enter, when anxiety threatens to pull me under, I'm somehow kept afloat by this incredible inner keel, this ability to see and understand the anxiety, and to see and understand myself, all within the larger contexts of life and family and normalcy.

By no means am I trying to represent myself as a completely stoic and serene person. (Pause here for laughter.) I am after all, still me. But I'm a radically improved me, relatively speaking.

It's like having a restored sense of balance, and a renewed sense of self. I'm no longer swallowed up by the anxiety. Bottom line, I feel sane again.

I don't know how it is exactly that I've arrived in this place, except to say that time and work have helped me heal.

Two or so months ago, I never would have believed I'd be able to write those words this soon, and with the work being so non-specific. But I'm here now. And I intend to keep moving forward.

In fact, that's part of the reason I want to tell this story. I'm ready to take this better feeling, my recovery, to the next level.


(To be continued, for sure.)