Looking out my dorm window at the flowing Charles and the sun shining on Bostonians who walk through the garden, hope and excitement for the future unravels within me. And I suddenly have an epiphany. The version of myself from the summer— the one with creativity pulsing through her fingertips, the one with an unquenchable thirst for discovering all that is good in the world, the one with joy and gratitude oozing out of her very soul— she’s not dead. She didn’t die in the autumn when she stayed inside. She just got scared because things didn’t go how she was so sure they would. She hid. She retreated into herself. But she didn’t die. No, she’s still very present. She was always present, even when she was hiding.
Written above is an entry in my journal I splat on the page last week when I finally realized that the creative girl inside me didn’t die like I thought she had; she was just resting. Let me explain.
This past summer, I experienced the highest high of my life. I traveled to new places, wrote like I never wrote before, and felt a zest for my existence stronger than I’d ever known. But this highest of highs was soon followed by the lowest of lows. Sometime in the fall, after various life events and disappointments that I won’t get into, I fell down, down, down into a hole of depression. I suddenly existed in a world of brain fog, anhedonia, irritability, anomia, withdrawal, and all the other life-sucking symptoms that come with the dreaded “D” word (I would like to note here that depression symptoms look different for everyone, and what I’m describing is only a small snapshot of what I’ve experienced).
My once colorful world became gray. And the scariest symptom of this depression, to me, was a lack of creativity. It felt like someone took a vacuum to my heart, sucking me dry of any and all inspiration I had to create, to write, or do anything remotely inspired. It was horrifying.
With this lack of creativity and my general state of being, I began to accept that the version of myself, the joyfully creative one that was so prevalent during my summer, was gone. Somewhere in my brain, in between all the fog and self-doubt, I developed the idea that if I were to get better, I would have to start from scratch, and re-create a completely new version of myself. I thought that the version of myself I loved so dearly, was dead.
Eventually, I got better. With the help of new providers, medications, and perspectives, I slowly took the shovel out of my pocket and dug myself out of the very hole I had fallen down. (I.E., I’m back baby!!!)
When I came back to myself, I realized that the other version of me — the happy, inspired, creative, joyful one I used to know so well — was not, in fact, dead. She just got a little spooked, so she hid. And as my days start to get their brightness back, she starts to peek out from that hiding spot to remind me she never really died, but rather, just needed a little rest.
Parts of yourself don’t die when your mental health suffers. They might get scared at times, and seek shelter deep within the crevices of your heart, but they do come back and they are a part of you forever.