Fighting the Relapse Beast

Part of why it's so difficult for me when people say that I'll get better and I'll be so close to remission again is because I was so close. I was about to rock a college certificate, I had proved to myself that I was ready for university, but it all came crashing down two weeks before I would have finished that achievement. It just makes me think that there's no point to moving forward from this because I'll have another relapse and become completely capable of anything again. And when that's over, I'll have to start all over again.

Life isn't linear, it's not like once you've failed college you can't go back and try, but it does go on despite whatever is happening in your life. I can work so hard and not really get significantly better and time is going to keep on passing. I'm never going to catch up to my age mates in the rat race and that's something I think I'll feel badly about for a long time. They have had so many different experiences while I am having a completely different one that really gets me nowhere in the calculation of success. I haven't completed any level of education past grade 10, I haven't lived away from home, I haven't dated, all because of this damn illness that's going to dog me forever. There is no cure for depression. I can deal, I deal with my anxieties and my OCD, but to be completely honest that's not the life I want. I don't want to deal, I don't want to be afraid that the next week somethings going to conk out and my life is going to grind to a halt again for reasons that I can't really explain. This summer everything stopped because I was exhausted, and that led to a million other things. Next time maybe it'll be the anxiety which will lead to the other things. The uncertainty of not knowing when or if a relapse is going to strike bothers me quite a bit.

My urgency to find something now is because I know with my history it's most likely that I'll have more relapses throughout my life. I've been so close to the edge this time that if I were to get that close again I don't think I would have the strength to fight it, and with that experiences I`ve gathered of the adult mental health system there are strong barriers to seeking help for it. You don't know...even when you've experienced it, once you're healthy and you're part of the world again you always think it's not going to be that bad. Next time you'll be stronger because you have the perspective of having been healthy. It doesn't work like that. Once it's back, you're in it. It's all consuming, overwhelming, there is no thought that doesn't lead back to it. If I don't find something that will work now and in the future, I'll die because that's just how strong my episodes are. I truly don`t know if I can face more jagged edges like that and come back from it. It`s taken a lot to be at a place where I want to come back. Even now I`m extremely hesitant, I can`t see a future for me that I want to live through.