This past week I had a horrible reminder of my mental illness. It wasn’t so much mental strife this time, but the physical pains from the self-neglect during my battles of depression.
A huge battle (within-the-battle) during a depression episode is really finding the urge to take showers, brush your teeth and other things that deal with daily hygiene. It is awful to think that I found more enthusiasm to go to a local bar, as opposed to basic daily responsibilities.
With my battles, I had to learn to find my underlying issue. If I didn’t step back and take care of the underlying issue, my depression cycle would’ve continued longer than it did. I remember a friend, that I met in phone war game, recommend that I write two letters to my mom; one good letter and one bad letter. After I wrote the letters, it literally broke my heart that the bad letter was longer than the good one. I put a ton of thought into both and really wanted to write more encouraging memories and thanking her. (I won’t touch on the negative things in this forum, because private matters are meant to be private).
It does feel good that I’ve tackled many of my issues, and likely will have to tackle many more (life evolves and has it’s twists and turns). I look forward to tackling them, with the help of my current support and future support.
I would like to help those that are dealing with mental illnesses of their own. I may not be a trained professional, but peer support is definitely important. Which is why I get involved in things like suicide prevention walks to raise money for suicide prevention. I’m also open to people that I meet regarding my mental illness from the start. If that’s red flags for them, I understand. But I also don’t want a future episode to come as a surprise to them as well. They need to know the potential of a future one is real, regardless of how much I’m trying to prevent one from happening. Fair is fair, as well as it’s a matter of respect.
Onto to what provoked such thoughts; my teeth are practically decaying, one-by-one. All last week I had mouth pain, until on Friday the pain was so unbearable that I had to call off work. My jaw was swollen from the toothache. I don’t know if it’s infected or not, but I’ll have to find out soon enough and get to a dentist. Self-care is still important; depression episode or not.
I’m not perfect, nor to I intend to be. I try to be the best person that I can possibly be. I had to learn that I can’t dwell on things that I can’t control; and I have to fix the things that I can control. And in this case, it’s fixing the teeth that I’ve neglected these past six years.
joeweasel 