Intense Depression immobilizes me. Intense Anxiety terrorizes me.
I cannot express enough gratitude that mental health medications and talk therapy have nearly erased Depression from my life. Regarding Anxiety, the same treatments have significantly reduced the intensity of Anxiety I experience.
Let me be clear. I do not want to go back to the times when both these afflictions made me a shell of who I currently am.
That being said, I must also acknowledge that a period of acute grapples with Depression and Anxiety in 2015 and the medications my mental health med doctor put me on to treat them changed a part of me. While I appreciate nearly all of those changes, I must admit that I am sad—sometimes angry—with part of who I have become.
In a prior blog, Prone to Hope, I wrote that I understand that major life experiences can change you. For example, if you have kids, you become a parent, and your roles in life get altered. Or, in another example (dealing with health), you get cancer. The experience and the treatments may change your orientation to life and how you live yours.
I write the above paragraph to acknowledge that I know I am not experiencing anything unique when I say that that long period of intense Depression and Anxiety and the ensuing treatments from nearly ten years ago made me become a different version of Michael–in most ways, a better version of Michael. But still, I’m not too fond of part of who I’ve become as a result of the experience and the medications I have to take to be a functioning Michael.
I feel guilty sometimes. Why, nearly a decade later, am I still mourning the loss of a part of who I used to be? The loss is deeply personal, so I will not share it here. But I’m guessing that others who have experienced Depression or Anxiety can identify with what I am writing here.
I wish I could get over it. I wish I could finish the grieving and accept–heck rejoice–who I am now. I don’t like, I feel guilty, that I cling to the part of who I used to be. The old Michael is not coming back. I should be ecstatic that I am no longer immobilized and terrorized. Okay, I am thrilled about that. But I still want the return of the small part of who I once was.
I am repeating myself here. But I think that simply articulates my struggle. I still can’t get myself to accept the loss of who I was.
I should.
Holding on simply reduces the pleasure I should feel in my current life. I should accentuate the positive. There are huge and numerous parts of my identity that I get the fortune of experiencing because I no longer experience Depression, and my Anxiety is significantly reduced.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to comment below if you feel comfortable saying you can identify with what I’ve written. Or leave a question if you have one.
