Are You Okay?

How are you? How do you feel? Are you okay?

I don’t know how I am. I don’t know how I feel and I am not okay. Not by a landslide.

Those were exactly my thoughts throughout this year, especially when I woke up one day and felt like someone put a heavy iron blanket all over me and made the world only move in slow motion.

Here I am a few months later, and I still have days where I am not okay but I am here to share and I am here to assure you that it is totally okay not to be okay. You don’t owe anyone anything. You will have good days and you will have bad days. You will feel the pain weighing you down and you will be grateful for those who listen on those days you feel like sharing. You will feel better! It just might take time.

I am a fixer, a doer. When you need me, when you put me in charge, shit gets done. I have always been this way, I don’t know how to be anyone else. It is something I have accepted about myself. It’s also detectable in my birth chart if that’s your jam. And even though I take pride in that fact and love to be the one who can tell others “I got this”, it can be incredibly harmful when you sacrifice your own mental health for it. It can be an unimaginably lonely place to be in. And yet, I kept going. I kept doing. I kept fixing. To the point of no return.

Delayed post-traumatic stress disorder is the accurate medical term for it. I think, after everything, I got it coming. It was my own doing. My neglecting myself led to it and was probably the hardest fact to wrap my head around and come to terms with.

A few months ago, I took a trip to Salzburg with my sister. One day, we climbed Dachstein mountain. It was physically challenging, it was mentally hard and the weather wasn’t on our side. But as the photo proof indicates, we did it! I did it! My depressive episode hit soon after and someone pointed out to me to try to tackle it like I conquered that mountain. Some parts were physically challenging to a point, where I wanted to turn around, but I stuck with it. That is a metaphor for life, isn’t it? To stick it out. As unfathomable as it seems, keep going! That’s what I try to remember when nothing seems to help. Keep going!

So Where Are We Going From Here?

After a year like this we cannot afford to be coy and dismissive anymore, we have to talk about the hard truths, the not-so-shiny bits a lot of us deal with every day. And I will gladly be the one to start and put myself out there if it only helps one single person reading this. I see you. You are not alone, I promise.

I want to share more of what I learned, what helped me, and what might help you as well, or not. I want to be more transparent and be myself in my writing and use my blog as a way to share. Let’s call it therapy talk. Grab a cup and join and share!

Yes, there will still be mixtapes and skincare posts – I mean, have we met?! – but we will also talk about mental health, the nitty-gritty, depression, and certain challenges that come with it, and soon there will be my very own column coming your way as well. Until then we keep going and remember that it is okay not to be okay!

Okay?

Okay!!