Your Own Best Friend

Worth Living Ambassador Beca Wilson

“Hi, it’s me again, Beca. I have always been the over-protective momma bear and sometimes I forget to protect myself as much as I do others. I am surrounded by wonderful people every day who make it easy for me to feel loved. I aspire to help, even just one person. I want to help them realize that their story deserves to be shared. You matter to somebody”.

To You,

I promise you, it is okay to not be okay. You are allowed to be a work in progress. You are allowed to cry your eyes out on the bathroom floor at work. You are allowed to tell someone that they can no longer be in your life if they only bring you pain. You are allowed to answer with anything other than “I am just tired”, or “I am good”; you are allowed to answer with the truth. You are allowed to let people in. You are allowed to show them the good, the bad and the ugly; if they decide to leave that is their choice and quite frankly, good riddance to them. You are a beautiful work of art. You are someone the world deserves to love and get to know. The bottom line is, you are allowed to not always be the strong one; you are allowed to not be okay.

All of my love,

Me

Acceptance is one of the hardest things I have had to learn.

I have accepted my Mental Health conditions. I have accepted what is ahead for me for the next couple of years. However, for some reason, I can’t accept that I am allowed to let it bother me.  I haven’t learned to accept that I don’t have to be the strong one who protects everyone all the time, Sometimes, the people I am always protecting need to step up and take their turn at protecting me.

On Halloween of this year I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type II, and Panic Disorder. To be honest, I didn’t know there were two types of Bipolar.

My Psychiatrist was very helpful and explained everything to me pretty well. He told me that treating Bipolar with Anxiety can be very tricky and that it may take some juggling to get the right medications in place. He always seems very optimistic with me and doesn’t ever doubt that I will get through this.

The following days were spent withdrawing from one of my major pills that was for my anxiety the most. It was the main medication that stabilized me.  I was also increasing my intake of one pill and introducing an entirely new one into the rotation!  I had been warned that weaning off would show some symptoms of withdrawal but it would be even worse if I just stopped cold-turkey. To say the first week was rough was an understatement.

I experienced some nausea, some disorientation and major fatigue. I had zero appetite and my head pounded for multiple days on end. I was not a happy Beca and it was just the beginning of my tailspin down.

The second week I mourned. I don’t know for sure what I was mourning. All I ever wanted were answers and some kind of explanation and now I finally got it, and I felt extremely alone. I thought my whole world had caved in.

To give you a very brief background, because I am saving ‘my story’ for another post, I have been fighting for my own mental health and wellbeing for years now. I have been facing this on my own, and now I finally had the right resources and I was getting the answers that I wanted. However, I don’t think I wanted those answers after all.

As I continued my tailspin down, I didn’t realize how much I was falling. I went through each day in the perfect routine. I woke up; I went to work; I came home; I went to bed. I stopped going to the gym. I didn’t want to go out anymore. If I did go out, it was either with Kody and very brief or just a short outing on my own. I limited the number of times I would go out with friends. I was slowly slipping back into my depression and starting to push everyone around me away.

I can’t tell you how many times I have been asked if I am “okay”. I was told countless times that I wasn’t acting like “Beca”, what does a Beca act like anyways? I would hear these questions  and comments but they weren’t quite registering with me. They weren’t quite making it to my brain as a flag that something was, in fact, not right.

I carried on like this for a few more weeks. I was slowly starting to crash. I would wake up each morning and just cry. I didn’t want to wake up anymore. I was so tired. There was nothing going on in my life that was causing me any stress; I was just so tired of being tired. I was tired of living. I no longer found pleasure in anything. There was friction between Kody and me because he was trying to help and understand.  I was still in denial that anything was wrong. I felt overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time.

So, that brings us to this week. I am at work and I am miserable, again, not from the work or being there, but because I am just so tired. My anxiety has risen to levels that it was at around the time I tried to end my life. My mind is not slowing down, I am quite certain that if it had not been for my one pill, I would have been up all night with racing thoughts. My heart felt like it was pounding in every area of my body at once. I was nauseous from all the adrenaline I was getting from one of my other meds. I had the shakes and I thought I was going crazy. It was just chaos. I thought I was losing control of my body.

On Tuesday, I had a breakdown. I ended up in the bathroom at work sobbing because I thought this was the end. I thought this is what my life was. I began to realize that all my feelings of fear and loneliness were feelings I knew all too well. I didn’t want this to be my life. I didn’t want to live this way.

That afternoon I went and saw my Psychiatrist and we talked about how I was feeling and he decided it was best for me to go back onto my anxiety pill, at a lower dose, since it had helped me so much previously. I was relieved, I mean, I hate this med and the side effects it has given me but it worked before. It helped me a lot. All I wanted was to feel better, to feel even just a fraction of how I felt this time last month. I wasn’t looking for a miracle cure. I wasn’t looking for a quick-fix, I just wanted to feel ‘normal’ again.

That day, I was taken off work for the rest of the week. I needed some time to just be. Ever since my suicide attempt over five months ago now, I have just been going headstrong. I have been pushing through. I took some summer holidays but they were just as busy as working. I was reaching the end of my rope and I was too afraid to admit it.

I was too afraid to say, “Hey, I am not okay”.  I was too afraid to admit that the strong girl that so many people had said was an inspiration was actually falling apart. I was scared to be seen as weak. When in all honesty, what is braver than admitting you can’t do it on your own anymore.

We as humans have a tendency to put other people’s needs and wants before our own. We tend to forget that we should be our own #1, that our mental health and wellness is the most important thing. We NEED to take care of ourselves. It isn’t a recommendation, it is a requirement.

The fact that it took me almost a month, and my having a breakdown, to realize that I am not okay, it honestly leaves me feeling sad. I thought I knew myself better.  I thought I was beginning to understand my needs. Unfortunately, I haven’t. Over the last few days, I have been using this time to really just listen to my body.

I’ve been spending my days reading lots. Books about love, books of poetry, self-help books, and books for pleasure. I have been watching shows that interest me and shows that are just stupid. I have been in bed until my body says it is time to get up and I have been cuddling my babies like crazy. I have been doing a lot of self-care and just loving myself.
If I was a person who gave advice, which I am not, I would tell you to learn to really listen to your body. Know what your limits are and embrace them. There is no shame in needing help, in needing to take a break. There is no shame in falling down; it’s the getting back up part that really matters.

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” – Henry David Thoreau

You can follow my personal blog at Diary of a 20 Something Normal Girl