I came to A Friend’s House (AFH) a little over two months ago to help me sort through my past pain, current pain, and my long history of chronic depression. My first day at AFH was long and honestly not fun at all.  After I unpacked and went throughout the day it was going “ok” but after chores I thought to myself “and this is what you’re getting yourself into?,” in not the most positive way.  But as you can tell from the two journal entries below things have started to change from the bad to the good.

- Numb

- Holding back the tears

- Trapped and out of place

- Alone and nobody around me understands

- No purpose in life and nothing ahead in the future

- I’m 27 with no job or career that I’m passionate about, a useless degree, not financially stable at all, still depending on my parents as if I were a child, no significant other or no where near even starting my own family…

- It just seems like the odds are against me and maybe I’m fighting a battle that wasn’t meant be to fought

I feel angry at myself for admitting that I do have some hope and am not completely hopeless, while for so long I have been trying to convince myself that there is none, that I’m just a lost cause with no hope.  But today for this first time I challenged this inner belief by responding and confronting this inner dialogue with “no, there is some hope that the way you feel now doesn’t need to be how you feel in the future”. That was scary because like my advocate said it was as though I was letting down a wall that for so long I thought was keeping me strong and safe, and was protecting the hurt and innocent little girl in the corner from further pain and suffering.  I remembered that last week I explained this wall to Sue (our licensed therapist) she stated that I may be providing that protection. But I’m also robbing that scared little girl of the opposite emotions of laugher and joy, and — most importantly of all — the chance to create memories of those little moments that come out of the blue that make you unconsciously laugh on the inside and quietly smile on the outside.

As I mentioned earlier these two journal entries are very different.  The first is filled with darkness and the image of a deep hole with no rope, and the last is filled with images of sparks of hope, even if they might only last a minute then quickly fade away until they reappear. I initially walked through the doors at AFH numb and leery, but within this last month and a half the numbness has turned into a mix of emotions constantly swirling around in my head. Instead of only anger, grievance and loss, I’ve experienced contentedness and, believe it or not, even joy.

I also came with the mind set that nobody was going to persuade me to change my beliefs about myself because when it came down to it, my beliefs were the truth and their beliefs were just lies. The first couple weeks when my advocate would challenge me with these “lies” I automatically dismissed them. I listened, but didn’t hear. Although I still don’t believe these “lies”, I no longer automatically dismiss them. Instead I hear them and consider that maybe they have just a little truth behind them after all. Hopefully within the next year I will be able to embrace them as the whole truth. Welcome to my journey at AFH.