Today I made a big step in my journey of overcoming my mental illness. I have depression, anxiety, and OCD and within the past few months they’ve taken over my life and crippled me.

Basically my entire life I’ve let people walk all over me, let people’s opinions and feelings about me dictate how I feel about the things I enjoy or the way I feel about myself. 

My mom has made this much harder on me by dragging me down my entire life, and making me feel horrible about my mental illness. Something I’ve noticed, though, is that I think these disorders and my experiences with them have made me less of a pushover. 

I haven’t gotten a haircut in months, mainly because of my disorders keeping me shut in often, and I’ve never had hair this long before. It gets in my eyes and I’m not the biggest fan of how it looks. Anyway, I mentioned that I wasn’t a fan of it but it didn’t look bad, and she immediately tells me I need to get it trimmed.

My mom is a pretty hateful person and hates it when I don’t listen to her, which is ridiculous considering I’m almost 19. I’ve noticed the only way to combat her is to avoid letting her get to me, which has been impossible for me until recently.

But now I don’t care. This is my life, and as far as we know we only get one. I’m not going to live based on someone else’s agenda, or care how people feel about me. Life is too short for that. Today I made progress and I should be proud.