and I have to accept it. I just got out of an appointment with my psychiatrist and we talked about where I can go from here. I have been chronically ill for about 8 years, I'm turning 18 in 3 weeks. I am "diagnosed", as in some illnesses I have been diagnosed with and others I'm too young to officially having them written in my medical files BUT we agreed that we were 99% sure I struggled with that. I have a bad mix of chronic major depression which is what I struggle with the most, social anxiety and inadaptation mostly due to the fact that I've been severely isolated the past years and just think a bit differently than most, anorexia, addictions and BPD which is probably the one I have most troubles accepting, and finally just a unique way of thinking and lesd common interests. I've also experienced severe school mental bullying, family who handled my born-with-weirdness badly, relatives with some degree of mental struggles etc. I've been struggling for a while now, I haven't really gotten out of the house in years, I don't see or talk to my closest friends, I barely have the energy to brush my teeth but I still try to, I've had to drop out of school for a year because my concentration was absolutely gone, I've been in the psych ward too many times to count, multiple attempts that would end up in the ICU, and such. I'm now in a long term hospitalization at a health and study center, a mix between a boarding school and a hospital, because I am incapable to live at home and go to regular school. Writing it all out it doesn't even feel real, it feels like describing a sad movie or greek tragedy. I have a very bad habit of absolutely disconnecting myself from my brain because I don't want to think about it all, it's terrifying at times and so so very sad at other times. But I'm not here to cry, sometimes I do, but I'm not here for that. After discussing all of that with my psychiatrist, and seeing each other for a year (not my first psychiatrist) we came to the conclusion that it was deeply wired in my brain to be just this tad bit different, this tad bit weirder. It's not situational, I could have the best, least stressful life you could imagine and I would still struggle, always. I will never know a time where I'm not having some kind of internal fight with myself, it will always linger in the back of my mind. I've described it as currently being in this incredibly dark tunnel knowing the tunnel can get much brighter, but accepting that I will never get out of the tunnel. I'm not fixable, I'm not curable, but I'm manageable.
I will not lie, as calm as I try to be facing this reality, there is still a lot of sadness that comes with it. I have spent all my life frantically looking for THE solution, the one that will save me, heal me, make me normal. Medication after medication, therapy after therapy, but I never feel like I have dreamt to feel like. I've seen so many people at psych wards just getting better, telling me they don't feel ill anymore, and they just go on to forgetting about their past awful situation. It gets hard knowing this isn't me and never will be. Yet I try to stay hopeful, when I gain more independence, when I learn to cope, when I find the right people, when I do what speaks to me with studies and work, it will better, of course it will be. I won't be this miserable forever, but I won't be okay either. I will probably maintain a low weight all my life, have to be very careful with medication, drinking and other drugs, I'll have despair crisis, I'll still feel weird with new people. But it won't be this bad, as bad as it is now. My last attempt was very few years ago, but I swore to myself I would never do it again, after my mother told me "if you really want to die, i accept it". I'd rather go through this 10 times again than give up. And I swear, at times it felt like the complete, absolute opposite. But there is a person, there is me, behind the struggles and the illnesses. Not ever being "normal" doesn't mean I can't ever do what inspires me, speaks to me. I might, at times, not be able to make the clearest choices, but it doesn't mean I have to completely give up on all my life plans. I still want to be a nurse, I still want to rescue animals, I still want to live with the love of my life, I still want to see my little sister grow, I still want to be here for my little cousin, I still want to listen to music, I still want to play video games, I still want to stargaze. Now the next step is talking to and with people about all this and what it means to me, to them, to us. Family, friends, lovers, etc. Anyway, I don't know what to add. Proofreading myself, I don't feel like I've even said it all or managed to write down how deep this is all to me. This is just to maybe find other people who are chronically struggling as well and might be in the same kind of situation, discuss where they are now, and how life is going accepting the reality one sometimes just doesn't recover completely. I don't want people to be sad for me, but I don't want the whole "it's okay to never be okay" ; because frankly I'd give a whole fucking lot to be okay, but there is only so much I can do. But I also want to accept the reality of how my brain just literally works. Well, this is a little long-winded and might not be interesting at all, but I needed to get this off of my chest somehow and my friends don't want to listen to this speech and I get it. Hope everyone is managing today.