“Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” -Edgar Allen Poe

Being new to this whole blogging thing, I thought I’d start out with something light. The struggles of mental illness come with valuable lessons. I will share some of them here.

Patience:

You don’t know patience until you’ve waited hour upon hour at your local emergency room while in a mental health crisis. That is patience of a different category altogether.

The patience I want to talk about is managing longer term situations. After being severely ill it can be difficult to get back on track. It is natural to have hopes and expectations when it comes to improving your life. I have had hopes and expectations dashed countless times by mental health setbacks. Patience is carrying on after you fall down after you climb up to the lip of the crevasse. Patience is trusting that things will work out if you stay the course.

Acceptance:

Mental illness came into my life like a hurricane. Everything changed. My world flipped like a snow globe in freefall, twisting and turning before smashing on the concrete. The world that I once knew was gone forever. I have had to learn how to live with myself again.

Mental illness can shatter self esteem, and I have had to learn how to prop myself back up. I have come a long way in terms of acceptance. I have come to understand that I am mentally ill, and I am okay with that. I am learning to embrace my diagnoses and doing my best to live with them. Acceptance is remembering to love yourself, regardless of your struggles.

The Ability to Help Others:

We cannot survive mental illness alone. That has been made stark and clear to me. I would not be here today without all the assistance that has been given to me by others. If I were to try thank everyone who has helped me out, I would never finish the task. I try to do my best and help out other people using my personal experience, as well as the lessons in love that I have learned from all of you. I never want anybody to feel as I have during my low moments, so I do what I can to help other people out.

-Trevor

“A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.” -Tecumseh