Link – It Gets Better
It gets better. I hate to admit it. Thinking back on it, the reason I hated everyone who told me that was because I didn’t want it to get better. I wanted to let my depression win. My depression was the pilot for a long time. He had control and he flew my plane. Until one day, I can’t tell you exactly what happened or when it all happened because I’m not quite sure. But it was the day I asked if I could try and fly the plane. The answer was yes, but depression knew how self-conscious I was. He knew what to say to make me fail. After that, I didn’t want to fly the plane. I never wanted to fly it again. So I don’t know what possessed me to try again, but I did and I didn’t fail, well not completely. It was that little bit of confidence, that little bit of hope that helped me become the pilot of my own plane. It was me vs. depression over who would take the pilot’s seat. Depression had a huge head start, an unfair advantage because he knew exactly what to say to knock me off my game, and he did, again and again. But he wasn’t prepared when I had a plan B.
It is the little successes that we have that start to build confidence and resilience. The more we can stretch ourselves in small ways, the easier it gets to continue to do that, and eventually stretch ourselves in larger ways.
But you have to try, and fail, before you know you can survive the failure and try again. On the other hand, you’re not alone. Many of us are out here doing exactly that, and we are no different than you.
