If you had told me at 13 years old that this was what my life was going to look like,  I wouldn’t have believed you. In fact, if you had told me a year and a half ago,  I wouldn’t have believed you.

When you are in such emotional distress that you can’t see past your pain, you can’t imagine a life where anything is different.  Over the last 16 years, I walked a road of depression and struggled with self injury, and i thought about ending my life.

When I couldn’t see a way out of the pain in my head and my heart, I thought my only choice was to end my life. I spent so much time putting on a brave face, and lying to myself and to those around me about the state of my recovery. I was hanging on by a thread, and no one even knew it. I knew how to make people believe that I was doing ok. I knew how to lie my way through the hard questions, because it was easier than facing reality.

Until I couldn’t lie anymore.
New Years Day 2015 right after the stroke of midnight I found myself in all too familiar place. Crying and  bleeding on a bathroom floor while so many around me were celebrating new beginnings. The same place and the same way I began 2014. And I couldn’t do it anymore. Sitting there on the floor on the phone with my best friend, for the first time I made a choice to really get help. To stop playing games with my life and my mental health. To possibly check myself into a hospital to get the treatment I needed. In those moments I didn’t care about work or school or what others would think. I finally saw worth in my life and I saw that I was worth recovery.

I started 2015 with HOPE in my heart that I could and  I would get better.
I started counseling.
I let go of my vices.
and over the last year and a half I let go of toxic relationships.
I chose LIFE.

and I sit here on the eve of a new chapter in my life with tears in my eyes. Because for the first time.. I am OK. I don’t have to lie about recovery because I have been choosing it everyday for the last 595 days.

I am more than OK.  I am healthy. and I am happy. and fight for it every day.
and because I have fought the things that have tried to destroy me, I can help others do the same.

It has not been easy, there have been many things that have happened to me over the last year and a half that have tried to knock me down. Depression hasn’t just magically gone away. But I have the tools to be able to live a life that is worth living, even if it means living with a mental health condition. This life is still worth it to me. I am worth it.

I gave my self the chance to see 595 tomorrows, and it has been the best and greatest journey that I have been in my 29 years on Earth.