This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.

I’m feeling much much better.

I’m back to wanting to live and thrive and not hanging on just to survive.

I got an 84 on my final exam and that mixed with the perfect score on my main essay in the class means I think I pulled off an A. Now I get a month off before summer semester starts.

The real game changer was going to officiate roller derby last night.

Leading up to it I was thinking about backing out because my brain was just too foggy and too depressed. But Wonder Woman is head NSO and I really didn’t want to let her (and everyone else, but especially her) down, so I pushed through.

And I’m glad I did.

Everyone there is so supportive there.

Whether they read my posts or not, so many of them tell me they are happy to see me, they say hi, they make me feel included.

I may not put on skates but I feel like I’m an important part of something.

It’s nice to feel included.

I’m proud of myself for how well I got through this particular depressive/suicidal episode. I spent a lot of time in bed, but I also kept moving forward with things that had to be done. I kept cooking, I kept things from becoming too disastrous around the house, I didn’t cancel plans.

I kept doing things that made me feel productive.

Not that it would make me less of a person if I had let more slip, it is an illness after all, and I can only do the best I can do.

But this time I did my best, and my best was pretty damn good.

It was a really dark place, but I was able to see it for what it was, a blip on the radar instead of a permanent place I was stuck in forever. I was able to see my thoughts as thoughts, for the most part. As much as I didn’t want to, I was able to sit with it without fighting against it and making it worse.

That’s really it, I rode it out and didn’t make it worse. I even did things to make it better which is just icing on the cake.

I’m fighting some anxiety today about a party I’m supposed to go to this evening. It’s a skating party and after my last concussion I won’t put on skates again anytime soon. I am anxious that I’ll be the only one sitting out. But I want to go to support my friend who is graduating and to hang out with the friends I do know. It’s important to me to be there.

Plus, anxiety keeps getting in the way of me attending stuff like this and it doesn’t get to have that control today.

Yeah, I’m feeling much much better.