One of the hard truths about having a mental illness is that it can't always be your excuse. Yeah, maybe your mental illness caused you to do or say some not okay things but at the end of the day you're still responsible for your actions and the way you treat other people. I wish you understood the way my brain works, my thought processes, how hard it is, how hard I'm trying. How scary it is to let go of control and to trust that things will still work out and not fall apart. Doesn't matter how I look on the outside, I could seem totally put together but still I feel like I'm on the verge of a breakdown ten times a day. Above all I wish you understood that I have made progress. You can't see it, maybe, but I have. And I'm proud of myself for that even if you're not. I thought that it would get easier. And in some ways it has. I have everything I could possibly need. I've been really really blessed and I know that. I used to say "I want to get better" fully believing it would take a few months, a year at most. But the more I unpack, the more I realize just how long it'll take, that it's a whole, long, painful process that's anything but linear. I mean, the chances of me being in therapy for the rest of my life are pretty much guaranteed and so are the medications. But I've come too far to give up, and I feel like I owe it. To my family, because the therapy and medications aren't cheap. To my siblings, because by some cruel twist of fate I was allowed to live and they weren't. To Will, who refused to give up on me when I'd given up on myself. To Eleanor, who loves me, somehow, impossibly, anyway. And to me, because I deserve that. I really do.
