self-help.

self-help.

noun. the action or process of bettering oneself or overcoming one's problems without the aid of others; especially: the coping with one's personal or emotional problems

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“i didn’t realize it, but the days came along one after another, and then two years were gone, and everything was gone, and i was gone” –f. scott fitzgerald 

life was shit. life still kind of is shit but i’m better at handling it now then i was a few years ago. every day was a fucking battle to even get out of bed. i didn’t talk to people, i didn’t go to school, and i was all around miserable, does this sound familiar? for a lot of people it should sound like MDD, or Major Depressive Disorder. i’ve dealt with this for the last four years along with continuing anxiety from when i was younger. i won’t bore you guys with the details, so let’s start from freshman year of high school. 

i didn’t have too many complaints at the beginning, my grades were good, i had friends, and not too much stress. it all hit me like a rock. i think high school and growing up is a really stressful time period for a lot of 14/15 year olds, i also think mental illnesses are very common in young adults. so all of this fuckery was bound to happen at some point. 

i pushed people away. i told my best friend she was the root of all my problems, i made her believe it too. i gained so much weight from all the sleeping and eating i was doing. i had a mental breakdown in biology and had to be sent home for the day. depression had taken a mental and physical hold on me and i was a disaster.

people really did try to help me, to the best of their abilities, and it was so appreciated, but it didn’t work. therapists didn’t help, some medications didn’t help, and nothing really helped. 

“well what’s so wrong in your life?” “how can you be depressed?” “what could possibly be making you so sad?” i didn’t have an answer then and i don’t have an answer now. i really couldn’t tell you why things were so bad, it was a mixture of everything in my life, including myself. i was toxic. i was gaining weight. i wasn’t pretty. i didn’t have friends. my life was worthless. obviously i don’t believe these things now, but oh god did i at one point in time.

i was so numb, i hurt myself, i binged, i isolated, i wanted to be gone. most days i was gone, my physical self being present but my mind was tucked away in a dark, cold place. i hated myself so much. of course i wasn’t going to try very hard to take care of myself when i didn’t think i deserved it.

but i do deserve it. 

i deserve to cherish myself and take care of my soul. i deserve to thrive and conquer as much as anyone else. i really cannot stress how important self-love is. you can’t make it out of this world if you don’t love yourself and i had to learn that the hard way.

days are still hard. sometimes i still have to convince myself to leave my room. life isn’t a walk in the park and i don’t expect it to be anything less because i am a fucking queen and i can handle it. 

and so are you. 

and you deserve to love yourself. you can’t expect to the fight off the world when you’re still battling yourself. 

“i had to fight like hell and fighting like hell has made me who i am”- unknown

[jessica]