Accomplished

So I’m trying out this blog thing more, and I’m going to try to write something every day this month. I’m gearing up to submit something for - Canada Writes – for the creative non-fiction portion of the competition, and as a part of that I can’t post what I’m going to submit. So I might not post my writing every day, bit I am going to try and post something.

As a part of overcoming depression, I think it’s important that I start looking back on my life and realize how much I accomplished. Maybe that sounds a bit self serving, but I suppose that’s the point of it. I need to remind myself how far I’ve come, and recognize that what I went through was some pretty hard shit, and celebrate my strengths.

If you’re working through your own depression I urge you to do the same. I think it’s important for all of us. Whether you write some in the comments, make your own blog post, or just write it for yourself. I think it’s important.

So in no particular order, I’m going to list them.

1) I survived my adolescence.
2) I survived the bullies.
3) I survived the abuse from every father figure I’ve ever had.
4) I survived sexual assault.
5) I survived being kicked out of my home.
6) I overcame the broken hearts. Three and counting, but I can’t and won’t let that stop me from connecting again.
7) I dropped out of school when I realized that the environment was toxic, but didn’t allow it to stop me from learning.
8) I survived being homeless.
9) I got to know me, slowly but surely, and I didn’t compromise myself. If I was in a situation I didn’t like, I did whatever I could to get out of it. Granted some of the ways I did this were not always beneficial, but I would allow no one to brow beat into being something I wasn’t.
10) I learn. Everyday I willingly open my mind to knew things, and learned to think rather then just parrot things I’ve heard.
11) I never did crystal, E, cocaine, heroin, Special K, GHB or any other ‘party drug.’
12) I also never thought that never doing any of the party drugs made me better then anyone else.
13) I have made amazing friends, met beautiful people, and let everyone who touched my life teach me something new.
14) I have given people second chances, even when all would say they didn’t deserve them, because I think it’s important to believe that people can change.
15) I am surviving depression.

Maybe to some people these things seem unimportant, maybe not much of an accomplishment. After all, I didn’t list getting a degree, or making accomplishments in a career. But I can’t measure my accomplishments and successes with other people’s standards.

What I have done and what I have gone through in my life, was not easy. I need to stop telling people that it was nothing, that it wasn’t easy or hard, because I have nothing to compare it too. Because it was hard. It was really fucking hard.

So yes, I have accomplished a lot in my 28 years on this Earth, and with everything I’ve gone through I know I can and will do so much more. And I plan to.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
- Albert Einstein