You’ll never understand others’ pain until you’re in pain. Every time I read or heard someone say “it’s okay not to be okay”, I never felt right about it. There was a part of me that didn’t think that that was entirely true. That statement always reminded me of my past depression and anxiety that I spent 4 years battling silently. It wasn’t okay that I wasn’t okay. It wasn’t until my mother found a scissor under my pillow that she took action to find me professional help, as much as I refused it. Deep down I knew I needed it but as stubborn as I was, I told myself I could work it out and that it was possible to heal without aid. My mother didn’t know I was struggling  because I didn’t want her to know. I didn’t really want anyone to know because I feared that the people I love would get mad at me or look at me different. I already had issues with my self-esteem and I figured if they knew, they wouldn’t see me as “happy, normal Caroline” anymore. They would see the mess of the person I had become. But who was I kidding? I wasn’t happy. I was embarrassed that I wasn’t happy so I put a bandaid over it to fix it. But you can’t fix a broken soul or mind by yourself, little did I know. Following the discovery of the scissor, my mother found me a therapist. The first day I went in, my mother and I sat down in her office and she explained what was wrong with me to my counselor. I knew that her words were true. I had never heard anyone say how I felt out loud and it hit me like a train. I broke down crying. I hated when people saw me cry, especially people I didn’t really know personally. It felt like my problems were being announced on a loud-speaker to the entire world and I wanted to dig myself into a hole. Now when I think back on it, I realized that this was the pain that was needed to move forward, the pain that I feared. I used to leave her office on occasional visits over the years denying the fact that I was being helped or that I was getting better. However, whether I realized it or not, I was. It wasn’t until I started weening off making appointments and eventually stopping that I realized that I didn’t need her after all. Things in my life became clearer. I stood up for myself and eliminated all remains of negativity in my life. I had this new mentality: the people who didn’t accept me for who I truly was were never meant to be in my life. I gained respect for myself and started taking care of me. One of the things my counselor told me that always stuck with me was that there was a such thing as a good kind of selfish and a bad kind of selfish. I needed to be the good kind by putting myself and my happiness before others. Once I started practicing this in my daily life, I had a revolution. Did going to a counselor heal me completely and solve all of my life problems? No. But it taught me what I needed to know in order to live a happier healthier life- I can only control myself. And that’s exactly what I did. Occasionally I’ll have bouts of time where I think back to my sad days but I don’t feel sorry for myself like I used to. Instead, I think of how far I’ve come and how if it weren’t for my mom, my faith, and the people who love me, I wouldn’t be here. I forget sometimes that the pain I went through was not okay, but it was valid. I’m in such a peaceful place now that I fail to remember that it happened to me. I do get myself down sometimes, but it’s never as often as it used to be, nor is it the same. It’s more of a temporary sadness than what feels like a permanent sadness. I decided to transform my negative energies into positive ones by doing things that make me happy and surrounding myself with people that make me happy. These energies have been put into getting my degree in Psychology in hopes of becoming a counselor to help others that went through what I did or worse. I made the difference in my life, and now it’s my turn to give back.

Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. – 3 John 1:2