Dear High School Self

Dear high school self,

It’s the beginning of your sophomore year of high school, and you decided to overwhelm yourself with honors, and AP classes. You strived for perfection, but all it did was slowly tear you apart as the year went on. 

You started self harming, and writing letters to someone who’d never read them. Eventually it got too bad. You couldn’t handle it, you wanted to die. You didn’t want to be alive anymore, but you kept going. 

You dropped out of high school to focus on your mental well being, and although once graduation came around for your fellow classmates, and you hated yourself for not sticking though, you were at a really healthy place. 

You got out of your hometown, you got an apartment of your own. You started dating for the first time and you were terrified of it. You fell in love, in spite of everything. Yet in the same year had your heart ripped out of your chest. 

You moved to Seattle and fell in love with the city — which you still adore. You made new friends, lost them. 

You were hospitalized a few times after falling off the deep end, but you made it through, in spite of your suicide attempts. 

High school you would be proud of me. You’d be proud I found a good job, a good man, a good life for myself. You’d be proud I’ve taken the steps to take care of my mental health. You’d be proud of the person I stand to be today. You’ve been through a lot, and you’re going to struggle for awhile, but when you finally meet the right person, things will start to look up. So look forward and keep going, it’ll be worth it in the end.

Dear current me, 

Be proud of your progress. Be proud of how far you’ve come in the last 5 years. Through intense heartbreak, to hospitalizations, to difficult diagnosis, to elated feelings that fade to depressive thoughts. 

You are so strong. Even though you don’t think you are. You’ve overcome so much in your 24 year span of a lifetime that some don’t even experience in 50 years. 

Be proud of your progress! Be proud of who you are. Embrace your flaws, accept your mental illness and continue to work towards healing yourself. 

Don’t let minor setbacks drain you as much as you let them. Don’t give your demons power over you anymore. Take your life, take everything about you with it, and keep on keeping on. That’s all you can do. 

Accept yourself for who you are (because I know you hate yourself for for how your mental illness can control you sometimes). Accept the fact that you are going to struggle for whoever knows how long, but you’re going to get through it. You always do. 

Your life is in your hands, what are you going to do with it?

love always,

Bailey