Marisa D.
Photography by Jessica Pentel.
If you’re reading this, healing is not a linear process.
Or at least, it hasn’t been for me. Sometimes it feels like healing should be easier. I have been in and out of therapy and switching medications since I was 11 years old. You would think after all this time that things would be better—that I would have made it from point A to point B and stayed there.
As frustrating and seemingly hopeless as it feels sometimes, mental health is not a linear equation. There is no formula that solves all of the compounding variables in one step. And I could write about how that’s actually a beautiful thing and we are lucky to blah blah blah, but I’m not going to lie to you. Mental health is something that will affect me for the rest of my life. On my worst days, that fact feels like the heaviest weight I could carry being set on my shoulders. On most days, however, I carry it with hope and gratitude. Trust me, it has been a long time coming to get to this point.
I grew up in a house filled with the chaos of undiagnosed ADHD and a slew of other mental health issues. I have experienced violence that I’m not ready to write about in this letter. I have faced severe depression and anxiety despite being surrounded by people that meant the world to me in a place that I love. I was 11 the first time I asked my mom why I felt so sad when there was nothing going wrong. I am 21 and I still call my mom to ask her the same question.
Sure, I can write about traumatic moments in my life as though they existed in a synchronous, linear way, but the truth is, I also experienced so many moments of joy and hope throughout every period of pain. I found friendships that have shaped me and reminded me of my worth. I figured out that I love to code, and that I’m good at it too! I can look back on my time at UVA and be proud of what I’ve done. I have figured out pieces of who I am and found confidence in my strength and vulnerability. Even through all of the shit, there were healing moments that got me here.
The most hopeful and honest fact for me in my journey is that all emotions are fleeting. There is no pain so great that we will never feel joy again. There is also no life made up of only happiness. For me, living with PTSD means that there will be some days when I feel it all at once-- shattered memories will come flooding back in broken, cutting pieces only to dissipate again. The hope comes in knowing that it also means that even those hardest days will pass and that every day can still hold something wonderful.
I am not broken for not being done healing. If you’re reading this, just know that you aren’t broken either.
Everyone will laugh loudly, cry happy tears, fall in love, and take daring risks that make us feel alive and completely whole all in a single lifetime. We will do all of this while healing at the same time, again, and again for as long as it takes. We are much more wonderfully complex than a simple linear equation, after all. We deserve to give ourselves grace when we need it, and accept the winding and often unexpected path that healing takes.
So yes, my mental health will affect me for the rest of my life, but that’s okay. It doesn’t make me fragile or weak, and my life is not less fulfilling or magical because of it.
If you’re reading this, I have hope for you and your life too, even when you don’t have it for yourself.
Marisa D., University of Virginia
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