It could have been easier.

I've lived through a long list of tragedies and one-sentence horror stories, as I'm sure a lot of you can relate. I started trying to attend therapy in 2019, but didn't have a therapist I clicked with until 2020. In 2023, I moved on, satisfied that I had gained enough from therapy to move forward.

I did. For the first year in my life, everything I'm involved in is actually going well. I'm making A's in art school and I'm doing really well at work. I'm being told good things all the time -- I'm a hard worker, dedicated, impressive. I'm well-liked by colleagues and superiors. I finally feel capable.

These were things I knew about myself a long time ago. But, over the years of depression and anxiety, trauma and adversity, boiling over into full-blown PTSD only to later discover all this time I had ADHD and no one ever thought to assess me. Eventually these good things were forgotten and I started believing the lies people were punching into me. "You're making excuses." "You just need to apply yourself." "Try harder."

Now I find myself in a stupor. There are some things in my life that were truly unavoidable and could never be changed without fundamentally changing who I am. However, through all those years, someone -- anyone -- could have seen (should have seen) that I was struggling and helped organize to send me to a therapist or psychiatrist. That could have made such an impact on where I am now.

This leaves me, I suppose, having to recon with and grieve all the things I lost and all the years I spent in despair and suffering, desperate for almost any relief. I don't even know how to approach it. I'm already angry, so I guess I got that part down. 

Everything could have been so much easier. I'm so sorry, younger me. We both deserved better.