In Search of Who We Are

A lot of us, I think, are afraid to step back into the world. Part of it is the fear of failing. Part of it is self confidence that has sunk so low you cannot picture it climbing back to any place where success feels possible. Some of us dread a relapse, another episode landing on us without warning. Some of us just feel unseen by the people closest to us, who never quite grasp what we're going through. Any of those might be true at once. For me, most of them were, somewhere north of half true.

What scared me most was the idea that I'd fool myself all over again by lying. And I did lie, for a good few months, until my therapist pushed me to admit that I had stopped looking at my own life truthfully. Reality is the thing you have to face if you want to know who you are, and facing it isn't a smooth trip. It stays rough until you begin accepting what's actually happening and who you actually are.

These days I'm happy. I'll say plainly that the happiness cost me something to get. I think that's how it's supposed to work. Figuring out who you are tends to happen in the middle of something hard, like fighting a mental illness. Along the way you run into things you never expected, some of them good and some of them not. You start to make peace with what you've lived through, but only if you're willing to own your own flaws.

In a tangled sort of way, the real version of a person keeps forming through the choices they make about how to live, and through the way they meet the people and the world around them with a mind that stays open and questioning at the same time.