This is it. This is the end. During this chaotic and uncertain year of 2022, I have enjoyed sharing my personal horrors with all of you. But the time has come to move on from the traumatic horrors of the past and focus on the coming horrors of the future.
In the new year, I may cut my blog posts back down to once a week – twice a week during special occasions. “My Life as a Horror Story” ends as of today. There are no more old, past writings of true horrors in my backlog of files (none worth sharing anyway). And now that I have settled back into my first year of steady employment since my early pandemic job loss, I have a better grasp on my schedule, my goals, and the delightfully horrific tales I would like to write in 2023.
There is a stereotypical and metaphorical fire under my ass and I will now be able to get back into my publishing groove. I have so much planned for the new year and I can’t wait to share it with you all.
As the final horror story from my past for this blog series, here is a piece I wrote two years ago around my 30th birthday. Here’s to the dark past, and to all the bloody good things to come.
CW: Suicide and Mental Health
I turned 30 on Friday. I honestly wasn’t sure if that was going to happen.
10 years ago, I honestly didn’t think I would make it to 30. My mental health was not good. I was extremely depressed and contemplating suicide. I remember when 2012 came around, and everyone thought the world would end, I found myself wishing for just that. I wanted the world to end so that I wouldn’t have to deal with life anymore.
It wasn’t long after that I decided to bring it up with my doctor. That’s when I received my mental health diagnosis
My mental health struggles seem to define the majority of my 20s. I grew up in what I now realize was a toxic household, and a lot of that was coming to light in my 20s. In fact, I was exactly 20 years old when my parents decided to separate, and later divorce.
It was a chaotic time.
Although I had always had some degree of social anxiety, I became depressed in the wake of my parents’ separation. Both my anxiety and depression only continued to get worse. I even became agoraphobic. And the fact that I wasn’t really able (or willing) to get proper professional help made it worse. The lack of support from my family made it unbearable.
But I’m stubborn.
As much as I wanted to end it all, I wasn’t willing to give up without a fight. I did my best to find a few things that made me want to keep going. It was as simple as getting attached to a show and telling myself I couldn’t make a suicide attempt until I found out how the story would end.
Eventually, that little trick helped me work towards big moments in my life that helped me to work get over some of my biggest mental health issues. I made new friends, got my MA, and started dating the man who would eventually become my husband.
And even though those good things happened to me in my late 20s, I was still struggling with my mental health – just not as badly as before.
When I hit 28, I realized I needed to take a more aggressive approach. The way I had been managing my mental health in previous years just wasn’t going to be an adequate long-term solution. Over the past two years, I’ve started taking medication, read five different self-help books, started meditating, and (most importantly) I started seeing a therapist.
The progress I’ve made over the past few months alone is huge. Right now, I am a lot better off than I was 10 years ago.
I’m so happy with the way my life is going. And although I still have a long way to go, things are looking good. I’m married to a wonderful human, I have 4 beautiful fur babies, I’m making progress with my career goals, and I’m learning not to let my toxic family members control me.
30 is going to be so much better than 20.
