Going From Where I Was to Where I Am Today

I'm the dear who once was diagnosed at a very young age
with the cliche of clinical depression.

Then once the depression was done, so was the medication.

I was left with such a happy high that lasted for at least a year
and only resulted in the type of anxiety that for years
wouldn't let me leave my bedroom door for dinner.

So for three years, I was stuck within those dark and dreary dank walls,
but then one day, this horrifying, yet amazing thing happened.

I was paralyzed with the fear of the thoughts that crowded my mind,
I started to realize how my anxiety was becoming so over bearing,
controlling me as if there was no answer.

I turned to God, asked him to speak to me,
but my mind was so full of racing thoughts,
how would I ever be able to hear him?

A simple prayer, then the thought to myself,
"I can't take it anymore! No, I'm done,
I would rather kill myself than live for one
more moment in this messed up mind of mine!"

That was the second I knew I wasn't just being dramatic anymore,
because I couldn't even reason with myself in my own mind.

Then the fear arrived again with heat, sweat, and tears,
and I quickly realized that my life was at stake here.

I felt pressured to accomplish one of my worst fears, and I could never win. 

Because not only was I afraid of giving in to those absurd obsessions, 

I was also afraid to be alive.

I took a two second breather,
breathe in, breathe out,
repeat once.

I tiredly sat down at my desk,
and as quietly as possible,
reminded myself just how I desperately needed this help.
I felt pathetic for a moment,
but I could no longer blindly follow what hadn't been helping me anymore.

I needed to stop letting referrals make my medical decisions,
I needed to take control, and choose for myself,
I needed to do this on my own.

Then I took my medical care into my own two hands,
I told myself I was in control,
and I looked for the best possible care I could find.

Then there it was,
when all the rest had failed me,
the therapist I'd been looking for, for so long.

Even though I was in therapy for all those years,
I benefited more than I ever would
from the previous psychiatrists with their misdiagnosis.

See, she established something that the others couldn't, trust.
Despite the fact that eventually my mind was lost to a lack of sleep and medication.

She taught me to trust again.

After months of convincing me,
it might've been a bit too late,
but I was ready and willing to trust again.

Even though it didn't work out the way I had planned
somehow psychiatry, for once in my life, worked out for me,
my barriers were broken, but thankfully my trust still has yet to be.

After all the fighting it took,
I finally feel myself again.

I'm not only alive, but also living inside,
and I know now more than ever
that it's better late than never.