Health anxiety used to be called hypochondria, and it's a highly stigmatized mental health condition. Instead of being taken seriously, health anxiety is often reduced to being "dramatic." I have dealt with health anxiety on and off for the last seven years, and I want to share my experience so others won't have to feel as alone as I have. 

Countless times, people have told me that a person can only start to heal if they are ready to do the work themselves. They can't be forced into improving their lives. Despite hearing this message over and over, part of me really thought I could convince other people to heal and "get better" if I just said and did the right thing. This probably comes from a history of being responsible for co-regulating my parents' emotions. I grew up having to say and do the right thing to maintain my worth, and for a long time, that felt normal.

Recovery from mental illness is a long, complicated path, and even though the whole point of recovery is to help us grow, it still comes with limitations, setbacks, and collateral damage. Sometimes, in the midst of all the negatives, I lose sight of the positives, lose sight of hope. And I can't help but wonder, what if I never recover from mental illness?

I've never really thought that feeling numb was a problem for me. I've always had issues with feeling too much. Even when I'm depressed, I don't usually relate to the emptiness that many others describe. Even my depression is full of emotions, from self-loathing to existential dread. But over the last few years, I have learned to cope with my depression better and better, so when those depressive emotions resurface, I panic and try to shove them away. Which is why, after years of depression and anxiety, I am just now starting to experience numbness.

If you've never heard of the term "time-blindness," you aren't alone. I've been researching and writing about mental health for nearly 10 years, and I only heard the term last year, even though it is a major problem for a lot of people, especially those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Typically on this blog, I talk about how I am recovering from depression and anxiety, but I have strongly identified with the symptoms of ADHD for a few years now, ever since I started reading resources on what ADHD looks like in girls and adults. Once this pandemic is over, I plan on being professionally evaluated to see if I actually have ADHD or if my ADHD symptoms are connected to something else. Regardless of a diagnosis, I definitely experience time-blindness, and it makes life in general difficult, but it can also create big problems for my mental health.

I am a big believer in the idea that writing can help with recovery from mental illness. I am a professional freelance writer now, but even before I made my living by writing, I used writing in a variety of ways to help with my recovery from mental illness. 

I am learning that weight gain in my recovery from depression and anxiety acts as a trigger for those disorders. Last November, I had a baby and I gained a lot of weight while I was pregnant. I knew I wouldn't return to my old size right away, but I assumed it would happen after a few months.

I've been in recovery from mental illness for several years now because recovery is a slow, and often lifelong, process. There are many aspects of recovery that I have a pretty good handle on at this point, like opening up in therapy and sharing my experiences with others to make all of us feel a little less alone, but one part that still throws me for a loop every time is the "random" breakdowns in mental health recovery.

One of the most important things I've learned throughout my recovery is that I'm not just recovering from depression and anxiety; I am recovering from negative core beliefs about myself. Now that I have my depression and anxiety managed through medication and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), it's time to start changing those negative core beliefs and healing from the damage they cause.

Today in mental health recovery, I'm experiencing dissociation. What is dissociation? Well, for me, I feel oddly disconnected from my body, and like I'm floating through a dream in my real life. I am experiencing dissociation now, and rather than waiting until I feel better, I've decided to make a post in the moment to really show you what it's like.