A Reflective Journal Entry on Mental Health

This is a recent journal entry that I wrote. It has content about self injury, suicide, trauma, and mental health issues. If you a struggling with self-injury or thoughts of suicide, please know that you are not alone. Reach out to someone in your life. I can guarantee they would rather help you now than attend your funeral.

The National Mental Health Hotline is 866–903–3787.

What has been the most remarkable personal victory in your life?

I’m still here. When I was 16 or 17, I didn’t really think that I would make it to 30, much less 38. I dealt with so much depression, suicidal thoughts, self-injury… I had so much anger when I was younger and for the longest time, I turned it all inward. I didn’t know how to stop the thoughts in my mind that told me what a worthless piece of shit I was, the cycle of heartache and anxiety, immense self-doubt. I didn’t have the coping skills to break that cycle then, and I turned it all inward. I often gave into the thoughts that I made everyone else’s life worse, that everyone I knew and loved would be better off without me. I had had multiple suicide attempts by the time I was 26. I spent time in hospitals, tried out so many different medications and therapy and felt like I was still failing. And so many of my adult relationships reinforced all that self-hatred.

Even when my son was born, I struggled. I had been recently diagnosed as bipolar and had to go off the medication I had just started when I got pregnant. That…