How Do I Stay Positive?

When I look back at the last few months and think about everything I’ve been through, I’m often surprised by my own resilience. What keeps me going? Why do I not give up? And I think to myself, “How in the world do I stay so positive?”

The answer? I don’t.

In our society, there’s a faulty idea that being strong and tough means holding in all emotions except the pleasant ones. We salute the people who go through terrible things and still smile and look on the bright side at the end of it all. We are forever being told that as long as we can be optimistic about life and stay positive, we’ll get through whatever comes our way. Although no one ever says so, to me it often seems like crying and grieving and expressing pain is frowned upon. Everything will be okay. Just be positive!

But sometimes, there really is nothing to be positive about. Do you want to tell me that it was a good thing I became suicidal and anorexic this summer? Would you dare say that there was any benefit to suddenly not being able to walk? Can you explain to me why there was anything nice about being trapped by OCD for six years?

For a long time, I bought into the lie of optimism. I tried to tell myself things were never “that bad.” If I started to get upset, I would quickly squash down any negative feelings I had.

Certainly, there where times when I had to do this to survive. Some circumstances are too traumatic to let yourself feel the pain all at once. But in my case, I often just denied how bad my situation was because I thought doing so was what it meant to be strong. But then, I learned something…

The bravest thing is not pretending the bad things didn’t happen—it’s diving into them headfirst by admitting that something terrible has happened. It’s letting yourself feel the pain. It’s mourning what you’ve lost. It’s coming to terms with the fact that things are not okay anymore. How can you move on unless you acknowledge the tragedy that’s holding you back?

This summer, although I was mostly numb about all the bad things that had happened to me, intellectually, I recognized how traumatic everything was. I made the conscious decision to let myself feel whatever I needed to feel going forward.

Since then, there have been days when I’ve cursed out my circumstances with a tirade of f-bombs (and I’m the kind of person who never swears). There have been days when I’ve wept aloud for several hours. There have been days when I feel nothing at all. I think that letting myself feel these things is what gives me the ability to be positive the rest of the time and to keep going when things aren’t good.

This week, I’ve had a major relapse of depression because I’m tapering off Prednisone and have been fighting a couple viruses.  Every time I try to do my work, as soon as I see my assignment, I get overwhelmed with sadness and start crying for no reason.  I love what I do, but my brain won’t let me do it.  I fear for the next few weeks if this flare doesn’t stop.

There are some positive things right now, though. My OCD is almost non-existent. I haven’t fallen down in close to a week. I’m not ticking much. I’m able to stay awake on only 125mg of Nuvigil again…. But thinking about these good things does nothing to make the debilitating depression go away. Even with all the positive things, living with PANDAS is still awful right now.  Why should I pretend the improvements make this setback less miserable?

I can’t fight against the sadness right now, but feeling it doesn’t mean I’m weak.  No, it means I’m strong enough to admit my pain.  And I’ll keep moving forward as best I can.

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