Hey! I'm Ken. I'm a guy in his late 40's who has been fighting severe depression and anxiety for 8+ years.

I have an enemy named stigma who is not nice! My way of sticking it to him is writing my thoughts and experiences with my mental illness striving to smash down the walls he creates.

Kick back and read away. These are my experiences and mine alone. If you agree, awesome. If you disagree, awesome ... just don't fuel the stigma beast! My desire is that sharing these thoughts offers some help to those that are in the fight as well.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Trust, Forgiveness and Leo

Leo was a young man that lived in Noseville. Now Noseville was a village that had people with all kinds of shapes and sizes, from tall to short, skinny to ... um not skinny, big heads to small heads ... hopefully you get the picture. However, they all shared one perfect thing and that was they all had the perfect nose. What made it perfect? Great question. All of their noses looked the exact same. Well, as Leo started to approach making that change from boy to young man his nose slowly became deformed. It looked nothing like it was supposed to and even didn't work right. He was mortified and didn't know how to react. The good news was that Leo was a expert at disguise and created the perfect nose and was able to cover his deformed nose so hardly anyone knew. Only a few friends and his family were aware and even amongst them he still wore his disguise. Rarely would he take it off. One horrible day, Leo received news that a new law was passed in Noseville that anyone wearing a disguise would have to remove it. Leo was sick with worry. A close friend of his that new about Leo's deformed nose came to check on him. Leo was distraught taking of the disguise telling his friend that he couldn't do it. His friend proceeded to tell him that he was aware of the upcoming law. Leo was upset. He asked why his friend didn't let him know or fight for him. His friend got upset and punched him in the nose making it more deformed telling him his nose looked ugly. Leo ran to his family telling them what had happened. He felt comfortable around his family. Days passed and Leo wrote a letter to his friend telling him that he forgave him but he broke his trust and simply couldn't trust him right now. Leo was sad and missed his friend knowing it would take a while for the trust to be earned.

You may be wondering if I have gotten my hands on some bad meds and am writing this talking to pink elephants coming out of the walls. Know that is not the case but perhaps it gives a glimpse of all the crazy stories in my head at times. I share this because I have been thinking A LOT about Trust and Forgiveness. As I have fought the battle of mental illness I have had things said to me that have been pretty ugly and hurtful ... some that were clueless but others that were intentional. Now, I have a pretty thick wall of steel I keep up around me that I rarely take down but I have been burned by some after I have taken it down trusting them. I have watched movies when a person is in a tough situation and they laugh saying "I've got to go to my safe place" and mentally go there. Sure, I kind of chuckled at that. I have learned though that will depression I have to have a safe place. A place that I can breath and relax and not feel in harms way. I have been in situations where my "safe place" was impossible to get to and let me just say my mind doesn't hand it well. My brain will start looking for avenues of escape be it short term or permanent. Yes, I have had ugly things said to me and I do get to a point of forgiving them ... but the trust is gone. It is not like I am holding a grudge, it is me knowing that I can't trust being around them especially being away from my safe place because I have no idea what my brain will do and that scares the crap out of me. I work hard everyday hoping that someday I will be able to take off my disguise and be okay with it.

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