Getting Back Up, I: Unanswerable Questions

I’m in a state of recovery. Recovery from 10 years of severe major depression and social anxiety, and a mounting struggle with panic, and 22 years of moderate depression, anxiety and panic before that, all tied to PTSD.

I struggled terribly from ages six to fourteen. I defiantly stalked my teens, managed my twenties fairly well, then stumbled in my thirties and never fully managed to start getting back up. Until this May. I went from being a shut in who did three things and met with two people a week, last year (and those two were professionals), to 4 hours of volunteer work at the bike collective, a cooking class, a dance class, a night out dancing, a support group, and a large group of people I associate with because I want to. I have several things I want to add, and I have no desire to stop.

People ask me—friends, professionals, family—what changed. How did I do it? How did I recover? Which is an odd set of questions because they’re all in the past tense, like I’m over it now. I’m not. I’m recovering. I feel like a powerhouse right now, but this is going to take years. But even if it’s framed in the right tense, that’s such a huge question and it has an even bigger answer and honestly most of the answer I think would cause people to look at me strangely. So, constant long blog posts about it aside, usually all I can do is shrug and reply, “I couldn’t say. I’m not entirely sure.”