Mar-Apr 2023 Reflection

Hi! I just simply want to make a thread here of my monthly reflection of my recovery journey so far ever since I've started reaching out for help over a month ago. Feel free to comment as you wish.

It's going to be quite a long read, but hopefully it might be well worth it. I've been able to write my reflections in other wellness community sites, so I also want to write it here as a way to let this all out of my system. Thank you.

💙 compassionateOak202

When the first crisis happened just around the beginning of March, I had a terrible mental breakdown. I've actually posted an earlier thread that explains the outcome of it and how I ended up losing a close friend of mine. To start it off, my significant other and my now former best friend (they/them) had witnessed by mental crisis, but I've also said a lot of hurtful things to both of them since I lost control of myself, in addition to crying out a lot of suicidal thoughts. I even almost considered attempting.

After the event, only my significant other reached out. My former best friend on the other hand, didn't say anything at all, but proceeded to cut me off everywhere on social media, including gaming platforms. I haven't found about this until the day after I reached out to Crisis Lifeline the first time. Until today as I write this reflection, I haven't been back on social media ever since.

So about another day after or two, I reached out to Crisis for a second time because I didn't know how to cope with it, and this friendship breakup was eating me alive. So for the rest of that week, I was really depressed and couldn't function normally, because we used to do a lot of things together, and all of those days are gone now. We've met since college while I was studying abroad, and we used to keep in touch ever since I moved back to the US a few years ago. So we've been close friends for a long time now, but that one-time incident may have hurt them. But what they chose to do actually made it worst since my significant other couldn't phone call them for the first few days, but was able to get a response through texting sometimes after, then suddenly got a response stating that they're okay as if nothing happened. He was disappointed by this, and decided not to communicate further with them.

Anyway, during the time of my grief, I avoided a lot of the apps I used to go to, as well as YouTube, where I used to make videos. I also lost my freelance job as a writer several weeks prior to the incident, but I've always been a freelance artist. I had to put a huge stop on that gig as I couldn't seem to get back on my feet. So it was definitely hard because it was huge change in my life that I couldn't seem to accept at that time.

A few days after the 1st crisis event, I decided to join this recovery program the night after I reached out to my 2nd counselor, which focuses on emotional recovery, inspired by AA. So I've been regularly attending every evening online since. It has helped me feel like I'm not alone and I was able to find a safe space where I can let out all my thoughts without feeling judged. Then a week after, I found out they also have an email group where we can share our daily reflections every day, so I also signed up for that one. My 2nd counselor even suggested me 2 other support community sites which I've joined, since I wanted to also meet other people who might be going through similarly as I did.

I didn't come back to 7cups until around the last week of March. I first joined in 2019 because I was in a dark place at that time, and only reached out to 1 listener. I was probably unsatisfied with the discussion we had, so I left the platform for a few years until now.

It was a struggle to find what I could do since I can't afford therapy. After discovering various useful self-care apps and other resources online, including my support group, I wasn't sure if it counted towards to "seeking help". Because I thought seeking help would mean someone already sought professional help.

So what made me come back to 7cups was hoping I'd give it another chance to find someone who could listen to me after what I've been through. I've already opened up to my mother, my sister, and 2 other online friends who we became close. What's weird was that my former best friend blocked and banned one of my online friends even though he wasn't involved in the situation nor aware of it until after I opened up to him. He later then said they aren't worth it anymore.

After a few days of returning back to this website, I was able to find some hope. During the first few days, I was able to join a sharing circle, as well as meeting more people in other group chats who were going through their own problems that I was able to listen to. I think at that time, I was able to feel like I'm not alone anymore. I felt confident to also share my experiences in the forums here, some of which I received support. I was also glad to find a listener who was able to listen through my grief and my problems that I've been going through the past several weeks. So my experience returning here was quite good. I was quite happy about that.

Before the month of March ended, I even decided to restore my faith again with God. I fell out of practice with my faith years back during my very early 20s while I was in college. I grew up as a catholic, by the way, but me and my family aren't as strictly religious as our other relatives.

Anyway, I decided to read the bible again. And then later on in the week, I decided to start up my own prayer journal, where I would not only write my prayers but also write down things that I'm grateful for each day. It became a new beginning for me.

Then April came. I felt like I was already making progress with my recovery. But on the first Tuesday of the month, just about 1 month after I had my first mental crisis, I unfortunately ended up having another one. But this time, it was over a small mistake that I couldn't seem to get over. I won't go into much detail here but I've already made a separate thread about it last week. Although it was much less severe than the first one, I still felt exhausted after being finally dissuaded by both my sister and significant other over the phone after trying to attempt again. The event only lasted around 2 hours until I was able to recover. Thankfully, I was able to spend the rest of the day as usual amidst the emotional exhaustion.

While frequently attending the mindfulness discussions here at 7cups, and attending my support group meetings every evening, a part of me was still grieving, or still hurting over the loss of the friendship I had. I reached out to my significant other over the weekend to talk about it, hopefully for the last time. He then taught me about who was the lesser of 2 evils, because he knew how much the aftermath of my first crisis had impacted on me and on all of 3 of us as friends. Then I remembered a fellow user an another support community I've joined, suggested that my former friend was probably just not good as a healthy support at this time. And I also remember reading a daily reflection about making choices, where to not choose is to choose.

In the end, it was just something I couldn't control, and that I have to accept. So I guess I'm still on that road to get there. I chose to not go after my former friend, because there's no point to it after seeing how they conscientiously unfriended or unfollowed me everywhere, even on several of the games that we used to play together. I might've been blocked too. It left a huge scar on me because it was an event that completely out of nowhere, and they were willing throw away several years of our friendship and said nothing.

I've been hoping and praying to be healed from this. I'm also hoping to seek out online therapy sometime this year. I was able to ask my mother if I could see one, and she was able to agree to it. I'm planning to try one here just for 1 month. However, since we already set plans recently to visit our home country this summer in June, it would be better if I would seek therapy after I come back. So in the meantime, being here in 7cups has been immensely helpful with my recovery so far, along with my support group, other support communities and the people that I'm currently with.

I've also met a new online friend who I volunteered to do a "sort-of peer therapy" with at another platform. I guess it's my first time trying a 1-on-1 thing, although during our first chat together, we are just talking, sharing and listening to each other about what we've been going through. We were getting to know each other as well. I'm going to meet up with her again this week.

Anyway, being able to write this all out has helped me a lot. I'm not always confident in writing after failing a lot of the writing subject in my entire school career, but I do my best to be as clear as possible and take account of everything that has happened around my life until now.

I've been able to admit that what I did was wrong, and knowing that I needed help. I once asked my significant other if I should reach out to apologize to them, after all that has happened. He responded that the only person I needed to apologize to, is myself. If I didn't have the courage to reach out for help last month, I would not be here today. So I'm truly grateful for the help I received so far.

I'm currently learning on self-forgiveness as well as self-acceptance on this journey, since I've had a long history of low self-esteem as well as being hard on myself over many things in life. Hopefully in time, I'll be able to overcome it and learn how to deal with my emotions better. I hope to become myself again.

I guess this is all I have for this thread. I'll see how my recovery goes in another month from now.

If you made it here, thank you so much for reading. 💖