Love After Abuse by anna raquid

“When I was a little child, it was clear to me that life was not worth living if we did not know how to love. I wish I could testify that I came to this awareness because of the love I felt in my life. But it was love’s absence that let me know how much love mattered.”

For the past year or so, I’ve worked tirelessly to put myself back together piece by piece and articulate what this very specific feeling was. And what it was about the relationship in my life that made this feeling of loss so incredibly painful. Why the pain I was experiencing didn’t quite match the magnitude of the relationship I had lost. Then it finally clicked. It all made sense.

In my 27 years of life, I spent 22 of them surviving any and every kind of domestic abuse. While it’s so easy to say that abuse should never define you, it would be foolish of me to assume that it has not affected the way I interact with people, the way I approach personal relationships, and how I make sense of my world. The relationship I had lost at this time last year wasn’t abusive. It was actually quite the opposite. For the very first time in my life, I opened my heart to the possibility of love. What a monumental moment for someone that spent her entire life deeply terrified of intimate personal relationships. For the first time in my life, I felt safe.

I cannot pinpoint exact moment in my childhood when my abuser realized that I was no longer worthy of love. I guess somewhere in that process, I started to believe him. Love and care quickly turned to hatred and neglect. I didn’t understand. So I spent the next 20 years of my life finding every possible way to survive in this feeling of nullity. In retrospect, I find that impenetrable walls were the only way I’d make it out alive. So for 20+ years, I felt nothing - joy and even sadness and pain felt like foreign concepts to me. It’s so odd for me to look back and realize that for 20+ years, I truly did not feel anything.

But there as one definitive moment in 2015 when I genuinely felt like I had a second shot at life. For the first time in 22 years, I felt hope for a future where I could experience life without shame again. So I took the time to dig deep and unearth the hurts and traumas that ultimately became my inescapable truths. As survivors, we often bury them deep in fear that if our partners were to ever discover them, we would simply would not be worthy of love. That was my biggest fear, to be honest. For someone to see the darkest and most damaged parts of me and believe that I was either ’too much’ or just ’not enough.’

In December of 2019, I fell into one of the deepest depressions I had ever experienced. I lost my job. The uncertainty of not knowing what would come next gave me crippling anxiety. My mother had broken her leg in several places. An opportunity that fell on my lap became one of the most difficult professional experiences I’ve had to deal with as I spent the first few months of a pandemic to going back and forth with the Department of Labor, trying to sort out why it was that I wasn’t getting paid the thousands of dollars I was owed. So I went from a normal, structured life, to being responsible for managing how I would navigate my career moving forward, dealing with depression and anxiety, traveling for work and being home for 3 days a month, and caring for an entire family. I was publicly humiliated in the office in front of my peers. They had no idea what was going on in my life. And my partner at the time was getting increasingly frustrated with my inability to identify actionable items that would just somehow magically fix everything. In the blink of an eye, my entire life fell apart in front of me. And I just couldn’t stop it. On this day a year ago, after having not heard from my then partner for 48 hours, I received a phone call. We were done. And it was ended with the words, ‘It’s just not enough for me.’

What I didn’t anticipate were how those words would stay with me and swirl around in my head for the months to come. My biggest fear became my reality. I opened myself up for the first time in my life, only to be told in the middle of my deepest depression, that I just wasn’t enough.

What I’m sure to him were just a few words spoken hastily as they came to mind, I like to think that it happened that way for a reason. As so quickly did I realize how much I based my identity and self-worth on the love and approval of someone other than myself. While I can say now that I have taken the time to heal the parts of me that needed the most love, I now know that I am worthy of being loved for my whole self. And not just the parts of me that are palatable.

Funny, I once wrote a letter to myself that read, ‘Find comfort, solace, and peace in solitude. You can't buy, achieve or date serenity and peace of mind. It’s an inside job. And it’s not a 9-5. It’s a job that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. You have to face your own fears, answer your own questions, and supply your own love.’ How easy it was for me to forget those things. But such a sobering reminder that progress is not linear.

When I looked back at the relationship I had, I wondered if he loved me. For months afterwards, I asked myself this everyday. But I realized that it was not love, but rather adoration. And as it turns out, adoration is not love. Adoration is a projection onto you of someone else’s need for you to be perfect. And I will forever be a work in progress. And that idealized image and love for my potential was just not for me.

Looking back, the abuse I endured ended when I was 22. But it never really ended. It changed who I was. And it wasn’t until this past year that I truly felt the effects it had on me - the anxiety, guilt, and shame that I felt every single day. How often intimacy gave me a sinking feeling in my gut. Growing up, I always asked myself what it was that I could have done better to perhaps be loved or treated better. 'Did I do enough?’ was a question I had always asked myself. So I’ve spent majority of my life grappling with feelings of inadequacy.

In both instances, I waited for apologies that never came. So instead, I started to write. I found meaning in my experiences, the hows, and the whys in an effort to move forward. I wrote my own apologies. Because what some people forget about forgiveness is that it’s not always about another person. Sometimes it’s about forgiving yourself. And through this process, I learned that the liberation is in the details.

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In August of 2015, I was given a second shot at life. And if there is a promise that I have made, it is to love myself enough and to know that I am always going to be enough. Because sometimes the hardest part about the recovery is convincing yourself that you are worthy of love. Even if it’s the love that you give to yourself.

Open Letter to the Man Who Didn't Know How to Love Me by anna raquid

In 2015, after 22 years, my abuser silently packed his things and moved out of my home while I lived out of a hotel across the street. On January 1st of 2016, I burst into tears because all I could think about was, "I wonder what he had for dinner." It was at this moment, when I was reminded of my abuser & reminded of his humanity. It was at this moment that I began my healing process. I wrote this letter at 2am & let it go. 

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I now know that my self-worth is not dependent on the love I receive from others. 

Dear Dad, 

The past 22 years have been difficult. But I remember telling myself that the most difficult of obstacles that I would ever have to encounter were long gone. When I’d write letters or speeches to help inspire people to continue on when things got difficult, I’d always refer to my early teenage years as ‘rock bottom.’ But I guess rock bottom can always be redefined as we go along. Dad, I remember always being so terrified of relapsing and experiencing the debilitating depression I felt when I was 12 years old. But I found that perhaps 2015 was the year that I’d learn how to face my fears. And although this was the most difficult year I have encountered thus far, I discovered a resilience within myself that I thought I never had.

Dad, if you ever knew me well enough, you’d remember that I was probably your most difficult child. Perhaps that’s because I grew up to be just like the mother of your children - strong-willed, opinionated, and unable to accept mediocrity. And while I think that these were some of the most wonderful things that I’ve developed, I found that perhaps they were also the most difficult to contain. It was this combination of characteristics that kept me grasping ever so tightly onto an unattainable image or idea of what our family should have or could have been. And perhaps that unwavering sense of determination was what ultimately led me to experience disappointment in its cruelest form. 

Dad, if there’s anything that I have learned through all of this, it is that I am beyond capable. Do you remember that time when I was 5 years old and learning to ride a bike? I wanted to take those training wheels off so badly. But you said, “No, San. You’ll hurt yourself.” So I stole your screwdriver and took the training wheels off myself. I fell off my bike and scraped my hands and knees, but I dusted myself off and eventually rode my bike all around the house. Just to prove to you that I did it, even when you said I couldn’t. Do you remember when you told me I wouldn’t be able to get into a good school? And that I wouldn’t be smart or successful enough? You have no idea how many times I wanted to quit just in 2015. But I did it Dad. I’m graduating in the spring. Even when you said I couldn’t. 

Dad, when I was younger, I was so quick to tell myself that I hated you. And I’m ashamed to admit that at times, you made my blood boil. I’d lie awake at night asking myself why I never seemed to be good enough, why I couldn’t be ‘daddy’s girl,’ or why you let me sit by myself and watch all my friends lovingly hold their fathers during a daddy/daughter dance in the 8th grade. I was so young, asking myself, ‘what do they have that I don’t?’ And I found that perhaps that was a question I would not be able to answer until 2015. 

Dad, I finally answered that question when you packed your bags and moved out this year. And I discovered that the question was not about what they had that I didn’t, but rather what I have that they do not. And it’s a deeper and more robust understanding of how not to love my children. Dad, I spent the last 22 years thinking to myself, ‘If I weren’t such a burden...” “If I were smarter...” “If I were prettier…” etc. I kept thinking, “If I…..” hoping that perhaps a change in me would elicit a change in you. But I now realize that this was not at all the case. And it had nothing to do with whether or not I was smart enough, pretty enough, or less burdensome. But all to do with what I believed about myself. Dad, I learned that my self-worth is not dependent on the love I receive from others, but on the love that I give to myself. 

Dad, one of the most difficult but beautiful things that I had to learn how to tell myself throughout this entire process was, ‘I love my dad.’ Because I found that in being able to tell myself that, I was also able to love that part of me that I hated so much for such a long time. 

Dad, if there is anything that I want for you this year, it is for you to learn to love yourself in the way that I have learned to love myself. And I hope that you find that sense of peace that I hope to bring with me into 2016. Because Dad, you deserve it. You deserve all of it. And maybe you didn’t know how to love me, but I wish that you be able to learn how to love yourself. Because Dad, you are worthy of happiness just as much as anybody else is. You are worthy of the happiness that you never seemed to have. And Dad, I hope that you discover the single most important lesson that you taught me….that your self-worth is not dependent on the love you receive from others, but rather the love that you are able to give yourself. 

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If you or a loved one are experiencing domestic violence, please contact the domestic violence hotline at 1 (800) 799 - SAFE. You are not alone. 

Breaking the Cycle & Learning to Love by anna raquid

How do you break the cycle? As a survivor and byproduct of a man that just did not know how to love, my only exposure to relationships were abusive, toxic power struggles. And to be quite honest, I don’t know the first thing about how to build healthy relationships. From my early childhood, I saw the potential for a bright, hopeful future and made a promise to never ever allow myself to get sucked into the vicious cycle of abuse. Only problem was that I didn’t quite know how to. But I knew I needed to start with myself. 

In 2015, right as I was entering into my final year of college, the man that abused me for 22 whole years silently moved out of our home, while I waited quietly at a hotel across the street. I thought that this would be it. Life was going to get better. And it was going to get better as soon as I walked through the door of my newly emptied home. But it wasn’t better. And it wasn’t going to get better. At least not yet. I quickly found myself on my bedroom floor, sobbing & nursing my wounds, looking to make amends with my past, confront my future, and restore hope and dignity to a woman whose ego was beaten for 22 consecutive years. And while my first instinct was to attempt in every possible way to desperately scrub every memory that was seared into my brain, I later discovered that it wasn’t about erasing the memories. I was once told that "we don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of our painful experiences." I was awakened to the idea that adversity breeds the power to oppose it. And there is so much power in choosing to break the vicious cycle of abuse that has been so deeply ingrained within your identity and how you process and interact with the world around you. 

Over the past couple of years, I took the time to dig deep and unearth the hurts and traumas that ultimately became my inescapable truths. As survivors, we bury them so deep in fear that if our partners were to ever discover them, we just simply cannot be loved. So we reject them, bury them, and do our best to escape them. And one of the most difficult parts of learning to love and fearlessly extend that love to others is convincing yourself that you are worthy of it too. Because on some deep level, when we experience bits of intimacy, there’s a sinking feeling in your gut and these incessant thoughts of, ‘I’m not good enough.’ Or ‘I’m just too much.’ So we keep it to ourselves and revert back to the cycle of stifling how we feel - neglecting to care for the parts of us that need the most love. So over the past few years, I had to learn to make room for how I feel and reclaim those neglected parts of my identity to allow myself to be present and show up more fully in all of my relationships.

As I’ve gone through the motions of actively healing the parts of myself that need the most love, I’ve found that one of the most terrifying parts of the process is that the feeling of longing for closeness and fear of closeness can exist in the same space simultaneously. So it becomes a vicious game of internal tug of war where every single day, we have to make the active decision to receive love, make the choice to trust, be vulnerable, and allow our partners into our world. Intimacy is a terrifying thing. So often, we stifle parts of ourselves in order to maintain this illusion of closeness, to bridge the gap, and make it seem as though we are more similar to the person we are trying to connect with. But it’s okay to be distinctly different. So often intimacy is coupled with fear - fear of being seen or being rejected or abandoned. Whether we consciously or unconsciously rewrite our truths to accomodate for others, we rob ourselves of real closeness— of being seen, known, and loved as we are. So we have to make the active decision each and every day to be open and stay open. 

For 20+ years, I often disappointed myself by holding onto expectations and expecting love from someone who didn’t even love himself. So I had to go back to where it all started and get rid of this emotional dependence & feeling of needing someone to behave a certain way in order for me to feel good. I had to learn to stop assigning expectations to people that do not have the capacity to love and stop gravitating towards toxic relationships because they felt familiar, and to some degree, felt safer. But familiarity does nothing for our growth. 

Throughout this entire process, I discovered a heightened sense of self-awareness. Some days, I have no difficulty communicating and working my way through my issues. But some days, it feels like I’m back where I started and I can’t seem to communicate how I’m feeling and why I’m feeling that way. So there’s a feeling of guilt & disgust. You have a heightened sense of self and understanding of how you react to things and how you can adjust your reactions to things. You think to yourself that you ‘know better’ and that we’re ‘past that.’ But now you’re back at square one, in a familiar place of instability and raw reactive emotion. So often you get in your own head. But I’ve learned that there is a huge difference between knowing better and thinking and relating differently to the world around you and actually doing it. Some days you’ll feel terrible, you’ll lash out, you won’t communicate, and you’ll push people away. So many of our coping mechanisms and reactions to things exist because we needed them to maintain our safety or dignity. Sometimes we needed them in order to survive. And it’s so easy to carry them into other aspects of your life. But your partner is not responsible for your mood or for your healing. So often, this process of growth begins with letting go and forgiving yourself for being callous, reactive, combative, or whoever you needed to be at a certain time, in a certain place. 


If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past year or so, it is to know that I am enough, and to love myself enough. If you’re in the process of healing and learning to fearlessly extend your love to others, hold yourself with compassion - it’s a process that takes practice. You do not need to change yourself in order to be loved. Because learning to love starts with learning to love yourself.

The Mechanism of Depression by anna raquid


It's easy to give the "it gets better" speech. It's easy to look at someone that is suffering & utter those words simply because it's, what I believe, the easy way out. Because no one cares to explain to those who are suffering that the road to recovery is equal parts dim, bright, and hopeful. What no one cares to explain to those suffering from depression is that it consists of a series of recoveries and relapses. While I have experienced depression, I nonetheless recovered, relapsed, recovered, and relapsed... However, it was during this tumultuous portion of my life that I began to ask myself the question, "Am I going to feel this way forever? Is it a matter of chemical imbalances or is it a psychological matter? And if it is a matter of chemical imbalances, would I have to be placed on medication forever? But if not, would it require a philosophical cure? And if it does, how would I go about obtaining this change in perspective?" But through this process, I discovered that this internal tug-o-war between causes did not help the slightest bit. It only seemed to further complicate the issue at hand that was deeply embedded within my own personal identity. Depression becomes a part of who you are. And while we are able to find a means of recovering, it no longer becomes an illness to you. It becomes a part of your thought process, your intellectual ability to interpret and process information. It reorganizes your priorities. And for those who are recovering, it propels you to cling ever so tightly to the things that bring you even the slightest bit of joy. People often came to me and said, "just stick it out for a while. I think you can get through this." To which I respond, after experiencing periods of great turbulence, you start to believe and understand that to a certain extent, life is finite. There is a beginning and an end to human life. And once you begin to grasp that concept, you don't want to waste your time on depression, nullity, or mediocrity. It's a strange poverty of the english language, and many other languages that we use the word depression to describe how we feel when we're having a terrible day as well as the experience of the feeling of infinite internal nullity. And we then expect the word to hold its weight when expressing our concerns of great gravity. People then ask, "Isn't depression continuous with sadness?" And to a certain extent, there is a level of continuity. But there is a difference between feeling sad because you didn't have a fantastic day and waking up with that sadness as your default. And that sadness ultimately becomes a part of your reality. 

And upon discovering the discrepancies between sadness and depression, I stumbled upon the topic of resilience. We have all of these fantastic medical explanations for mental illness, some of which consist of chemical imbalances.... But there has yet to be an explanation for human resilience. And ultimately, I came to the conclusion that those who refuse to openly speak about or confront their issue of depression... those who refuse to look back and examine the root of their depression... are the ones that are more easily made slaves to their mental state. And those people who are able to confront the issue of their depression... those who are able to tolerate the notion of their depression... are the ones that ultimately achieve the coveted resilience. 

And when I discovered this, I also stumbled upon the idea that depression becomes an asset. Depression provides you with empathy and a certain level of understanding... a certain level of humanity. And once you begin to understand and come to terms with this, you become more generous, more empathetic. As you learn to give to others the things that you need, the things that you have actively searched for, & the things that you have yearned for. And it was through this realization that I discovered that perhaps depression serves a purpose within the world such that it provides us with a sense of empathy and generosity and forces one to ever so tightly grasp onto the things that bring us joy. And that, I think, is the greatest mechanism of depression.  #MentalHealthAwareness

Remembering My Why by anna raquid

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It’s #WorldSuicidePreventionDay. In 2005, at 11 years old, I survived an attempted suicide… after spending my entire life in a home littered with domestic violence of almost every kind. 

In 2014, I decided to turn my instagram into a page dedicated to spreading awareness about mental health. I didn’t think anything of it. I just thought that I would take the opportunity to impart some wisdom, provide some insight, and maybe share with someone the words I wanted to hear when I was younger. 

One day, I was scrolling on instagram and I received a DM from a stranger. She had just tried to jump out of a moving vehicle with her children in the car. A police officer pulled her over for speeding. Her unsuccessful attempt at jumping out led her to come home and try to overdose on some pills. She opened up her phone, scrolled on her instagram and found me on the discover page. It was an image of me holding up a sign with resources listed down below. It was this image.

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She immediately messaged me. I’ll let her tell the rest of the story. 

She messaged me in 2014. This year, for the very first time, she stepped in front of an audience and told her story.

I found her again recently. She disappeared for a couple of years. I got his message this year. I cried. Like, ugly cried.

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Whenever people ask me why I talk about my experience so much, I remember why I started it all. In 2006, after surviving my own attempted suicide, I thought, I needed to go to school and learn to help people just like me. I think there was a bit of me what wanted some peace of mind.. and a bit of me that wanted to save the world. But I later found that the weight of someone else’s life was far too heavy for me to carry. But I decided I’d try another way. And I found that way was through sharing my experience. 

Every time I post, I remember this woman, her children, and the future of the people who sometimes feel hopeless. 

If you or a loved one are experiencing domestic violence, please contact the domestic violence hotline at 1 (800) 799 - SAFE.

If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide, please call the suicide prevention lifeline at 1 (800) - 273 - TALK

A Second Shot at Life: Breaking the Cycle of Domestic Violence by anna raquid

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22 years. I gave him 22 years. 

When people ask me about the hardest part of recovering from 22 consecutive years of any and every kind of domestic violence, I tell them, that it’s not the slap to the face or getting dragged down the hallway. It’s convincing yourself that you are worthy of love. Even if it’s the love that you give to yourself. 

In 2005, at 11 years old, I laid in bed with a letter in hand, ready to take the life that I had no real understanding of. 11 years old. I had it all planned out. From the letter, to the outfit I was going to wear. Some people will tell you that suicide is selfish and that life is always far better than death. But for some of us, death seems far better than life.  But I survived the attempted suicide. I wasn’t supposed to be here. But I guess I still had some things to do. 

In 2015, right as I was entering into my final year of college, the man that abused me for 22 whole years silently moved out of our home, while I waited quietly at a hotel across the street. I thought that this would be it. Life was going to get better. And it was going to get better as soon as I walked through the door of my newly emptied home. But it wasn’t better. And it wasn’t going to get better. At least not yet. I quickly found myself on my bedroom floor, sobbing & nursing my wounds, looking to make amends with my past, confront my future, and restore hope and dignity to a woman whose ego was beaten for 22 consecutive years. And while my first instinct was to attempt in every possible way to desperately scrub every memory that was seared into my brain… the countless nights when I spent hours hiding on the floor of a parked car in our garage, or those days when I’d barricade my bedroom door, shaking from fear. The memory of a six year old Anna, holding her baby brother while a solid wooden ottoman was hurled in my direction. And those nights when I would cry on the bathroom floor because I felt something real and thinking and fearing that a man that I care about would look me in the eyes, and see beyond what, from all outward appearances, was a woman who seemed to have it all together… But I later discovered that it wasn’t about erasing the memories. I was once told that "we don't seek the painful experiences that hew our identities, but we seek our identities in the wake of our painful experiences." I was awakened to the idea that adversity breeds the power to oppose it, and this ultimately brought me to think that it was this that forged my own personal identity. It took the adversity, understanding the adversity, and applying it to the way by which it has affected my internal dialogue that I began to understand the mechanism of trials. It took understanding for me to eliminate the sadness, anger, and negative emotions I was experiencing as a byproduct of my experiences. And it was this that ultimately expanded my ideas and brought me to have a deeper and more robust understanding of the human condition.  

For 25 years, I found myself desperately trying to put myself back together, piece by piece, reminding myself that it is a process with a trajectory, but no real end. As I find that there is never an end, or a completion to a journey of achieving happiness or fulfillment. For 25 years, I wasted so much time begging. Begging my mother to leave. Begging for even a semblance of what love looked or felt like. I grew tired of living my life like I was begging, waiting for an expectation to come to fruition, and anticipating this revolutionary thought or wisdom that would occur as byproduct of adversity. So I stopped begging. We’re always told that life is short. But it is not that life is short, but rather that we waste so much of it. And so often do I find that my biggest fear is wasting my time and starting to live my life, just as it is about to end. 

If there is a piece of advice that I can offer to a young woman, it is to find comfort, solace, and peace in solitude. You can't buy, achieve or date serenity and peace of mind. It’s an inside job. And it’s not a 9-5. It’s a job that runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. You have to face your own fears, answer your own questions, and supply your own love. From the moment I opened my eyes, my only understanding and exposure to companionship were toxic power struggles and justification processes. The thought that, ‘he says that he loves me… but his actions prove otherwise.’ I looked at every shitty situation, every toxic person I brought into my life. I justified shit behavior because my default thought was, ‘surely, this isn’t what he really means.’ And I allowed myself to be pulled into a vicious cycle of forgiving transgressions.. failing to understand that forgiveness isn’t always about forgiving another person. Sometimes, it’s about forgiving yourself. Because I believed it. Every hurtful word, every action, and every misstep. I believed it. Every single time. 

Children of domestic violence are three times more likely to repeat the cycle of abuse. And growing up in an abusive household is the most significant predictor of whether or not someone will be engaged in domestic violence later in his or her life. After 3 generations and 25 years, I said no more. With black eyes and broken bodies, 3 generations of battered women and children turned our experiences into personal narratives of strength, courage, wisdom, and triumph.

In August of 2015, I was given a second shot at life. And if there is a promise that I have made, it is to love myself enough and to know that I am always going to be enough. Because sometimes the hardest part about the recovery is convincing yourself that you are worthy of love. Even if it’s the love that you give to yourself. 

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If you or a loved one are survivors of domestic violence, realize that you are not a statistic. You are worth the recovery. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO PHYSICAL, SEXUAL, VERBAL, AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE. 

24 HR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: (800) 978-3600
DVCOUNCIL.LACOUNTY.ORG
CDPH.CA.ORG
THEHOTLINE.ORG

 

Fighting The Stigma of High Functioning Depression by anna raquid

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22. full time student enrolled in 16 units with a 3.83 GPA, intern, working 3 jobs. 

That was who I was in 2016, just before my college graduation, when I stepped into a therapist’s office, looking for the help that I so desperately needed. My therapist then displayed a look of concern on his face, as if what I had said was something odd, or even something bad. And then he said it. He said, “You’re the most dangerous kind. You’re the kind of patient that often times scares me.” 

Now I was confused, as if anything, I thought that it was a good thing that I was able to function so effectively considering that I have spent majority of those 22 years battling depression and PTSD. Shouldn’t it be a good thing that I am able to function properly throughout the day? 

Then I began to think about all the times when I was told that I seemed to “have it all together.” Or even that time when my professor beamed at me and said, “Anna Melissa, you’re killing it. I wish college students would take advantage of their education in the way that you have. Example of a wonderful college student.” But what he didn’t know was that I had the most difficult time of my life the night before. Or that I spent the last four years recovering and rehabilitating myself from an attempted suicide. But to him, I was the perfect student. I had it all together. There was nothing that triggered even the slightest feeling of concern. I wasn't the student he would think about asking if I was okay. With tears welling in my eyes, my professor’s face dropped as though he would have never expected that kind of reaction. I told my story of triumph over my experience with domestic violence, depression, and PTSD. I was immediately met with the words, “I would have never known.” 

But that’s exactly the point. Tons of people would have never known. As much as we’d like to say that depression and mental health does not discriminate, we have created a generic mental illness stock image in our heads that many people don’t quite seem to match. We see depression and anxiety in young troubled teens that struggle to finish school. We see grades drop, and we see maladjustment. We see depression in alcoholics, substance abusers, as well as those who are unable to get themselves out of bed. But we do not see depression in the hyperactive athlete, the student government representative with a 4.0 GPA and numerous extra curricular activities. We do not see depression in the mother that wakes up every morning to take her children to school, cook dinner, help with homework, and then go back to bed to do it all over again the next day. We do not see depression in our work supervisors or those in leadership positions that perform their tasks to the best of their abilities only to go home to be awakened by the reality of high functioning depression. We see these people and we let them slip through the cracks. No matter how many times we are reminded that mental illness doesn’t discriminate, we revert back to a narrow-minded idea of how it should manifest, how these people typically behave, and that is the most terrifying and dangerous notion. Recognizing that danger is what helped me come to terms with myself. 

In 2006, when I first heard the words ‘mental health’ associated with the way that I felt and behaved, I had no idea what to expect. I was terrified, as my generic mental illness stock image told me that I was different or crazy, and perhaps that I would see my abilities as a student slowly decline. I was in denial. I thought that my diagnosis was wrong. 

But if I kept allowing my perception of what mental illness looks like to dictate whether or not I would recognize myself as the person that needed help, I would not be here today. Because although I may not be able to check off every symptom on the list for those with debilitating depression, I was still heavily and negatively affected by my mental health and needed to seek that help.

But if you ask me today, I would say that I am eternally grateful for the life that I once would have done everything in my power to change. Because my experience with domestic violence, depression, and PTSD haven’t disabled me. If anything, they have enabled me. They’ve forced me to rely on my abilities and to believe in the possibilities. Because it was in this that I was able to successfully live my life beyond the limitations that depression often places on its victims. In December of 2015, I wasn’t even sure that I would be able to finish college. I wasn’t sure if I still had it in me to fulfill the dream of walking across a stage with a cap on my head and a diploma in my hand. But in May of 2016, I didn’t just dream about it. I felt it. I felt the wind on my face and the hope in my heart, for a future that was not promised, but was diligently and tirelessly worked for. 

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If you or a loved one are survivors of domestic violence, realize that you are not a statistic. You are worth the recovery. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INCLUDES BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO PHYSICAL, SEXUAL, VERBAL, AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE. 

24 HR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: (800) 978-3600
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