Reclaiming Myself in 2025 When 2024 Tried To Break Me

Sometimes I feel pain above my right eye, it feels like the days that I went for transcranial magnetic stimulation. Often in the afternoons my eye would twitch randomly, and I’d have this pain that feels like a sore above my eye. There was nothing there to see and there still is nothing there to see but the pain feels the exact same way.  It is not excruciating or so painful you can’t carry on or need Advil. It sometimes feels like a reminder pain, like hey there Michelle, did you know that you did 80 treatments of TMS and finished two books during those 2 months at the beginning of 2024? The pang of pain comes again, hey there Michelle, did you know that after you wrote the books, you hired a book manager to self-publish the first book, edited it for hours and hours, then started a weekly meeting with a New York publicity firm and hired a social media manager, started a blog and a website, and started planning for events.  Book release, book readings, articles on websites, a UK podcast, three radio shows, local tv in Nashville and Boston and speaker at a Mental Health Conference. The pang of pain comes again, like hey there Michelle, did you know that during that you parented 3 children, arranged a mortgage for one to buy a house, went to work 4 days a week, ran a household and helped on the farm, paid the bills, got the presents, planned a space themed birthday party, went on a crazy wild adventure in Belize in a hurricane, turned 49 and had an ischemic colitis attack before hosting Christmas for your husband’s family for 4 days, while he rented a bulldozer and vaccinated cows on boxing day.  Oh, also hey there, you finished a third book, kept writing weekly blogs, monthly newsletters, arranged for the audio book to be completed, started doing TikTok content, and got the second book to the editor. And hey there, you have Harm OCD, Depression, have gone through menopause and add back estrogen, still have some physical issues when you don’t take care correctly, and basically have let out all your secrets of your mental illness to not only all your loved ones, parents, husband, siblings, friends, but also announced it with your book in your hometowns and for the world. 

Does that sound like someone who lacks confidence? Does that sound like someone who is lazy? How about dumb? Weak? Highly sensitive? Only cares about herself? Says and does all the wrong things? Berates herself constantly as if there is a parrot in her head saying, “loser, loser, loser.” 

I would say that those constant reminders of the pang of pain above my eye are to stop me just for a second and think about how far I have come. I know to me it doesn’t feel far enough, I don’t particularly feel like I am excelling at anything. In January 2024, my brain was telling me I wanted to die. My brain couldn’t take the constant pictures of knives pushing into my flesh.  It couldn’t take the thoughts that I had dealt with in a lifetime and keep going on auto pilot. It needed to break down in order to try to build back up. There was no lower to go than thinking about hurting myself or putting a gun down my throat, every thirty seconds. In all honesty I should be proud of myself for still being here and having worked so hard on reducing my Harm OCD symptoms, that is an entire achievement in itself.

What makes it never enough? Where does it stop and when do I say to myself, ok, you have nothing left to prove. I’m a big believer in signs and I love looking for a random bible verse when I am particularly low. The other day my verse was, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  My first thought when I read that, was “oh great now I am going to die, after all that I’ve been through.” The irony of it, not humorous at all. Then I started feeling like it meant something else. What it means to me; is it is time to stop it. Stop wallowing, stop the self-pity, stop the lack of confidence, you finished the race, dumbass, be proud! You set out to bring awareness to the mental health stigma all around you, that even you have yourself, you were driven by that purpose to help others like you.  Those who had shame, guilt, and secrets of how bad things were in their brain but that they couldn’t tell others for fear of the judgement that they were no longer the successful person everyone thought they were.

Whatever happens in the future, I am proud that I took a stand, I don’t have to go to the grave ashamed and having let all the others who come after me with the same illness have the same fate and so on and so on and so on. I tried. I have fought the good fight.

I’m ready, 2025. In 2024 you tried to break me and be dammed if I will let you have the satisfaction. What I have lacked in confidence I will make up for in my stubborn will. I ain’t going down until the sun comes up. Join me and let’s challenge 2025, we did the fight, we did the race, we kept the faith, now it is time to claim ourselves back and be dam proud.

Chat Soon,

Michelle