It’s All For Her (And You)

I saw a Tiktok recently by @kruegersplust1d where they showed videos of themselves, friends, and family enjoying life. The video was captioned “wishing younger us saw how good it gets”, and that really hit me hard. They also used the song “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish, which always makes me emotional when I hear it in these kinds of videos.

I’ve written a lot about why I started this blog in the first place. I share my story here and in my pieces that have been published on The Mighty because I want others who have been through similar situations know they aren’t alone. I spent a long time thinking that there was something wrong with me, and doing all of this is a way of healing my inner child. Everything I do is for her, all of it.

When I was in high school, I started dealing with what I would later learn was derealization/depersonalization. It was the scariest thing I had ever experienced, and I thought I was going crazy. I was desperate enough that I started Googling around trying to figure out what was going on. I know, you should never Google your symptoms, but like I said, I was desperate. I searched something like “why do I feel like I’m in a dream”, and to my surprise some forums came up with people discussing the umbrella of disassociation (which DP/DR falls under). I was shocked—I wasn’t crazy!

It would be a couple years from that point when I went to therapy for the first time, and even then I still didn’t have the vocabulary to explain what it felt like. I finally brought it up with my current therapist a little over a year ago, and it felt incredible to get it off my chest and talk to someone who could help me understand it more.

I think of my writing as a way of paying it forward as thanks not just the people on that forum, but everyone I have ever seen or heard talk about mental health online. They all helped me build a vocabulary I could use to put my feelings into words, something I have always had a really hard time doing.

I don’t want to sit here and say that I am on the same level as any of the people I’ve learned from—not even close—but I hope I’ve done something that makes you think about your own experience, if nothing else. It means the world to me that you’re here, I can’t thank you enough.

I think about my younger self a lot, and I do my best to be the kind of person I needed when I was in her shoes. I didn’t really have anyone who talked openly about their feelings or knew how to regulate them, so it feels great to be that person now. I really hope my inner child is proud, because I’ve done a lot of work to make her feel safe.

So yeah, all of this is for her, but it’s also for you, reading this. I’m so thankful to be on this journey with you all.

—Abbie