To say the least, these last few months of 2018 have not necessarily treated me kindly. From going through a panic attack for the first time, and suffering many of them since then, to grieving the heart-wrenching loss of my mom, I have definitely been through the wringer recently.
When I sat down to write this article, I had planned on titling it "This Is How I Am Going To Heal Over Winter Break". I had planned on discussing all the things I wanted to do while home for the break in order to rebuild myself and regain my strength emotionally and mentally. I planned on talking about how being home would eliminate most of the factors contributing to my panic attacks, and how I knew I'd come back to school after break feeling new again.
I stopped myself in my tracks because the fact of the matter is that this would have been extremely ignorant of me.
There is no time-frame for mental and emotional healing. There is no set amount of time where you can say "after ____ amount of days I'll be better". That is not how emotions work, and I refuse to feed into the idea that it is.
For me to say that I am going to heal in one month's time while home for the holidays would be ignorant and extremely unrealistic. I can hope that I will somewhat heal during this time, but there is no guarantee that I will be coming back from winter break feeling wholly like myself again, and in fact, it is pretty unlikely that this will be the case. When I say this, I do not mean to be negative, or pessimistic, or a downer. I simply want to put things into perspective and regard them in the most logical way possible, especially during this time of my life where so much has been entirely out of control.
I don't want to enter my time off with the mentality that I need to leave it having healed. If I do this, and tell myself that I need to heal in only those few weeks at home, and then I head back to campus after those weeks feeling pretty much the same way I did at the beginning, I will be extremely discouraged and will probably end up questioning myself and my way of going about rebuilding. This will do nothing but hinder my healing process.
Instead, I need to come to terms with the fact that healing just has no time limit. Absolutely none. And this is something that I think is so, incredibly important for everyone to understand, not just me. I think more often than not, we have some preconceived notion in our minds that after a few weeks' time, or a few months, we will be perfectly fine again, and this simply is not the case. Of course, it may depend on the severity of what you are experiencing, but it also depends on how each individual handles things. All of us are affected by certain situations differently, and all of us deal with stress, anxiety, sadness, and frustration in different ways because our brains and bodies process these things in different ways. There is no overarching time frame during which a person is supposed to heal because to give such a timeframe would discount the fact that every single person and every single situation is different.
Last night I found myself shivering during another 45-minute panic attack, and all I was thinking was that I couldn't wait to be home so I could "heal" and overcome this. Sure, it's possible that I might get a good grip on my anxiety and panic attacks during the time I spend at home, but I don't want to assure myself of this in case I don't make as much progress as I'd like to. I want to keep myself open-minded so that I don't get discouraged should I feel like I haven't improved.
If we aren't allowing ourselves all the time we could possibly need in order to heal, how are we really supposed to heal? The healing process is so, so indeterminate and it is something that doesn't have only one answer and definition, so why should we be trying so hard to make it something it isn't?
No matter what you are experiencing and healing from, give yourself all the time you need. Ignore anyone and anything that tries to suggest otherwise.
Focus on you and your needs, and work towards that goal of being, and feeling, healthier and happier, but at the same time don't push yourself too hard. When it is time for you to heal, you will heal. You cannot rush it, and it won't happen overnight.
This is something I am trying to accept just as much as you might be.
