It may be a New Year, but it’s not necessarily a new you.
Many living with mental illnesses know this to be true. The New Year rolls along and you think that this is the moment when all of your problems will go away. Where the battles you’ve had in your head will come to a halt, and where everything will turn around and simply go away because it’s a New Year - so there has to be a new me.
Maybe not everyone with a mental illness thinks that way, but I sure did. I had spent so much time romanticizing “new chances” and “new days” and the whole concept of a “new me” that I never really thought about the work that goes in to it.
I’ve always been terrible at New Years resolutions. Yet for some reason, I always believed in this strange magic I invented when the clock ticks from 11:59 of December 31st to 12:00 of January 1st. I invested so much in this idea of instant transformation; Of not taking any of the previous year with me into the next, and leaving whoever I was behind and proceeding into a new persona.
I liked to believe that the passage of one minute to the next would cure my mental illnesses. Somehow, in that one minute, I would be free from my diagnoses. Somewhere in that one minute, I could leave everything and start new.
As I write, I think to myself; it’s 2017. I’m still Katy. I still love the color green, the show Bob’s Burgers, and the ocean. I still sleep with a teddy bear. I still have the same scars. I still have generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and OCD.
That doesn’t mean I haven’t transformed.
I’ve been expecting the New Year to cure me of everything. To lift all of my baggage from my shoulders. To make me someone completely new. I still have the same baggage and I still have the same scars, memories, and experiences. I’m still the same me. I’m just slowly becoming the more genuine version.
I’m learning as I go along. I’m fighting and growing as I go along. Why would I ever want to get rid of all that work I’ve done? Why would I ever want to completely erase everything that has made me me?
I’m not me without my hardships. I’m not me without my past.
I’m not saying my mental illnesses define me. Thus, they have molded me into the person I am today. I would be lying if I said that they are completely separate from myself. They don’t identify me, but they’ve contributed to my identity.
The year changed. It went from 2016 to 2017 and I didn’t have a magical Cinderella transformation. In fact, the passing of time in that one minute didn’t do anything extraordinary for me.
Because every minute of every day, I am transforming. At any point, I can choose to change my perspective. At any moment, I can choose to make a change in my life. At any second, I have the power to reflect and grow.
Every second that goes by is new.
I’m not looking for a “new me” anymore. I’m not putting pressure on myself to magically “get better” just because there’s a different year printed on the calendar.
I’m taking things at my own pace. I’m taking my past with me and using it to transform myself not in to a new me, but a more genuine me.
I’ll always be that girl who had panic attacks. I’ll always be that girl who cried in 5th grade over a glue stick.
I’ll always be that girl who had her battles, but I won’t always be the girl who lost them.
With that in mind, Happy New Year. Don’t put pressure on yourself to instantly transform. The New Year can spark motivation in some to make positive changes in their life. However, don’t expect things to automatically change.
And even if you revert back to your old ways, know that at any minute, you can change.
We’re human. We make mistakes. We fix ourselves as we go along.
Stop looking for a “new” you. Start looking for a more truthful you.
