I’m doing good. I’m doing fantastic, actually. I would be willing to say I have been feeling the best I have ever felt these last few weeks. I finally got a new medicine regimen that seems to be working wonders for me. I’m writing more passionately, I’ve just launched a new podcast and taken on speaking engagements. I’m coaching youth sports again and fulfilling my passion for helping kids because I don’t have any of my own.
I’ve been growing as a person and developing into a better version of myself. I learned, with the help of my wife, that you have to find the positives in the negatives. For example, I bought a new car a few weeks ago. I felt great. About five days later, the check engine light comes on. Normally, I would have spiraled and regretted the decision of ever getting a new car. I would have gone through a million scenarios that could have been causing it. This time, though, I thought “At least it happened now rather than after the warranty expires.”
I’ve even been going and doing more. I have spent more time with my friends and family, wanting to get out of the house. I’ve learned that I had missed hanging out with people, partly a toll from the COVID lockdowns, I suppose. I sheltered myself and forgot what real, genuine human interaction was like. Now, I crave it and want to be around people.
All is well, right? Well, not exactly. There’s this lingering thought in the back of my head that tells me, “When is it going to happen again? When will you fall again?” That nagging voice in the back of my head haunts me every day and every night.
I forget about it when I’m doing the things I love and the things I enjoy. I stay so happy now. I’m motivated to do the things I love and spend time with the people who are always by my side. But when I finally get laid down for the night and try to go to sleep, it sneaks back up on me.
It attacks me when my mind is most vulnerable. “It’ll happen again. It’s coming soon. You’re going to fall back in the darkness. Will you make it out this time?” I lay there staring into the darkness of my bedroom or hiding behind the shield of my eyelids.
It’s always there. Sometimes it’s just easier to forget that it’s there. Other times it is louder. I won’t lose, though. Even if I fall back into the darkness, I’ll come back out into the light like I always do.
Stay strong.
We’ve got this.
Tyler Wittkofsky 