Please Don't Give Up Hope

I came to this board a year ago to ask what to do with my life. It felt so impossible to solve my problems, and I was desperate for some hope. I’m here to let you know I found it.

A year ago I was working a fully-remote job, in a new city that I, frankly, hated, buried by an avalanche of mental illness that I couldn’t dig myself out of. What’s that lyric from Hamilton? The moment when you’re in so deep, it feels easier to just swim down?

It’s been a year and a lot has changed. The number one thing that changed everything for me was a Dialectical Behavior Therapy Intensive Outpatient Program. It consisted of 9 hours of group therapy per week. It completely rewired my brain and helped me realize for the first time that life didn’t have to be so hard. I moved to a new part of the city that I had once hated, and grew to love it because of its flaws, not in spite of them. I found an in-person job that I hated, but then I found an in-person job that I absolutely love. I finally have friends.

I’m here to say: listen to your doctor and/or therapist, take your medicine, and please, please don’t give up hope.