Who am I?

Sunday, January 02, 2011

A new year commences and although I do not yet fully know who I am, I know with certainty who I am not. I am not my depression. Actually “my” would imply that I own it, and I do not. I need to rephrase this and state it again so that my mind can integrate these words into my belief system .I am not depressed!!

I sit here looking at these words waiting for them to be fully absorbed into my consciousness and it seems so surreal. Depression has defined my life and without this who am I? Well I guess for the first time I am free to discover this.

For so long I identified with that label and allowed it to define my existence. I viewed the world through the lens of that depression and it was a hopeless, bleak limited world that I saw. When I looked at myself through that lens I saw nothing. I felt nothing. I was immobilized by it.

In the last few weeks since starting a new medication called Abilify a miracle has taken place. I have been able to recognize the subtle emanations of joy that stir within and despite experiencing moments that are still difficult I am able to see them for what they are and not accept them as part of depression. For when those moments transpire, I hear myself say, “I am anxious, but I am not depressed”.

I have said this to myself so many times in the last few weeks that I believe that I have succeeded in reprogramming my mind to the point where the word or concept “depression” no longer even surfaces. And without it there, it has left an opening , a “space” . Within that space lies the truth of who I am and as I slowly move into that space and venture into the unknown territory of my true being, my nature, I feel myself slowly dying to the past and being born anew.