experience

I'm still going through windows and waves, and the waves still feel unbearable, and like they will never end when I'm going through them. But they do end, and I feel better. Then there's the fear of when I'm going to be dragged back down again. 

Things are changing. I think that this process only goes one way. The waves will diminish and end. The windows will become more pronounced, until my whole life is a window. 

My fear tells me that that is not true. Why would it be true? Why would things get better? 

When we experience acute mental pain, we think things are out of control. Things have gone wrong. 

But I believe pain is redemptive, meaningful, purposeful. Something is happening. We don't perceive it, until one day we wake up and, as bad as things still are, we have this grain of well-being. 

I always want to desperately hold onto it, but that impulse just leads back into the vicious cycle - holding onto your relief, wanting to be in control, fearing the pain. That fear brings on the pain. 

Eventually you realize that you don't have to hold onto the relief. It's solid. The pain is teaching you where true relief lies. You're learning to find relief in strength and goodness and connection rather than withdrawal and isolation and indolence and rumination.