My emotional and mental health has never been as damaged as it was by the events of the last year. And that includes my dad’s death and the time I spent living in my car. Neither of those incidents damaged my spirit, so I was able to dig deep and find the strength to fight through it. That wasn’t the case this time around. My spirit shattered, my strength broke, and I was left in pieces.

The first several months I just survived, and I’m not even really sure how. Then over the last 4 or 5 months, I have slowly started to glue pieces of myself back together. I’ve moved past the paralysis and have slowly (very slowly) started to trust myself again, to find worth in myself again. But I still have a long way to go.

I think the first step for me to truly heal is to start building connections again. I have been extremely isolated for the last 10 months on purpose, because I didn’t know who to trust or even really trust myself to know how to interact with anyone. I haven’t even really connected with anyone at my job, and I’ve been there for 4 months now. I even basically stopped interacting online. So now I need to build up relationships again, build that trust with people, and to trust myself.

Once the trust is back, I think that I will be able to start moving forward on rebuilding my confidence and self-worth. From there, I should be able to keep going and get back into a more healthy mindset so that I can find routines and support to help with my neurodivergence.

The mental game is the worst for me right now, so it is the priority as far as healing goes. But as I heal my mind, I’ll be able to start healing my body too. I’m not suffering from anything major, but I am aging, and have started to feel the effects of mid-life. It would be nice to drop some weight and regain some flexibility, and maybe not ache so much when the weather changes.