journey to find love (from within)— part 2: the healing

content warning: mental illness (depression & eating disorder), drug use, suicide & self-harm

By: Bạch Dương

I spent the summer of 2019 recovering by going to a summer camp in Australia. I ran away from all negativity in Vietnam and had a chance to find myself again. The foreign environment somehow allowed me to be myself. Not only did I feel heard, but I also managed to explore my potential and try new hobbies, things I couldn’t do back home. I believed that I was strong enough and ready for a new school year in high school but I was wrong. I would never have the courage to experience the dark time of my 11th grade again.

The days of self-punishment persisted: I had recurring nightmares every night as I pulled my hair and hit my head to the wall, an attempt to stop the pain. I was craving to get a goodnight’s sleep so much that I started taking sleeping pills. I only used the prescribed dose prescribed by the doctor in the beginning.

I gradually overused and then regularly doubled the dose by myself every night to sleep longer. The side effects left me lethargic and wooly all the time. My eating disorder got worse when I was in middle school as I would starve my body for a few days to exhaustion. I chose to escape reality. I didn’t go to school and continued procrastinating, telling myself that I needed and deserved a break.

The truth was I felt even worse. My family and friends tried to help, but I protested by gagging all the food and medicine while ignoring their checking-in messages. Eventually, they all got too tired of me, some even walked out of my life.  Looking back at myself during that time, I want to cry out of self-pity.

I thought it would be impossible to have a normal life and get over all of this. Ironically, the school break from COVID-19 earlier this year gave me a chance to recover. I spent a lot of time at home just looking at the ceiling and reflecting on my life.

Not having to endure school’s work relieved my stress and helped me focus more on myself. The first thing I did was changing my living environment. I think my unstable mood in the past was partly affected by my surroundings, because the apartment was always gloomy with no sense of humanity.

 I decided to spend an entire day cleaning and rearranging my room as a way to refresh and add a little color to the room. I finally found the courage to open the curtains and lighten up the room; I was no longer haunted by the window frame where I had my failed suicide attempt. I got myself in the habit of getting up early, cooking food by myself, eating enough meals, going to the gym to get healthier, learning a new musical instrument, and coming back to hobbies that I have long forgotten. All those minor but remarkable progress, in just a few weeks.  Most importantly, I cut my hair short without any second of hesitation, getting rid of all that burden. It'd been such a long time since I felt like myself again.

To learn how to love oneself is a lengthy and challenging process, but by no means it’s an impossible one. I learned that there are things in life that are inevitable, but a person should still be responsible for herself or himself.

There might be people out there who want to drown us with their words, but they won't be able to if we don't allow it, if we don't accept those negative things.

To be continued…