2015 marked BTS’ entry into “The Most Beautiful Moment in Life“.

For me, 2015 was the ugliest moment in life. I’m Icarus, I flew too close to the sun and I burned everything to the ground. Not I; but my poor brain.

At the time of my first (and strongest) Episode, I had been flying high. I was working full time at a prestigious hospital with a prestigious career. I was in the midst of getting my doctorate degree. I was fully active and held multiple offices in my church. It was easy to balance these things. Unlike BTS, I had the boost of mania.

But my mania got out of hand and I broke away from reality. I was hospitalized, diagnosed, and cast far into the ocean of confusion and self-sadness. After that episode, the worst moments in my life continued. Everything I had, I let go. It’s been 8 years and I’m still working part-time.

Then I got fat and attended even less obligations. At one point I had aphasia, and began experiencing tics with my mouth. My social awkwardness at work was as at an all-time high, and my confidence dropped as well as my performance. Blah de blah, and I got hit with another disease and insomnia sprinkled all over.

No sleep means pain, fog, underperformance, and sickness.

I factory reset my life, when I hit close to bottom. I did a lot of things and achieved many things throughout this years of being sick.

06/08/23 marked the first concentrated effort I spent into propelling my world.

I am healthy. I am happy. I am wealthy. I am beautiful. I am thriving.

I only now started attending church services, albeit not even being fully present. That’s a far cry to where I used to be before I got sick. Never mind the DNP, both my motivation and my disorder quit for me.

HHYH

But as Namjoon says, good things come out of bad things. So there are beautiful moments that came out of the worst.

1. My mom stopped being verbally abusive.

2. Grad school, although a familiar weight, was still one less stressor when I let it go.

3. It’s the same for my activities in the Church. At the time I couldn’t handle responsibility, not even for myself. So not performing eased my brain.

4. Being part time allowed me to rest, rejuvenate, and really live my life in an easier setting.

So these are the main beautiful things that have blossomed from the mud.

What I have is lifelong. I wish I could say I was BTS and am now successful because I tried to hard. I’m successful in sleeping sometimes, sometimes going to work and church, rarely taking care of myself. That’s reality. And as BTS once said:

I refuse to hide behind my reality

I talked about it last night, and I’ll elaborate now. Things for me fall. I ride a rollercoaster of depression, blessed euthymic seasons, and hasty gas pedal actions.

The difference is that I am now living with my condition. There was an identity crisis, a struggle with the correct cocktail of meds, more germinating, lots of call offs, and all the things that come with depression.

Enough time and experience has passed that I can now say that I’m “living with my condition.”, and that my condition isn’t me. It’s a part of me, but I’m not some sort of caricature society draws.

HHYH. Maybe this is the first album in the next era of my life. I’m in a new chapter!

I am moving onward.

I think for me, I will strive to make every moment beautiful. Or at the very least find a golden lining everywhere I go.