Those Moments…

As the mental health community lower our eyes in grief and say our goodbyes to one of our own, it is difficult to really wrap our heads around what’s happened. Amy Bleuel, who began Project Semicolon in 2016 did not make it through one of those moments. However, her legacy and her story will live on.

Many are angry because she stood for so much. How could she do this? Yet, as each of us know all too intimately, no one knows exactly what someone is going through.

Sometimes even those closest to me wouldn’t know how bad I was struggling if it wasn’t for my service dog SAMPSON. Dogs just don’t lie. When you’re advocating for others you often forget to take care of you. Sometimes you don’t want to ask for help when you’re struggling because you feel like a hypocrite. Sometimes it’s all too much and you can’t slow things down but you push yourself through it without asking for help….

Then you have one of those moments;

One of those moments where the darkness comes close, the light fades, your heart races, you panic, you can’t see a way out;

There is, you just can’t see it in that particular moment;

Living in Recovery is just that, living. I loathe to hear when people say I’m recovered. I’m not. I’m a semi-organized shit show. Then I get told I’m not on meds or I’m not in therapy and “look what you’re doing”. All I can do is laugh and tell them that I’m Living in Recovery. I do have meds, I only take them when I need to. I’m in a therapy break. I’m taking all the different things I worked on with my last witch doctor and applying them in my life. As I get good at that and find other things I need to work on I’ll be looking for another head shrinker. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. It’s not a straight line either, it’s a two year old with a crayon on a wall when no one’s watching. That’s Recovery; and you’ve got to live it.

We say our good byes.

We thank her for her love and her lessons.

We hold that message close.

Then we keep writing our story;