Healing is Not Always Linear-- and That’s O.K.

By Tori Martin

It’s easy to want to believe that healing and progress are linear. “Progress” is supposed to mean moving consistently forward, right? Wrong. No matter how much progress you make in your mental health journey, there are going to be many times in your life when you are not going to be okay. We can preach “it’s okay to not be okay” as much as we want, but it’s another thing entirely to actually believe it.

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I suffer from panic and anxiety disorders, and have struggled with depression at two different times in my life. I don’t love to talk about it in detail, but I’m not ashamed of these experiences. I thought it was a part of my life that I had come to terms with and I thought I wholly believed that “it’s okay to not be okay.” That is, until this past summer when I moved to Washington D.C. for a summer internship that I was ecstatic about. I was excited and I thought, ready, for a new adventure. It didn’t cross my mind that the change might have a negative impact on my mental health.

The transition was significantly more difficult than I anticipated. I had created such high expectations for myself that I felt guilty any time I felt sad or anxious. I thought I was letting myself down, and I couldn’t forgive myself for not feeling 100%, 100% of the time. I was generally enjoying myself, and I loved my internship, so why was I feeling inexplicably sad so much of the time?

I spent so much time trying to pinpoint exactly what it was that was causing me to feel the way that I felt. I didn’t acknowledge that the change itself was what I was struggling with. In my mind, there was no viable reason to be feeling the way I was feeling, and the cycle of guilt and anxiety around this carried on and built up. To make matters worse, I told no one about how I was feeling. I am used to my panic and my anxiety, but I was embarrassed of the constant sadness. I didn’t want to try and explain myself, because I was afraid of ruining the image of my summer that I had built up in my head. I wanted so badly to talk about how I was feeling with someone, but talking about it would make it too real- so I didn’t speak of it.

Now, this is something else I thought I had overcome. I have seen multiple therapists since I began high school and have been the #1 proponent of counseling since then. But for some reason, I could not bring myself to talk to anyone about my sadness and my increased panic and anxiety.

In retrospect, I have realized that I was clinging to the idea that my mental health journey had to be linear. Yes, I had struggled in the past, but I had moved past it and I believed that I needed to be consistently “okay” in order to prove this progress. As soon as I felt the familiar overwhelming and inexplicable sadness creeping back, I shut down. I didn’t know how to handle it, and I didn’t know how to admit that I had backslid. I think it’s a lot easier to admit that you have struggled than to admit that you are struggling. It’s easier to tell someone that “…yeah, I’ve struggled with depression before but now-- now I’m great!” than to admit to someone that you aren’t doing well right now.

With this in mind, change, progress, and healing are NOT linear. Your journey with mental health will be a roller coaster, and you may hit a pit just when you thought you had hit a peak. From my experience, we need to do a better job of admitting this, and not feeling guilt or shame because of it. Mental health is an ongoing journey-- there is no “end point” where you will reach endless happiness and fulfillment, but on the bright side, there will always be another peak.

If you’re feeling similarly or struggling in any way, check out the Villanova Counseling Center. It’s a great, on-campus resource located in Room 206 of the Health Services Building across from The Bartley Exchange. You can call (610) 519-4050 to make an appointment (and bonus, it’s free)!