Feeling Lost
Trigger warning: thoughts of depression and suicide
A letter from our founder:
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I’ve been feeling so lost in life for the longest time. I feel like I’m in a waiting period and don’t even know what I’m waiting for. I’m lacking direction and starting to get to a point of hopelessness. I don’t feel like myself and I don’t know who I am anymore.
The only thing getting me through each day is taking them one at a time. I am genuinely just focusing on getting through each day without making a decision I can’t take back. I break each day into two halves and focus on getting through each half of the day so it doesn’t feel as daunting. When I think of tomorrow, I feel intense anxiety. My body feels sick and I’ve been having panic attacks every morning.
The craziest thing is no one would believe this is how I’m feeling. I act so positive and happy around other people, but as soon as I’m alone, my inner thoughts come out.
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This was a real journal entry I wrote during one of the darkest times in my life. I was at the point of not wanting to make it to tomorrow and came pretty close to giving into my thoughts.
Looking back at the last few months of my life, I can clearly see now that people definitely did not think I was happy. There were several times people asked me if I was okay and I would laugh and tell them I was completely fine, just a little stressed out. I thought I covered it up so well, but I can see now that they could tell I was off - my smile didn’t reach my eyes and my laugh sounded empty.
Feeling like I was covering it well made me believe things weren’t as bad as they were. I felt like if I could seem okay to people then I probably was okay, but I certainly was not.
I share these thoughts with you today because I think its important for you, the reader, to understand the gravity of how bad I was doing before I tell you how I was able to get out of it. I’m proud of myself for getting through my darkest time, but I also wish I had someone I could’ve related to at the time to give me guidance on how to get through it.
I already explained my method of breaking each day in half, which really did help, but wasn’t a long term solution. What finally worked for me was willing myself to find a tiny bit of hope that I was then able to cling to like my life depended on it because it literally did. Hope can come from many external places if you’re willing to look for it; a beautiful place, good food, being with a loved one, etc. The important part, for me, was that once I was finally able to feel that little bit of hope, I managed to find the will in me to use it as motivation to take action to change my life. I used that little slice of hope as sort of a safety blanket, coming back to it every time I started to have bad thoughts. I poured everything into it and started focusing on myself. I knew if I wanted to be able to show up for my loved ones, I needed to get myself to a better place first.
I was able to will myself out of the darkest time in my life. It wasn’t easy and it’s still a choice I make every single day. Every day, I choose to keep going and take actions that get me closer to who I want to be. Through this journey, Willingness Within was born. I know how life-changing (and life-saving) it was for me to find the willingness within myself to keep going and I want to help others who may be in a similar position to know that we all have will within us. Sometimes it just takes something to inspire us to find it, but once you do find your will, I can attest to it being life-changing.
My thoughts and prayers go out to you. We are never alone and there is always a reason to make it to tomorrow.
