How Many Chances!

Yesterday I rewrote my “About me” section I basically filled in some gaps, as my blog for now reflects my struggle with depression and my subsequent recovery, and feel that I gain a new perspective going forward.

As I was writing it got me thinking about chances, and how many chances do we get in life, a cat has nine live we humans apparently only have one.

The old me rarely gave second chances, I only gave myself one chance, why? because I always believed we make our own luck in life and if we don’t create the opportunities, we’ll fail.

Epic fail in that kind of thinking and made me realise I was chasing the impossible pursuit of “perfection” that in itself is not such a bad thing, but when it’s to the detriment of everything else in your life, I did myself no favours.

Not with the very first bout of depression or even the second  worse yet the third did I give myself a chance nor if I’m honest did I give the chance to the few who did try to help initially I tend to walk my own line a loner if you will,  and you only gave chances to those who needed it.

An arrogant thought to have and, I’m ashamed to have had it, I became expert at refusing advice and to see that my life was slowly crumbling around me and chasing my tail trying to rebuild a damaged facade, talk about the house that jack built!.

I have learned not only to trust myself and others, but realising that I too deserved a chance to be healthy, and not lock myself in my mind which had become a prison, that has been one of the hardest aspects of my recovery is regaining self belief, but a belief that is real and constructive not just one that gets me through rough times.

I believe now that we are all entitled to second or even third chances, change is not easy, and that’s why you need chances, because you often have to stop and reassess before you continue down the path of regaining your mental health.

When the dark clouds begin to dissipate and your slowly come back to life, I realised what a wonderful chance I’d been given to live my life anew, even though I still have some major issues to deal with, I’m stronger now and accept that there have been some disastrous events over the last few years and now I have the chance to work towards resolving them.

Another point facing up to events in your life is a liberating experience, well make mistakes, errors of judgment and some catastrophic decisions, there is always a chance to put it right or at the very least acceptance on your part, and not wanting to be held hostage by depression and all associated with it.