At the start of 2024, I published my first blog post, “Mental Health: Blooming from the Mud,” where I wrote about my mental health struggles up until that point. As I reflect on this year, I realize how much has changed, even though I often feel like I’m still wading through the same mud. What I’ve learned is that the mud isn’t something to escape, but something to work with. Growth doesn’t come from avoiding adversity, but from finding the resilience to rise above it. Just as a flower can bloom in imperfect conditions, so can I.
A Year of Change: Searching for Peace
I’ve made changes this year, yet I still feel a lingering sense of emptiness. I left a job that I was unhappy at and got a new one that I like more. It keeps me busy, which is something I lacked in my previous role. Recently, as in the last two weeks, I moved away from the city where I’d spent the last five years. That had been my home from college to my first internship and my first full-time role after graduation. Yet it never felt like home. But, I’ve come to realize no place ever has. Maybe the home I’ve been searching for isn’t a place but rather a sense of peace within myself.
A Year of Struggle: Fighting the Darkness
Feeling a deep disconnection to myself, my parents, and the world around me, I knew I needed a change. Moving closer to family was a way to make the aching void subside, even just a little. Or so I hoped. The problem is that the void follows me; it lies within me. No matter where I go or what I do, it remains a part of me.
While I do feel like I make progress, I also often feel stuck, entangled in self-destructive behaviors. Like a flower, given all the right tools and a new environment to grow, yet something remains out of balance. As a result, its seeds stay planted beneath the soil, its leaves begging to break through.
The sun’s rays reach out, but I retreat into the darkness, wrapped in the cold embrace of my inner critic. Water, meant to nourish, is withheld until thirst consumes me or poured until my roots cannot take more. The soil, rich with potential, remains untapped, weighed down by fear and shame. I am both the gardener and the very reason my flower stays dormant.
A Year of Strength: Breaking through the Surface
Beneath the layers of doubt and despair, I know that my true self has always been there, patiently waiting to break through. Like a flower that craves warmth, she too quietly yearns for compassion and care.
For so long, I’ve shielded myself from the light, keeping myself locked away in a place of numbness. Too afraid to open up, to feel, to let myself experience anything good. It’s as though I’ve trapped myself within a self-imposed prison, with only the voice of control as a companion. It echoes in my mind, telling me that the light is out of reach, that I’m not deserving of it. It convinces me to remain hidden in the shadows, where it’s safe and predictable.
In this space, the only person that can hurt me is myself, and I’ve done just that. I’ve caved to its demands – putting myself down, abusing my body, distancing myself from everything — all in the name of control. The voice tells me to do more, eat less, push myself to the brink of destruction. It disguises itself as a voice of reason, but in reality, it’s a master of deception.
Every action it dictates – whether tied to food, exercise, or achievements – feeds its power and diminishes me little by little. Like petals stripped away one by one, I’ve slowly lost pieces of myself, withering away.
But I am not truly gone. I am like a flower in the dead of winter – dormant but not defeated. In the quiet stillness between seasons, I gather the strength to rise once more.
A New Year of Growth: Blooming Again
Each year, we all make New Year’s resolutions, and mine is usually related to escaping the destructive cycles that have defined most of my life. Yet every year, I feel some level of disappointment, questioning why I didn’t do more or why I’m still repeating the same patterns.
Despite my downfalls, the many nights I lie awake, the constant tormentor that resides in my mind, I still hold onto hope that change is possible.
Moving into 2025, I am learning to embrace the ebb and flow of growth. I may not always be able to control when the storms come or when the sun shines, but I can choose how I respond. I’ll hold space for gratitude, forgive myself for the moments of stagnation, and continue to nurture the growth that I know is happening beneath the surface. The voices in my mind may never fully disappear, but I can choose not to let them define me.
And just as the buds of a flower open when they’re ready, I trust that I too will bloom again — in my own time, at my own pace.
