*Thanks to Barbara Krysztofiak for the photo via Unsplash.

** Trigger Warning ⚠️ This post contains themes and descriptions of depression, anxiety, panic, and trauma. While the overall ending is uplifting, parts of this post may be triggering for some readers.

***A note from the author: It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written a blog post that is both personal and a life update- so please bear with me as I sift through thoughts from our most recent cross country move to now. Happy reading!

It’s July 21st, 2023… 9 days out from my 32nd birthday.

I’m feeling rather ambivalent this year about my birthday. Normally, I’m ready to celebrate, or feeling reflective, or somewhat excited about the year to come. Usually a new year brings a sense of adventure, turning over a new leaf, fresh renewal… but it feels like “This is just 32.”

I’m not sure I’m feeling my own birthdays from 30 til now, not because I don’t want to age, but because a lot of things haven’t felt as vibrant or special. I find the magic of life in my writings and imaginary worlds, in books, and in others. I’m in a season of trying to return to self and find my own magic again. In a season of looking for the beauty in my own journey again. And that journey has not been easy. It’s currently not easy. But I’m determined to trek forward. And while I haven’t found my own magic again (yet), I’ve found my own thread to follow.

Rewind: What Happened?

“Well, Bella,” you might ask, “what happened? How did you lose your magic in the first place?”

This is a good question. One I’ve asked myself several times… although now I am not quite sure there really is a finite answer. It’s more like it faded over time. It wasn’t a pinpoint on my map, a blip on my radar, it was a slowly greying of my computer screen. It was not like I woke up one morning and was different. Does that sound like depression? Maybe. It is more than that. But, let’s start at the beginning. Let’s talk about mental health.

About a year and a half ago, I started struggling more than usual with some mental health related issues I’ve struggled with for a long time. There’s our usual culprits of moments of anxiety and days of depression, but some of my symptoms got unexpectedly worse. I started having more frequent and severe panic attacks (I posted about them here). I was starting to have severe trauma related flashbacks and night terrors. I started having bouts of deep and dark thoughts. Above everything else I became aware that I was living in an increasingly agitated state of overwhelm. There didn’t appear to be a “trigger”, but these things all collided at the forefront of my life around the same time.

I thought a change of job, less stress and more pay, would be perfect to help me loosen myself from the grips of whatever this was, so when the opportunity arose, I took it. In the end, the new job wasn’t what I was told it would be, and it didn’t work out. I was spiraling. I sought out free mental health resources, but couldn’t seem to get myself to motivated to get to them despite feeling on the verge of a breaking point. I took a creative freelance job for the summer, and spent more time with my cousins, hoping to pump myself full of some joy. Some days the overwhelm was less, but I’d be overtaken by moments of severe panic, feeling like that breaking point was about to smother me. Life felt like threading a needle, except the needle was sharp and my clumsy fingers kept getting stabbed every time the thread missed. Nothing was working… and I was almost out of bandaids.

After months of what felt like internal agony, lots of prayer and conversations with Jesus, and finally being honest with a few key people in my life on how I was really doing, I found balance on the precipice of that breaking point. Eventually, the panic attacks slowed and the night terrors stopped. I could breathe, albeit carefully. I found a job. We started talking about long term future goals for Freddie & I. We made the decision to move to Columbus, OH. In the busyness of planning to move, spending as much time as possible with my grandparents / cousins / auntie / uncle, finishing out my first year working in an educational setting, and passing on our ministry commitments to others in our local church; I began to become aware of some more areas of both physical pain and emotional scars that needed to be addressed. I started to grow numb and sad instead of overwhelmed. This time, threading the needle felt like the thread was determined to dodge the needle, always leaning to one side or the other. I wasn’t getting stabbed or pricked, but the thread would not cooperate.

It felt ugly at the time. I wasn’t looking for the beauty in this journey to be honest, but Jesus found me there anyway. Worship nights at our church were like a balm to my soul. The closer we got to moving, the more I got the sense that Jesus was calling me to a time of restoration and rebuilding. I felt him say I needed to work on myself- not in a harsh or condescending way, but in a way that made it clear this was the time to start focusing on healing at a wholistic level.

So I started to ask, ‘What do I need?’.

My body had been coming up with all kinds of weird things over the past year, and because I’d really like for us to have a chance at kicking infertility’s butt and being able to carry a child (or a few)… I needed to get somethings under control. I needed a physical health goal. I needed to commit to a healthier way of eating. I needed doctors I could trust. I needed a good therapist. I needed a safe place to heal. I needed to be able to steep in things that are spiritually nourishing and hug my soul.

Planning and Setting Goals

Once we moved, I knew I needed to start implementing things right away, or I simply wouldn’t do them. So I came up with plans and goals for working out, eating, spiritual health, mental health, & tried to make space for creativity. It’s definitely the early days, but I am already starting to feel a difference.

Quoting my own thread from @Threadsapp! Follow @labellajourneys

My goals are attainable and realistic, although I still haven’t wholly achieved them each once, I hope to get there with consistency. My goals right now are:

• Physical Health- walk on the treadmill for 1hour, 3x a week. Once that’s consistent, try to walk for 5 hours a week.

• Healthier Eating Plan- buying groceries that line up with the Mediterranean style of eating. Focusing more on a variety of veggies and different ways of cooking them.

• Mental Health- Committing to attending one on one therapy consistently, and regularly participating in group therapy sessions. Regularly journaling.

• Spiritual Health: Regularly attending church on Sundays, attending as many worship nights as I can- wherever and whenever I can find them. Reading a scripture once a day. Regularly reading faith based materials and seeking ways to practically implement them. Regularly journaling.

Listen… All this is self care. And self care is hard!

Goal setting is the easy part. Following through is hella difficult. Some days I feel so good about it, other days I feel like I’m deviating from my plans and get frustrated and disappointed with myself. Like at first, I felt discouraged for not getting my 3 hours of walking in right away. My therapist reminded me that while goal setting and follow through can be tough, I set the goals, made them realistic, and picked goals that allowed me to be myself, creative, and to do things I enjoy. I’m hopeful that I can learn to lean into these new rhythms as stress less areas and tools to help when that overwhelm begins to creep back in. And when they are not enough, well that’s what therapy and learning new coping skills are for.

Reflections and Sewing Forward

Ok, by now you are probably all fed up with the thread analogies. I have one or two more, but first let me address the app of reference: Threads App.

I do have to say, Threads App has helped to invigorate some of my creativity in ways that were previously lacking or falling to the wayside. It came into existence right at the perfect time for me. While I am still pursuing in person community and figuring out what that looks like in our new city, I am also thoroughly enjoying the virtual community I’ve found on Threads.

For me this has looked like sharing with people who actually want to engage with my work and read my content. It’s looked like engaging with a lot of poets, authors, writers, and other forms of artists. It’s looked like listening, learning, and uplifting. I’m learning a lot from others about poetry and even lyrical mechanics I’d never heard of, like Tankas, Voltas, Rhyme Schemes, etc… All very exciting to me, whose last real poetry class was in middle school. While poetry just freely flows from me, I like to learn these things and learn more about what makes poetry not just poetry, but excellent literature.

I feel like now that I am finding a groove, even if it’s still focused on doing really hard work… it’s making room for joy. My capacity to accept, appreciate, dream, is finally growing again. It feels like my thread has finally gone through the eye of the needle, and now I can actually work on making something beautiful.

I imagine that threading the needle happens many times across the span of a life. My hope is that we become more adept at it as we grow older. That with time, it’ll come with less pokes, stabs, pricks, and I won’t need as many bandaids. While the real work is in sewing together something you can be proud of, I hope threading the needle gets quicker so the work can be started swiftly and properly.

Here’s to everyone trying their best just to thread the damn needle.