We all go through life challenges. And whoever said “Life isn’t fair” was right, sometimes. The challenges that we face can sometimes seem so overwhelming and so beyond us that we don’t know what to do or where to start digging out of our hole that we are in. I am here to tell you that you can come out, but it’s a lot easier if you have others helping you dig out.

Five years ago, I was overweight and struggling with mental health issues. I was “all over the place” some days, and other days I was living my best life. I didn’t like how everything was so back and forth and how I shifted to one side or the other depending on my mood and life circumstances. I wasn’t able to ride the wave. I wanted some change in my life, for the better, so I embarked on my weight loss journey.

Losing weight wasn’t the goal. Becoming a healthier and stronger version of myself was. It took time, patience, self-control, and consistency but I lost 100lbs all on my own merit. It was empowering. I look in the mirror and I see myself, fully. “This is Dana” I would say to myself. This is always what I wanted. Struggling with weight gain because of mental health was brutal. But I learned so much from my journey.

At the age of fifteen years old, I suddenly shifted into a sever manic episode. It lasted about two weeks until I got some professional help. However, the help weren’t rooting for me. They told my parents and I that I would never amount to anything and I probably would never even go to college, let alone graduate high school. My parents were devastated. I knew I had to do something to prove to myself I can do whatever my mind wanted to embark on.

I did graduate high school with a high GPA all considering how often I was struggling. High school was the toughest experience but I made it through. I went off to University and I graduated with a 3.49 GPA. I went off to get my MA in Clinical Psychology. I worked for five years as a therapist and attained my LCPC licensure recently. I also am in a PhD art therapy program, which has been life changing and exactly what I want to do moving forward. The psychiatrists were all wrong. I was right. I could do anything my mind was set to. But how did I get here?

This is what I did to get to where I am today. I made a healthy lifestyle change first and foremost. I take my treatment team seriously and meet with them when I need to. I have regimented morning and evening, little rituals that I do. In the morning I write in my mood journal and I have been journaling in my separate journal more often and it truly helps. I do yoga now and I lift weights at the gym with my awesome personal trainer. I deep breathe when I have to if I feel anxiety kick in. But most of all I lean on supports, which is my loving family. Without my wonderful parents I would not be here today. Without their support I would be forever lost. All thanks go to them.

I also took a good look at spirituality. I now follow my heart and I pray to God in my own ways. I pray in English, I pray in Arabic, or sometime silently before bed. I do good deeds and I always smile in public and I am friendly. I get approached often because of this energy that I exude. Life all started to come together this year. If you had told fifteen-year-old Dana that I would be where I am today: in a PhD art therapy program, working as a therapist with my LCPC, with a loving partner and amazing family who has my back with a healthy body I would have laughed at you and said “Impossible”. But it was possible because I sought the right help early and continued working through any trauma and all of my emotions. It took years, it took hard work, but it made me humble and more empathic. The empathy I have for others is very huge and large, it knows no ends. It has no boundaries. I feel for people that I know and for all those I don’t know who are suffering.

I was in that hole. I couldn’t dig from out of it alone. Thankfully, I had a team of people digging with me until they lifted me up and out of it and I could finally see the sunshine.

As Earnest Hemingway once said “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.” Lean on your supports. Lean on what ever faith you have or spiritual practice. Talk to trusted friends and family and your partner. Life is out there waiting for you to make your mark. Come out of the dark, and into the light. Come and see the sunrise and start your day with your own ritual and end your night with a peaceful mind knowing you are doing the best you can at all times.

Peace & Love

Dana