How I Found My Purpose While Struggling With Mental Illness

I really do think it’s quite hard enough if you don’t deal with mental illness to find your purpose in life. Also, whether or not you deal with such things, your purpose can change from time to time, too. My story is not that of a happy ending or a one-size-fits-all story. I’m simply sharing where I am at in my life at this point in time. Purposes change, and If you truly feel as if you found your purpose, I’d say go for it, but also be open to other purposes, too.

Where I have found myself in life, I seem think I have landed on mine. If not for a lifetime, than I can say for a very long time. I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for maybe close to a decade now, and I haven’t tired of it. Which is a good sense of where I feel I am with it.

I feel my purpose is sharing my story of my struggles with others.

I’ve always been a people person, but don’t confuse that with extroversion. I’m still very much an introvert, and dealing with social anxiety I can be very scared of people. That also includes opening up to people. Living in a time where social media is prevalent, I feel doing this falls in line with my social anxiety. I’m able to be open without having to face large crowds in an overabundance, or being face-to-face with people so much that it gives more of a negative feeling towards doing this. Let’s face it, there is stigma around mental illness. I’ve faced so much of it. So much that there’s been times where I have questioned my purpose. Then, I will have people telling me how much I have helped them not to feel alone, and that really drives me. One of my biggest emotional pains is seeing people hurting, either physically or emotionally. I never wanted others to feel alone in anything, and not like how I have. I still deal with so much of the loneliness and depression, too.

This is not an end-all, be-all, sort of article, but I hope you can see a bit of what I’m trying to explain. I found my purpose through pain, anxiety, and fear. Instead of letting myself feel all that in a huge bubble, I knew I had to let it out some way. Some people are creative, some people like to talk to others, some people like to go out, have fun and experience knew things. I really am on the creative side and it took me a many years to tap into how to even go about this purpose. It wasn’t ever easy. Perhaps realizing my purpose after all these years was just a downfall of many things, as well. I’ve been in and out of college, partially for mental health issues and being in and out of the hospital, and partially because I just didn’t see myself anywhere in any of the majors/minors I kept pursuing. Going in and out of college was a good 10 years within itself, too. Trying to figure out what was the best way to help others by sharing my story was another so many years. You know, it might not even take some that long, and maybe for others it'll be even longer.

How I found my purpose while struggling with mental illness was a very long and heavy road. Something I don’t take for granted, but something I jump for joy for regularly after having gone through it all. I found this love for writing. After dumping my creative joys for a good 7 years from depression, something brought me back to it. I don’t quite remember what had me pick up a pen and paper after that long hiatus of dumping everything, but I remember when I did it rekindled something in me that I had forgotten for so long.