Growth and Forgiveness

Growth and forgiveness

This is a very complex topic, but I have a few thoughts I’d like to share.

For so many years as many other people do, I’ve had this thought in my head,

“what did I do wrong?”

I’ve spent so many years wondering why I was different or why people chose to cut me out of their life. Through all of these thoughts I’ve always asked friends, family or my husband that same question. Typically, the answer is always, nothing.

It’s important to remember people change and life goes on. The sad truth is that sometimes as people grow in their life, they simply feel like there is no longer a place for their old life; including their old friends.

Nothing?? Really?? Well the fact of the matter is in some situations this answer is probably true. But I can’t help but wonder the times when I have done something wrong and I’m simply still waiting for forgiveness.

Unfortunately, mental illness is an invisible disease. It’s not seen from the outside and often times people don’t know it’s there. It can make it even more difficult when you are showing symptoms of mental illness but because people don’t know it’s there and they can’t see it, they think your just being mean.

We are here to help bridge this gap. The gap between the seen and the unseen.

I’ve learned we can spend so much time wondering what we did wrong and nothing will change. What will change is evaluating your own life and observing all the people in your life you’ve chosen to cut because they have done something wrong or not.

Here’s the kicker; I’m a firm believer in cutting toxic people from your life. People who are constantly bringing you to a place of darkness and taking you backwards from your recovery in your mental health. Or at least for a time. However, I do believe forgiveness helps us grow. Especially when it’s in a life of a person with a mental health condition.

I observe in my own life all the mistakes I’ve made. I’m human and I make them. But I do see all the mistakes I’ve made because I was dealing with something much darker in my life. I sit at home thinking of all the people who I have done wrong simply because I was fighting something bigger than me.

I wish they had room in their hearts to forgive me. Maybe one day they will; and maybe not.

All that I can do is accept the growth of the things I cannot change and work in my heart to find room for forgiveness for the people who were once going through something dark and have now found peace.