Some days I feel perfect. I feel like the world as at my doorstep and like I can conquer anything.

And other days I feel like I am under siege. The aggressor is inside my brain, and it takes all of my mental, physical, and emotional energy to stay centered.

Today was one of the latter days.

Lately, I haven’t been battling with depression or anxiety or ocd. Instead, lately they have *all* been tag teaming to get me down. I think this is preferable because if none can take root, the damage can only be so great, but still, this is exhausting and scary and painful.

Today should have been like any other day, but I woke up and it had all gone wrong. For whatever reason, all of the little negative voices inside head had decided to launch missiles, one by one, on my poor unsuspecting psyche.

On days like this, at first I am usually anxious. Usually about nothing at all. But having nothing to be anxious about doesn’t necessarily make me any less anxious. During these times, my brain will try to make sense of things, and I’ll try to find something to be anxious about. If I find something, the OCD will kick in. If I actively and consciously fight my hardest against allowing my brain to find something, I can usually stave off the OCD. And that’s a win if there is any.

But the problems don’t stop there because if my brain isn’t meant to be at peace that day, more assaults will take place.

Next today came hopelessness. This wasn’t an all out hopelessness towards everything that was ever going to happen. Instead, it was just those little voices telling me that everything I was doing was pointless. That it will never be good enough. That I will always fall back and fail. That really there is no purpose in attempting anything.

But again I fought, and I won. I did what I wanted to do despite the darker voices telling me it was worthless.

And then the depression came in. I felt all of these forces fighting against me, and I felt my brain working so hard to stay on track, and it got overwhelming and I start to feel alone. I started to listen to the negative voices and criticisms and I found myself in a hole.

But again. I didn’t give up. I fought back.

And then I got anxious again. Anxious that this will never end. Anxious about all of the negative emotions trying to overtake me. Anxious about all the people I fear I’m failing.

And I would like to think that it will end soon, but odds are it will not end until I put this day to rest and fall asleep. And I’ll pray that I’ll wake up to a better day tomorrow.

But in the meantime, in between batting aside negative thoughts in my head, I’m going to try to remember that this is ultimately a great victory. Years ago I would not have been talking about this battle. Because there wouldn’t have been anyone to battle on my behalf. My defenses wouldn’t have been strong enough to fight back. It would have taken only one blow by any of the big three (anxiety, depression, ocd) to knock me down for months.

But now there is a battle. And I am strong. And I won’t give up.

And tomorrow will be a brighter day.

Photo by Keoni Cabral