I am strong. If there’s one thing I am that I know people recognize me for because they’ve told me passionately, it’s that I’m strong. Hell, I’m fairly confident someone would suggest it to go on my tombstone somehow or in my obituary. But I didn’t always believe it about me. It wasn’t a trait I often associated me with. I thought they were crazy. I thought they weren’t privileged enough to see inside my mind and heart. I thought they were blind to the chaos surrounding me. I thought they were neglectful to the tears I sometimes shed in pain and sadness.

I was wrong.

You don’t go through heartache and have a voice without being strong. You don’t get knocked down and stand back up without being strong. You don’t push forward or move on without being strong. You don’t recognize sadness and make moves to become happy without being strong. You don’t become the queen at bouncing back without being strong.

I’ve questioned myself and my strength more than someone ever should over the years. I’ve doubted myself. I’ve wondered if I’m just being stubborn and should instead move on. I’ve pondered over how I’m able to keep going and why I haven’t just given up.

Part of this, I will recognize, is due to this stupid belief that thinking positively about myself is conceited or annoying to others. I fucking hate that.

Mindset.

For me, it all comes down to mindset. I was lucky enough to somehow be raised over the years in environments that nurtured mental strength. I was lucky enough to meet people who believed in me just enough for me to not stop, who were mindful enough to articulate their belief in me at the moments I needed to hear it most. I was lucky enough to witness my brother’s survival through the years and him continuing to laugh and share smiles with the world despite all his handicaps and diagnoses and limits.

I’m a firm believer that “depression” is often an overused term and mislabeled. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. It’s an extreme sense of loss and helplessness. It’s overrated. I have a hard time trusting people who toss it out there to describe a temporary feeling when really the terms they’re looking for are sad or unhappy. In our quest to accept and normalize mental disorders, we’ve disassociated ourselves from recognizing a feeling as just a feeling. We want to attach it instead to a very troubling—depression, in its proper form and diagnosis is extremely troubling, debilitating, crippling, and heart wrenching, leading to loss of interest and inability to function—issue that many folks go undiagnosed with until it’s too late. However, sadness and unhappiness are feelings we can overcome if we choose to. Failure, stress, grief, tragedies are not one-way streets to the road of Depression. They might be the trigger, for some, but they are not the deciding factor.

I can’t get behind this notion that just because life isn’t going someone’s way or moving at the speed they imagined or aren’t entirely happy with it, they are depressed.

No. Those are obstacles, predicaments, circumstances. That’s not depression. That’s a poor outlook and a negative, unhealthy mindset.

Depression is not a “normal” state we want to be. Having a spectrum of feelings is normal.

When I was pregnant with Evelynn, some people assumed I was depressed because I had migraines, was constantly sick or nauseous, read a lot, napped a lot, and had little appetite. To be honest, it wasn’t much different than the previous 24 years of my life it seemed, except this time I had a little human growing inside me and I was bedridden. They wanted to cure me of a mental state when it was instead a difficult pregnancy and a physical state. Despite the difficulties and fear for the unknown, I was never entirely lost or felt helpless. I could see a future. It was, however unknown, tangible. Thenowmight have been a difficult timebut it never felt like the end of the world or like things could never get better.

Things got better because I persevered. I decided I was going to make a change. I decided to keep going.

After pregnancy, I still threw up. I remember asking my doctor, “Are you sure you missed like a twin or something? Because I’m still sick every morning and after every meal.” Seriously, that was my joke that wasn’t really a joke. I was so perplexed and scrambling for answers, I was damn near delusional. I was at a loss but I wasn’t lost. I was also seeing a hematologist to find answers regarding my low platelet count.

And then I heard about celiac disease. And after talking to numerous specialists from various fields throughout almost 3 years, I was firmly diagnosed. As firmly as you can with a disease where the testing is 20% inaccurate. Suddenly, the week-long migraines and daily puking and inability to gain weight on my 5’5” 115lb. frame devolved. Going gluten free and understanding celiac saved my health.

Fighting for me, knowing me, saved my mind.

The one and only gastroenterologist we saw, was a bitch—I don’t use this term lightly—before she even tested me for celiac. It was only 5 months after I heard about the disease. She told me NO based on the fact that I was the one who inquired with my doctor on the disease, despite that I had almost every single one of the symptoms and removing gluten from my diet was the only thing that had helped me in decades. I was a walking billboard for celiac flashing neon green to boot. She told me the tests came back with a firm negative and I could have gluten, I might just have a sensitivity. Years later I found out those tests were actually inclusive and given my symptoms and the fact that my platelet count had increased to the highest they had everbeen in my life by simply going off gluten, other specialists and my hematologist were very confident I most definitely have celiac disease. The hematologist even joked he would look into this further for his other patients he was having extreme difficulty diagnosing.

I don’t recommend self-diagnosing. I think most people do it out of paranoia. However, when we were told No by one doctor, it didn’t mean the others were also convinced it wasn’t. Conversations, knowing your body, asking yourself why you believe something—that’s key.

And for the record, celiac, because it can cause extreme fatigue, can show symptoms similar to depression.

I was never depressed. And I’m not afraid to admit when I’m sad—I hate to admit when I fail and I hate crying, there’s a big difference.

Last fall, I was sad. I was stressed but I was immensely sad. I couldn’t get control of my migraines again; they came like clockwork every Thursday, forcing me to work from home Thursdays and Fridays. I became sick and couldn’t get control of my workout routine—workouts are healthy and I’ve always been active. The endorphins they release are a natural anti-depressant. It also helps build your immune system. It’s also often my therapy. I felt overworked and undervalued. I felt unstable because I couldn’t gain control of anything. I was in a city with my only friends being coworkers who I rarely talked to outside of work. I felt alone. I felt like I was failing.

But I never felt lost or like there was nowhere up to go.

Failing, to me, does not mean an end. It just means something else, something better is best for me.

My favorite thing is recognizing you can only go up. There’s only growth. When you only have the best ahead, even if there might be more dips along the way. When there’s a gorgeous view to reach and take in, you have a beautiful future ahead. I think the climb up is a beautiful and amazing process. Recognizingthatis a key ingredient to a strong mind.

Most people hit rock bottom and think life is over, so they continuously allow rock bottom to become their sanctuary—that is depression. I didn’t hit rock bottom, not that time. I hit rock bottom years ago during a winter break in college and some subsequent semesters.

This was just a moment of sadness.

I was scared to make a move across the state to Grand Rapids but I didn’t let that fear of the unknown stop me.

When I first moved out of my parent’s house with Evelynn and to the Detroit area, the first time I was on my own fulltime with a child—who let that happen?—I was terrified. I was scared of possible migraines (not having them regularly always seems to foreign to me) and stress and finances and just staying alive. The always thriving independent part of me, however, was electrified. She was so excited for the freedom. So I made it happen.

I refused to be the one to stand in my own way. It was a healthy move—I needed that freedom and control of my own life.

That happiness of living in the area only lasted about 4 months. Instead of dwelling, though, I asked myself Why? Why was I suddenly so unhappy?You don’t need to pay a therapist to look within, you just need to have the mindset and strength and courage to ask yourself the hard questions. And allow yourself to recognize the answers instead of running from them or denying them. You need to accept them and then do somethingabout them—that’s another key.

For a girl who was considered crying a weakness, I bawled often. In the shower and in bed at night after Evelynn went to sleep. I have a habit of bottling up emotions and feelings until they pass. I don’t talk about my troubles well. I’m an introvert to the core.

I wasn’t okay with that state of feeling.

I looked around at my life in Detroit and realized everything that made me unhappy. I hated fighting with Evelynn’s overpriced school and stuck-up principal; loved the area and what it offered but it was missing something, compared to every time I visited Grand Rapids my heart sank when I left the city. I loved the challenges of my job but questioned the value and growth at the cost of me. I was upset up for every guy who asked me out but I wasn’t interested in; I felt like a bitch turning them down. I found myself constantly angry or annoyed over the smallest things. The city was wrought with heartbreaks for me and not feeling like enough.

And I wasn’t writing.

I’ve had one goal with a deadline for as long as I can remember: be a published author by the age of 30. I turned 29 in October and I hated that I wasn’t writing. Not poetry. Not one of the multiple books I had to start in college for various writing workshop assignments. Nothing but the occasional blog following a dating annoyance or travesty. I’ve damn near wrote more blogs so far this year than all of last year.

Despite how down or sad I felt, every day I told myself, “Today is a good day. My daughter is healthy and I’m alive. I’m able. I’m moving. I’m breathing. I can think for myself. Today I have opportunities. It’s all about my outlook. Mindset.” I might have been undeniably sad to the point where I couldn’t escape its recognition, but I also chose to look up. I wanted that climb.

I decided to take the unhappiness and fear and run with it. I embraced it. I changed jobs and moved across the state. I have even less time “off” as a single parent and for someone who enjoys being alone or spontaneous trips and adventures, that can be difficult to reconcile.

But I chose to move. I chose to recognize my capabilities, sought what I could change, and refused to let my circumstances or fear stop me. I chose to embrace the unknown and not let any fear define me. I chose to be strong. I chose me.

And honestly, choosing you is the happiest choice you can ever make.