You Are Not Your Mental Illness
It’s not a one-night work to end this,
It can’t be done overnight,
It takes more than time itself,
It takes rewinds of the past you’ve been scared of,
It takes thousands of questions
and more thousands of answers
— for that,
It takes several repeats of the same mistake,
It takes several rains and storms
to go through to give you bravery
to dance in them, in your favorite shoes,
It takes several withering flowers to grow
so you can nourish the blooming ones,
It takes several tears to your heart
so you understand you can never mend
your heart completely,
but you can learn to live with
its imperfect shape in grace,
It takes many times of cries at night
so you can find peace in every teardrop you shred,
It takes many books to read
so you can wade through your map
and follow your compass,
It takes many painful downfalls
so you can learn to climb,
It takes many broken shard pieces of you to pick
so you can piece yourself back together,
During all that process,
it takes courage to bleed and suffer
even when there’s no hope to look to,
even when there’s only fear that remains,
It takes strength to hope
when you think there’s none,
It takes every piece of you
to be you, to fix you, to love you, to believe
that your mental illness is not you.
Muthia Huda 2022
