If you’ve ever looked at your life and thought, “This is fine… I guess,” while feeling completely disconnected inside, I want you to know something right away: you’re not alone — and you’re not broken.

For a long time, I believed personal growth wasn’t for people like me. It was for the confident ones. The disciplined ones. The people who didn’t have a dark undercurrent running beneath everything they did. I learned how to fake happiness well enough that even I believed it most days. I showed up. I smiled. I performed “I’m fine” convincingly.

But pretending only works until it doesn’t.

Around my 40th birthday, life forced me to confront a truth I had spent decades avoiding: ignoring mental health struggles doesn’t make them disappear. It just teaches them how to hide — until they erupt.

What followed was the darkest period of my life. Addiction. Hallucinations. Multiple suicide attempts. Hospitalizations. A complete collapse of the identity I had worked so hard to maintain. I begged for someone to save me. I waited for a miracle. I truly believed that if I could just find the right person — the right doctor, the right therapist, the right system — they would fix me.

But after my final suicide attempt, something shifted in a way I still struggle to explain.

Death itself didn’t take me.

And in that moment, I realized something devastating and freeing all at once: I had spent my entire life waiting for someone else to rescue me from pain that only I could face.

The Years I Spent Hiding the Pain

Looking back, I can see that my struggles didn’t begin in crisis. They began quietly.

From my late teens onward, I lived with what I now recognize as high-functioning depression. I didn’t fall apart publicly. I didn’t stop functioning. I didn’t ask for help. Instead, I became exceptional at appearing okay. On the surface, my life looked stable — even impressive at times.

Underneath that mask lived constant worry, intrusive thoughts, emotional overwhelm, and a deep sense that something about me was fundamentally wrong. I learned early on that if no one could see my pain, then maybe it didn’t really exist. And if it didn’t exist, I didn’t have to deal with it.

So I stayed busy. Obsessively busy.

At 24, I started my own business. I worked seventy-hour weeks and wore exhaustion like a badge of honor. When I wasn’t working, I cleaned compulsively or drank in bars that were loud enough to drown out my thoughts. Productivity and numbness became my coping mechanisms of choice.

I was also a people-pleaser to my core. I twisted myself into whatever shape felt most acceptable in the room I was in. I became a chameleon — agreeable, accommodating, endlessly adaptable. I lived in constant fear of disappointing others, convinced that my worth depended on how useful, easy, or likable I could be.

And no matter how hard I tried, I never felt like the real me — whoever that was — was enough.

As strange as it sounds, I spent over twenty years trying to outrun myself. It never occurred to me to turn around and face what I was carrying. I truly believed I had everything under control.

I didn’t.

When Survival Mode Took Over Completely

In 2019, everything unraveled.

My mental health declined rapidly and dramatically. I experienced emotional outbursts I couldn’t control, vivid hallucinations, recurring nightmares that robbed me of sleep, and memory lapses that terrified me. I harmed myself openly. I attempted suicide impulsively. My family watched me disappear in real time.

My husband did what he could and admitted me to a psychiatric hospital, desperate to get me help. But the system was overwhelmed. After a brief evaluation, I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, prescribed new medications, and sent home. My entire stay at the only place my husband thought could help me was 5 measly days.

That experience shattered something inside me.

I didn’t feel helped. I felt dismissed. Labeled. Sent back into the world with the same pain, just wrapped in clinical language. I walked away believing I was broken beyond repair — that even professionals couldn’t help someone like me.

Not long after, during a family vacation, I made what I believed would be my final decision. I intentionally overdosed.

At the time, it felt logical. I believed I was a burden. I believed my family would be better off without me. I believed I had exhausted every option. I remember the exact moment my heart stopped beating.

And then — inexplicably — I was still here.

The Moment Everything Changed

The next thing I remember is being in my husband’s arms. I barely opened my eyes as I heard him say, “She just had another seizure.” Before I lost consciousness again, I realized something I still can’t fully explain.

I was alive.

In the days and weeks that followed, one question echoed louder than all the others: Why? I knew I had died. I felt it. My husband told me he felt it too — the moment I was gone, and the moment I came back. If I had been given another chance, there had to be a reason.

But finding that reason meant doing the one thing I had avoided my entire life: facing myself honestly.

What came next wasn’t a clean transformation. It wasn’t inspirational montages or instant healing. It was messy, slow, uncomfortable work. Research. Lifestyle changes. Relapses. Failures. Doubt. Days when hope felt laughably out of reach.

And yet, something new began to surface.

Tiny moments of determination. Fleeting confidence. Unexpected hope.

I began to detect a pattern. Most of the time, those strangely positive moments found me when I was outdoors.

The Unexpected Things That Saved Me

At first, reading and spending time outside were distractions. Ways to pass time without drowning. I didn’t realize then that they were quietly rewiring me.

Books gave me language for what I was experiencing. Nature gave me space to breathe without performing. Somewhere between the pages I underlined and the trails I walked, my nervous system began to soften.

I started to notice when I felt calmer. When my thoughts slowed. When my body felt even a little bit safe.

Some days, those feelings lasted minutes. Other days, they didn’t show up at all. But once I noticed them, I couldn’t stop looking for them. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t chasing happiness — I was learning how to feel grounded.

Accepting Responsibility Without Blame

The most important shift in my healing came when I accepted something difficult but empowering: no one else could fix me.

This wasn’t about blame. It wasn’t about pulling myself up by sheer willpower. It was about realizing that healing wasn’t something that would be handed to me — it was something I had to participate in.

I started small. Painfully small:

• I learned to be present instead of dissociating.
• I practiced gratitude when joy felt unreachable.
• I spent time in nature like my life depended on it — because it did.
• I stepped outside my comfort zone in ways that terrified me.
• I tried small adventures that helped me remember who I was outside of survival.

These weren’t grand gestures. They were daily choices. And slowly, they rebuilt my sense of self.

This Is Why I Created This Blog

When I finally took responsibility for my healing, my entire life changed — not overnight, but fundamentally.

One day, I told my husband, “If I don’t do the difficult stuff, I’ll never get anywhere.” That sentence became a turning point. Not because it was harsh — but because it was honest.

This blog exists because I know what it feels like to live in survival mode for decades without realizing it. I know what it’s like to function, succeed, and still feel completely lost inside. I know what it’s like to believe suicide is the only escape — and to survive it anyway.

Pages of Changes isn’t about polished self-help or pretending growth is pretty. It’s about messy progress. Muddy boots. Courage that looks like showing up again after you fall apart. It’s about learning to build a life that feels like yours — one small, brave step at a time.

If You’re Still Surviving Right Now

If any part of my story feels familiar, I want you to hear this clearly: You are not weak for struggling. You are not behind. And you are not beyond help.

Survival mode keeps us alive. But it’s not meant to be where we stay.

Healing doesn’t require perfection. It requires honesty, patience, and a willingness to try again — even when you’re scared. And you don’t have to do it alone.

If I can build a life worth living after believing for years that death was my only way out, then better days are possible for you too.

Not because you’re broken — but because you’re human.

And you’re still here.