I’ve lived long enough to remember the Rwandan Genocide, and the wars in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and yes I’m old enough to have heard stories about World War Two, and Vietnam. I’ve met soldiers from both.
I’ve seen three Popes, 2 millennia, 2 different centuries, and Bush as President. Twice.
I may not be old, but I’ve seen a lot in my day, and in all that time I never stopped to think that I deserve, to be happy. Specifically, deserve.
It’s only recently that I made the decision to actually embrace my new life in my new home. I’ve made friends here, I daresay I’ve ever put some roots into the ground. I am excited about my new life here. There are opportunities that I’ve never been able to appreciate before, that I can now.
For more years than not, I’ve been living in a mental health nightmare, that I can’t fully wake up from. It’s exhausting.
I started this blog because I wanted to put it on the record. I keep the blog because I’m not done fighting for a better life and I want to see other women see me say I did it for the first time.
I want to see other humans see me succeed where they couldn’t, and then I want to gather them all up and bring them with me.
When I started this journey I was kicking, and screaming, and cursing the world, because I wasn’t sane. I had lost my ability to control my own behavior, and I was truly “sick.” In every way that mattered I was incapable of taking care of myself, or anyone else, for a lot of years.
Then I ended up houseless, and that was a journey, and now I am here, in this place where I spend more time with my friends than I do alone, and I am not entirely sure who this person is.
You know that book I wrote, Uncomfortable II: Fundamental Foundations for Mental Health Content Creators? That was like step one. This is step two. This is the part that comes after you spend a year or two really digging in, to get to know yourself, outside of other people’s ideas of who you should be.
This person is strong, powerful, wise, and beautiful in all her incarnations, even on days when she doesn’t fully feel like it. She works hard, she gets up every day, changes her clothes, showers more than she used to, and works hard at showing other people that healing is possible.
They constantly tell us that it’s impossible to overcome depression, that it just gets better, that it’s something you just live with, but I am not depressed right now. For the first time in probably a good seven or eight years, I am not feeling depressed. So no, it’s not gone forever, but for right now, in this space, yes friends, I am healing.
The problem comes when we hyper-fixate on the fact that depression can clock in at any moment, for any reason and we don’t always know the trigger, or how to escape it. So I found a solution.
I bought myself a vape pen, a real one Jasper, thank you very much. And I love it. When I start to feel my mood swinging down I ask myself why and I feed the need. Either because I’m hungry, thirsty, tired, or need some cannabis, whatever it is, I find a solution that solves the problem.
Am I always going to be able to do this? Of course not. There are inevitably going to be days when I can’t take care of myself, or clean my house, but that’s what having a community is about.
In my old church community when I needed help with something, I had volunteers, but when I needed help in a personal way, I was on my own. Now the reverse is true and rather than stressing me out it makes me laugh.
I fought coming to this place for so long, and when I finally accepted my fate, I found something beautiful. It’s not where I want to be, it’s not the goal, but it’s the best part of the journey…so far.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
There are several ways to help support this site; if you’re interested, it’s much appreciated. Supporting this website means supporting a disabled mixed-race Black non-binary/she person. Thank you so much for your efforts. It means the world to me and convinces me to keep going.
If you’d like to read more of Devon’s work, check them out in the following publications.
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 
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