"my name's dean, and i'm an alcoholic", he said. only we weren't at an AA meeting, we were hanging out in dundas square.

my students had met him during an activity and ended up inviting him to our community dinner in regent park that night. dean wanted to go, but he needed help getting there.

ashamedly, i felt annoyed at first. i calculated how long it would take for me to walk him there (he was pretty intoxicated), and how having to do so prevented me from being able to spend more time with my team before they headed back to peterborough that night.

but dean, you see, he blessed my heart. he was so honest. raw. funny. outgoing and caring. there wasn't a person we passed on the street that didn't get a sincere hello, or an (attempted) handshake. he made me smile, and he reminded me of a love that is most pure - God's love - as he so confidently quoted john 3:16 in between his countless "i'm sorry i'm so drunk" apologies. ironically, both go hand in hand; God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, and nothing - not even one too many beers - can separate us from His love. dean, in his drunken state, ministered to me. (this, as i've quickly learned, is as common as you allow it to be.)

we ended up making it to regent park faster than i thought we would thanks to a friend's bus pass. there, dean changed into the new outfit we were able to find him before sitting down for a meal. he looked really sharp and happy (which in turn, made me happy.)

but my favourite part? my favourite part was when he made his way up to the front of the church after dinner and asked my friend if she could play 'jesus loves me' on the piano. she did, of course, and he cried. he hadn't heard it since he was five, he said. but he believed it. in fact, he was preaching it long before my friend even played a note.

little did i know at the time, i would need this reminder more than anything myself this week.

as a few of you know, i've been battling deep bouts of depression on and off since june, and with these episodes come a lot of self-hate and guilt. i can't explain why this is or how fast i spiral, either. on a good day, i think i'm funny and kind and supportive, but this illness, you see, makes me feel anything but. unlovable and worthless. like i don't matter and as if people's lives would be easier and better off without me.

i realize how insane this sounds. i find myself cringing even as i write this. but that's mental illness for you. the darkness envelops you.

so on monday, after being crippled by one too many dark days, i decided to look into getting some meds. i mustered up enough energy and courage to walk into the doctor's office across the street and admit that i'm sick. admitting is the hardest part, i find. but i have 300mg (10mg/day) of fluoxetine to prove that i did it, and i am now two pills in and a week and a half from them (hopefully - fingers crossed) starting to kick in.

yesterday was tough, but today was better. i suspect life will look like this for a while. but i'm one step closer to feeling like myself again, and that's enough to make me keep going. of course, other things help, too. like a phone call from a friend, a hug from another, or, as like i mentioned at the beginning of this blog, the greatest reminder from my new friend, dean: God loves me, mental illness and all, and He loves you, too.

i ate 15 oreos for dinner last week. fif-teen.

i was having a bad couple of days and found myself unsuccessfully wrestling through a lot of internal conflict, which led to my usual mood swings, which led to me hibernating for a few days.

i decided to come out of my room to make dinner one night only to realize that my housemate was having people over in less than half an hour. she invited me to join them, but as mentioned above, i was hella moody and anti-social, so i opted for the only accessible thing i could find at the time to feed my mood and satisfy my hunger: a bag of double stuffed oreos with a side of netflix. (i certainly do want you to 'continue playing', thank you very much.)

of course, if you've ever (double) stuffed your face, or used any unhealthy coping mechanism, you know exactly what comes next: guilt and/or disgust, on top of whatever you were feeling before you ate/drank/did drugs/binged your favourite show etc., and that's exactly what i felt that night as i sat there staring at the empty rows of cookies in disgust.

but here's the thing; the eating contest i had with myself didn't make any of my 'stuff' go away; it kept reappearing and will continue to until i stop stuffing it (and stuffing my face) and start dealing with my insecurity and low self esteem at its root.

the truth is, most of the time i feel ugly, fat and undesirable. unsuccessful and alone. moody and irritable. disconnected and lost.

sure, i can chalk some of this up to losing my parents (lost and disconnected), me not being married or having kids (undesirable and alone), or me only being able to work twenty hours a week (and going crazy the rest of the time), but i can't figure it out otherwise.

but what i do know is that temporary fixes are exactly that: temporary; they may make you feel good in the moment (at least up until your fourth cookie), but they don't help you in the long run.

what will help us in the long run, however, is finding the root cause of our pain, working through it and moving towards healing.

for you, that may look like facing past abuse and working through the trauma attached to it or forgiving yourself for a past mistake or someone else for theirs. maybe it looks like facing your family's history with addiction and working through it with a counselor, or maybe just maybe, it's as 'simple' as looking in the mirror and telling yourself that you are valuable until you start to believe it yourself.

for me, it looks like removing myself from most social media outlets for a while and spending the time i'd usually waste (scrolling and comparing) on something productive like worrying about my own life. it also looks like seeing my wonderful counselor regularly, bringing my insecurities to the light and most importantly, reminding myself of the Lord's unfailing love for me - His secure, sufficient love - and putting the oreos down long enough to rest in it.