I have had a rough start to the year, suprisingly. And that is because it have been stuck in the rut known as extreme-sadness-feelings-of-hopelessness-helplessness-rock-bottom-behaviour-cannot-focus-or-concentrate-extreme-procatination-mental-shutdown-numbness.

Yes, I am much much better now.

(While you are here, let me plug you the two short stories I have been working on)

When someone asks me how I am doing, all I can ever say is “I am fine.” Because I have no reason not to be fine and it feels selfish not to be. There are people who are going through the most, y’ know. There are people whose lives are miserable but they are fine (in some sense of the word). So, why wouldn’t I be fine?
But I wasn’t. Truly, I wasn’t.

Like most people, I am constantly fighting anxiety. Oh, that one gets the better of me and throws me off every once in a while. The other one just comes from feelings of inadequacy and the motions that come with being alive, I guess.

It starts small.

Forgetfulness.

Then I have to fight myself to write, or get up from bed. But I show up for work and I laugh with everybody else. I take my lunch like I always do and post on social media. Then I go home, and a switch just goes off.

I can’t muster the strength to work on my personal projects and they all seem like burdens now. I am so irritated by the clothes on my skin and the spoon that hasn’t found it way to the sink. Sleep doesn’t come till after midnight and when I do, I would rather curl up in bed and have the world forget my existence.

They call it high functioning depression.

As in, you’re living with depression but still keeping up with the demands of your life.

I kept telling myself that because I was still functioning, it wasn’t bad enough to ask for help.

But the truth is, suffering doesn’t have a threshold you need to meet before it becomes valid. Pain isn’t a competition, and you don’t need to reach a certain level of struggle before you’re allowed to seek help. I used to believe that as long as I was still getting things done like still showing up, still keeping it together then what I was feeling wasn’t bad enough to matter. I convinced myself that because I wasn’t completely falling apart, I had no right to acknowledge how much I was hurting.

But I’ve come to realize that waiting for rock bottom only makes the climb out even harder.

The longer you tell yourself that your pain isn’t “serious enough” to address, the more it builds, wearing you down little by little until even the smallest tasks feel impossible. I didn’t need to wait until I was drowning to admit that I was struggling. I didn’t have to break completely to deserve healing.

And once I let go of that idea and I accepted that I was allowed to take my own pain seriously, things slowly started to shift. I stopped minimizing my emotions. I stopped telling myself that I had to just push through and pretend everything was fine.

Instead, I started looking for small ways to make things better, to be gentler with myself, to acknowledge that struggling doesn’t mean failing. That is when the 500 things for 2025 came to life. Small every day mundane tasks that remind me how beautiful and wonderful life outside my head is, experiences that bring me closer to the people I love and adore, acts of kindness to others, and things that make me grateful for the life I am allowed to live.

I gave myself permission to acknowledge my emotions instead of burying them. Yes, I was down. Yes, I wanted out. Yes, I needed help.

I stopped trying to convince myself that I should be able to handle everything on my own. And most importantly, I started treating myself with the same kindness I would offer a friend who was struggling.

I offered myself the same kindness and grace I show others. I spoke to myself softly and with compassion. I mirrored my words into my efforts. To the impossible things, I made small significant steps towards them.

And I felt lighter with each day.

Why am I sharing this? Why not just pretend to have it all figured out?

Well, its to remind someone out there that you don’t have to wait until everything collapses before you reach for a way out. You don’t have to keep moving through life like you’re fine just because you can. You’re allowed to struggle, and you’re allowed to ask for help, not because you’ve hit rock bottom, but because you deserve to feel better.

With all my love,

Abdullah’s girlfriend.