I am a firm believer that it is from rock bottom that one can build a new foundation, a new life, a better, bigger, stronger life. I have been to rock bottom. I have clawed my way back from the depths of depression and the elation of mania. I have survived mental illness.

First diagnosed 22 years ago with major depression, I knew well that I had been depressed for most of my life. From the time I was a child, I felt sad and lonely and as though something were not quite right with me. I felt as though I never were good enough … for anything, but especially love. My mental health struggles continued well into my teenage years, when I became anorexic. Twenty-two years and at least one year-long manic episode later, I am in recovery, or remission if you prefer, from Bipolar I disorder and and recovering from anorexia nervosa.

During the blue period, I was a journalist, primarily working for small community newspapers but also working as a freelancer for the Chicago Tribune, The Daily Herald and The Aurora Beacon-News. I had a wonderful career and won several awards for my writing. But I longed for something more … a deeper connection to people and to make a stronger difference in the lives of others. I always had wanted to help people live better lives and often wrote about people doing just that. I decided I wanted to be the person actually helping people live better lives, make better choices and earned my master’s in social work from Aurora University in May, 2014.

After the blue period and the manic episode, I simply decided I no longer wanted to feel sad and made the decision to work toward a better, brighter future. I made the decision to take charge of my life instead of waiting for my life to improve. I made the decision to stop the cycle of negativity in my life and embrace gratitude and positivity. There is always, always, always something for which to be thankful. There is something good in every day, even if it is just the cup of coffee I had for breakfast.

Life is a series of choices. For decades, I chose to remain stuck in the black cloud of depression. I hit rock bottom and vowed never to go there again. With the help of good doctors, a more appropriate diagnosis, the right cocktail of medications and a lot of hard personal work, I completely changed my life. I now am a licensed social worker and am helping people navigate their way through mental health crisis, as people had helped me.

I am launching this blog in the hopes that my personal story and my clinical experience can inspire someone to make the decision to move from the comfortable uncomfortableness of mental illness to mental wellness. We get used to being sad, to having more down days than up days. To a large extent, we do so because it is easier to stay in the well of depression than it is to make the decision to embrace our lives, to love ourselves for the magnificently flawed individuals we are and to choose happiness. Moving from mental illness to mental wellness requires a commitment to change our lives for the better. So often, we stand in the way of our own happiness by repeating patterns and choices of the past. If that no longer is working for you, perhaps it is time to do something different. Sometimes we have to do the opposite of what we normally do to effect change for the better.

The trick to finding your way to mental wellness, though, is that you not only have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired, you have to be ready, able and willing to do the work to get there. Anyone can seek mental health treatment, go to therapy and kvetch about their problems, but it takes someone with real desire for a better life to do the work of therapy, the work of treatment. Just sitting there waiting for a social worker, a counselor or a psychologist to provide you with the answers to your life will not work. You have all the answers inside you; you just have to find the courage to look for them. And once you find those answers, you have to be brave enough to use them to solve your own problems, make better choices and live a healthier life. Are you ready? Are you ready to become the person you always have wanted to be? The time to start is right now.