This morning, I found this post on my dash and it home. So maybe now it is my time to write one of them “it gets better” posts.

Some years ago, I had a tag that said ‘Mel needs therapy’ because it was true and I wanted to start one. I made some small attempts – all I could do in my state. It was not enough. The system is set up badly and at the point in my life where I really needed therapy bad, I didn’t have the energy to get through the process.

Much later, I tried again. About 1,5 years ago. I got one assessment appointment and then nothing. I could have called a hotline (ha!) to get appointments with an emergency therapist. You see the problem with that, yes? It is impossible to do this step in writing. Impossible.

So I let it lie for half a year and then decided, no. Enough! It won’t be fast, but I can pay for a little out of my own pocket. Again, I contacted therapists. Of five, I got three replies. Of those 3 replies I got two first assessments. One of them put me on the wait list. I am allegedly on first place of it since December 2023.

The last therapist is the one I see now. She’s great and I trust her with my mental health. I couldn’t afford many sessions because each was 100 bucks out of pocket and my pockets are not that deep. I managed 2 session a month at best. But I paid for them, and I did some work and my therapist helped me with all the steps to get insurance to pay for therapy.

I couldn’t have done it without her. Where does one even start? But she is familiar with that. She’s also familiar with trans and non-binary people. The relief, not having to explain my existence was immense. Autism and ADHD are not things she works with a lot, but she’s more helpful and supportive than anybody else I met during my journey.

And then, this morning, that post. It hit me that, yes, I got better. But no, I have not treated poor adolescent me the way she deserves. All her hopes and dreams – already cracking. She doesn’t know how different she is and why. Only that people treat her different. She’s not one of them. (One of her teachers actually tells her mother little Mel isn’t part of the class community.)

But little Mel is quiet and does okay in school and nobody notices her turning more inwards and switching to English inside her head to have a safe place and language for herself.

I want to tell her that it gets better. It really does. Yes, there’s hell and high water between her and their better future. And no, it won’t be ‘worth it’ and ‘make her stronger’. That’s something she has to tackle alone. But they will. And they will be successful.

And her dreams – little love, you’re doing so well. You have written so many stories that moved people in all the way you intended! You still do. There are two books ready for publishing, and the whole of tradpub can’t stop you. The differences finally have names. And communities.

I am not alone.

Friendships are still difficult. Maybe I can get the hang of them now, that I know better how I work and what works for me. I’m grappling with getting the upper hand on my autism because if I don’t find strategies to work with it in my life, it will express itself however it wants.

My therapist keeps urging me to get a new psychiatrist who actually takes my ADHD seriously. (I’m on the second mood enhancer. At least this one has an effect which is to completely separate me from hunger signs.) But overall it gets better.

And one of theses days I will learn how to take adolescent Mel’s hand and prove to her that she’s fine. She’ll do things her way. And it will work out. She will become many of the things she wants to. And as for the rest? There is still time.

Lighten up, little one. Life is worth living yet.