Will my own issues forever get in the way of what I dream to be, inadvertently hurting those I seek to help?

I found this bio following an article I’d saved on my computer.

Adina Cahan, LMHC, is a Licensed Mental Health Professional trained in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Internal Family Systems (IFS). She treats eating disorders, trauma, addiction, and impulse, mood, and anxiety disorders. She has authored two books on the subject of PTSD and social phobia and recently released a two-volume set, Invalidation, Validated, on traumatic childhood invalidation and Cutting to the Heart of the Pain, a DBT-based self-help guide empowering individuals with borderline personality disorder to combat self-hatred, self-harming behaviors, and suicide ideation.

Some months before, I couldn’t remember when, I’d written that bio. In a moment of bitterness, I’d sat down at the computer and let my fingers take over the keyboard. I’d written my own bio, of the person I hoped to be one day — the strong, stable, and capable individual I was so far from at the moment.

I was tormented, self-hating, and suicidal. My mind was like a scientific invention gone awry; a machine rapidly thinking, repressing, calculating, spinning, and overheating until it self-destructed. I was locked into my head, protective walls in place over my heart, fighting a reality I couldn’t change, yet had to learn to live with safely and effectively.

I was in therapy, taking medication, alternately climbing and falling down mountains, pushing past and pinned beneath boulders, treading water or drowning in the pain. I struggled to use the skills I needed to live, isolated when I needed support. I desperately denied the pain I was in, and that individuals had caused me, so I could view myself as strong.

But I wanted to create tools for coping with eating disorders and distorted body image, for self-acceptance and validation, for the prevention of suicide and self-harm. I wanted to create hotlines for those in critical need late at night.