2025 has been one of the best years of me living independently. Through the many battles I have faced by not understanding how much my psychotropic medication can be a powerful tool in my mental health recovery, finally understanding that and learning how much being well matters to my overall wellbeing it can be understood that while we work to be our best, we are not perfect as humans, but that progress matters and I can see that more and more as this year has evolved.

Being autisic and having the co-occurences that I have is not an easy thing to bear, but I do it despite struggling at times. There have been many times this year that it has not been easy and there has been many struggles that I myself am not proud of, but I have started to move on from them and have forgiven myself for when I was not my best.

Throughout those that are newer in my life, I have begun to realize the hard truths of how important it is to work towards being my best as much as possible. While no one is perfectg and that too has been explained that others are not perfect and also have their own faults to own up to, it is the fact of being honest and taking responsibility for what they have done. But it also takes me to work at understanding the why and how things were they way to cause things to be addressed the way that they were, heed the advice, forgive myself for the way that I was and start to move forward by working to recitfy and improve myself.

Progress matters, plain and simple. Living in the old ways do not prove well and even though at times that can be hard to see that continuing to not be honest and do what is needed becuase there are flawed thogughts and other issues that cause disbelief, eventually I have seen what has hurt me and caused issues to arise that shows how important taking care of my mental health is.

Again, nothing is ever perfect, but as I have continued to move in a more progressive way this calendar year instead of against the odds and the demons of my challenges that have never been fruitful in any way and instead have caused concern, I eventually discovered how by not recognizing the need to care for myself brings other issues to the table that are in no way connected to my mental health but have their own problems.

While not totally focused on me, they are in a way a part of my own responsibility and make issues more challenging because of the neglect to understand the need to care for my own well being, that is what made me fully understand how important it is to care for my mental health every day and how much it matters that I use all the tools that I have to keep myself well at all times.

Granted, this calendar year has not been perfect. But I have seen my flaws over time and finally understood how important it was to stop the battle that I was fighting with my mental health treatment by not understanding how much it provides me the tools I need in my mental health revovery by living the life that is needed for me to be well and have the quality of life that I desire.

It is understanding with all my issues in my past how at times that I am going to be asked how things are going and if I am adhering to my mental health treatment and that is perfectly fine and how blessed I feel when I am actually honest that I no longer have to carry the burden for lying, which was a longtime practice in the past that I found to be un-Christian like and that in of myself has taught me the importance of also being well by having the faith and living the Christian way of life by doing the things that I need to do in my own walk of Christ.

As I close I am proud of myself of the fact that as we are coming down in the final weeks of 2025 that I am in a much better spot than where I was at the beginning of the year becuase I understood how important my mental heath regimens are, all of them and how much they matter. While it was not perfect how I came to terms in understanding how I got to that point, it was by learning by experience how I learned to forgive myself and move forward and close with my word of the year “honesty” being tried and true on a good note.