The Good Life

After seeing many many people struggling with depression post about wishing their lives were more like so and so's, I feel the need to say this: There is no such thing as an easy life. There are personalities which deal with conflict better than others. There are people who are able to hide their issues. But there are no easy lives. There are only those who suffer differently than we do.

But here's the thing - suffering does NOT mean we can't have the good life. We have things to work through, sure. We need to learn how to manage our conditions, of course. However, we can reach out to others who struggle with similar issues even before we have ours all figured out. Look at me, for example. I still struggle with depression. I still fight the urge to self-injure, and I have relapsed once in the last month. Yet I have two outreach blogs, and I truly enjoy talking to those who are suicidal or on the cusp of self-injury. It is one of the things that helps to keep me from those things myself, because I must make coherent arguments for sustaining life and life without self-injury. It's like taking on an alter ego, in some ways, except that it is how I strive to live every day.

Which brings me to a question I never thought to answer before: Why use the name Nina on my blog? My real name is one I associate with my self-injury struggle. The name Nina I associate with my recovery, and here's why: The nickname Nina was given to me by one of the first friends to know about and help me with my recovery from self-injury. Nina is a shortened version of "ninakupenda," which means "I love you" in Swahili. Nina also means grace, favor, and strong. So, just as Abram took on the name Abraham when God called him (feel free to ask if you would like more information on that story), I have taken on a new name for the sake of my outreach. I make no claims that God has assigned this name, just to be clear, only that it is a name I identify with in my recovery.