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One of the things I have found most valuable when dealing with my own PTSD and panic disorder, is learning to dance with my pain. I can hear the "WTF's" now... I had a major softening towards my own struggles when I started to look at healing as a dance. Sometimes it's a two-step: one step forward, two steps back. Other times its a rapid, raging, heart-pounding, adrenaline inducing, head banging, mosh pit of emotions. And still in other moments, it is a slow, gentle sway from fear and hopelessness to gratitude and peaceful surrender. Healing your hurt caused by not only mental illness, but any other ailment is very much about learning to dance with your depression, your fear, and your panic. It's about learning the steps, the motions that you must take to feel better. It's about being in tune with your partner (who may change from depression, to anxiety, to utter dispair at any given moment) being aware of the subtleties in it's sways so that you can keep your footing. It's about knowing that there is nothing wrong with it sometimes taking the lead in this dance, pay attention to it's movements, it may have something to show you. It's about learning to move gracefully, even lovingly with your partner, for this other dancer is a sacred part of you! Hold your hurt, hold your pain, don't fight with it, have you ever seen two dancers fighting?!? Nothing beautiful can come of that! Embrace your partner, soften into her, know that the only way to truly heal, is to take one step at a time, dancing with your shadows to the rythym of your soul.