From my own personal experience, lasting self confidence is never built quickly. I suppose that isn’t the answer many people in our same day delivery society want to hear. But it’s true. Please let me go into detail.

I will be turning 46 years old this summer. And I have more self confidence than I did at age 25 or even age 40. One of the things that built my confidence is surviving tough situations and realizing that ‘Even though it sucked going through, I came out better, wiser, some extra skills, and an interesting story or two.’

During the pandemic I didn’t go out much, had groceries and medications delivered to my apartment, kept in contact with friends and family. Sure it was a long two years, but I survived. Not only survived, but wrote a lot of material, read books I never had time to previously, binge watched documentaries on youtube, lost weight, and even improved my finances. It wasn’t very fun going thorough, but I’m glad I did. Made more less fragile. Taught me I could handle prolonged adversity even with a mental illness. It taught me how to think and act during a time of crisis.

I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in September 2021 in addition to the schizophrenia diagnosis I’d had for over twenty years. It was touch and go for a while. Spent several days in the hospital with really bad blood pressure that required in IV nitro drip for a few days.

In May 2022, I moved out of my low-income apartment and into the first long term care facility in Nebraska that would take me until my parents could arrange for me to move to Oklahoma. After several months of treatment, physical therapy, getting a wheelchair, and losing even more weight, I was physically able to make the move from Nebraska to Oklahoma in my dad’s pickup truck. February 2023. Surviving heart failure, going through physical therapy, and getting to accomplish one of my ‘bucket list’ entries of moving to the suburbs at least once added to my slowly but steadily growing reserves of confidence.

I lived with my parents in a good suburb of OKC while I was waiting for a permanent place to come open. It took a few months just for all the social security and Medicaid paperwork to stabilize after the out of state move. It was a pain to not know what was happening from one month to the next. Found the case workers not very helpful in transferring my accounts from Nebraska to Oklahoma. Took a few months, but eventually got everything transferred across state lines. Navigating that mess of paperwork and conflicting agencies and advice was a major headache. But it was one I survived and learned from. Taught me how to navigate agencies and conflicting systems that, in reality, no one person has all the answers to and never will.

Between February 2023 and August 2025, I anxiously waited for a new home to come open. Naive me thought that it shouldn’t have taken more than a few months in a metroplex the size of OKC for a home with handicap accessibility to come open. Oh my God in Heaven, was I completely wrong. Instead of a few months, it took almost exactly two and a half years. And we were looking all over Oklahoma.

In August 2025, the place I’m currently in came open. It is a facility in urban OKC and a huge one at that. We even have on site eye doctors and an onsite dentist. Since it was in a city, I got to cross off another item on my bucket list, live in the downtown of a big city. Sure, it’s not New York or Shanghai, but it was what I was looking for my entire life without even realizing it.

I did gain some weight during the time I was at my parents’ house. What I gained in two and a half years was lost in only eight months. Currently I’m at the lowest weight I’ve been in 15 years. I also got cured of sleep apnea and anemia. It was a long and painful process. But it was more than worth it. Oh my God the payoff was more than worth it.

I’ll be turning 46 later this month. In September 2021 I wasn’t sure I would make it to age 46. I’m thankful and grateful to have made it through several crisis over the years. That’s what taught me self-confidence. Took a long time, but the lessons and confidence will help me no matter what I face in the years ahead. My life didn’t turn out as I expected. But after surviving struggles and crisis, I now realize it turned out better than had my twenties and thirties been smooth sailing. Here’s to struggle, survival, rebirth, and the second half of life.