Tag: mental-health

LANDSLIDE

took my love, took it down, climbed a mountain and I turned around, and I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills ’til the landslide brought me down… mirror in the sky, what is love? can the child within my heart rise above? can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides? can I handle the seasons of my life?

I love the internet. But I also hate the internet. Weird way to start, I know. I love it for obvious reasons. The world is at my fingertips. Anything I want to know, I can know it in seconds. I hate it for the same reasons. People like me, very anxious people, shouldn’t have access to this many things. These things both help and harm on a daily basis. I stopped searching ailments a long time ago. Setting that boundary for myself has been wonderful. Most of the time I use the internet for good. Looking up shit that generally interests me and feeling like I learned something.

Sometimes though, I search for things that feed my sadness. And I do that because I need to validate that I’m not the only one feeling like this. Most of the time I’m satisfied. The problem is that once you search for these things, they keep showing up because you searched for them once. So places like YouTube and TikTok are like “oh you like stuff like that? Here’s all of it!” And sometimes there’s a good enough mix in my algorithm that I can scroll for a few minutes, laugh a little and then when something serious comes up I can just close the app if I don’t feel like crying.

The other day something popped up on TikTok that really spoke to me. I’m not sure if it was good or bad yet. Still processing. Let’s say it was good? Because I never realized that I felt these things, and to attach a reason to that realization was a little bonus. And it kind of blew my mind because I LOVE finding reasons for why I am the way I am! It was a TikTok that had a photo slides that you swipe to see. And here’s what some of the slides said:

  • When someone jokes about abandonment issues but they don’t need constant reassurance.
  • When someone jokes about abandonment issues but they don’t get scared when they get left on delivered for over 10 minutes.
  • When someone jokes about abandonment issues but their chest doesn’t hurt badly when their partner’s mood is off.

Um excuse me? I have forever referred to myself as the girl with abandonment issues, but I didn’t realize stupid shit like this was part of it OR that I even felt like this on a regular basis. I was looking at more big picture stuff. Again, this is right in front of my face and I didn’t even see it. The terror I feel when these things happen is out of control. And of course over the years it has gotten progressively worse. Of course (eye roll). But I guess seeing it written out right in front of my face really made me say WOW. And then I proceed to go down a rabbit hole, because now I’m genuinely intrigued, and find that I have an insecure or anxious attachment style. Again, I’m sure it’s obvious to anyone reading, but who would want to admit that about themselves?

The last few weeks I’ve been really blah. Here but not really here. I feel like I’m in survival mode. I’m crawling in my skin feeling very much like a failure. Worried that I’m not doing enough. Anxious that if I’m not doing enough that I will ruin everything. That everyone will be disappointed in me. That everyone will be mad at me. Worried about money. Worried about being stuck in this loop forever. Just always fucking worried. And these are big things I need to work on, but the truth is that I don’t sit securely in anything. I am always worried that the people I love will leave. And it’s not for no reason. I am a giant open wound. And I probably shouldn’t have started this if I didn’t really want to get too into it, but the father situation in my life is the wound that won’t heal. My father is lingering in the shadows of my life even though we don’t speak. And my stepfather, who loved me unconditionally, died 23 years ago and I can’t stop being big fucking mad about that.

I’m tired of the rug being pulled out from under me when it comes to dads in my life. It took me a long time to let my stepfather in because of all of the shit that I had gone through with my dad. I was a teenager. I was angsty. I was not interested in getting close to someone who would ultimately leave, because as far as I knew, that’s what would happen anyway. And it was almost like I made my stepfather prove to me that he would stick around before I let him in. I didn’t make it easy. Had I known that our time together wasn’t infinite, I might not have been such a piece of shit about everything in the beginning. But we have no way of knowing that. Our trauma has no way of knowing that. And so we put up walls to protect ourselves only to find out that we missed out on more time with someone who was actually worth it.

I thought that me and my dad had a chance. When I got married almost five years ago, I really thought him and I would be able to maybe start a proper relationship and forget all the bullshit from the past. I really put a lot of time and effort into trying to build our relationship properly. But I was stupid for believing that anything would change. My wedding album sits in the dusty box on my shelf because I can’t bring myself to look at it. The fucking hoops I jumped through to try to be the good daughter, and it was all for nothing. When I look in the mirror I see his face, and I’m not okay with it. There was never anything that I could do to make him love me the way I needed to be loved by my dad. And I know that now. It took a long time for that to register, but it finally did. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make it hurt any less. It’s ironic that I used this song today. We danced to it at my wedding and I have not been able to listen to it since. NOTE: I started writing this post a few days ago. I was running a quick errand yesterday and on my way home this song shuffled. Tears poured down my face. God damn you shuffle button. God damn you.

No one is really ours to keep. I understand that. The problem with an insecure or anxious attachment style is that somewhere in the gray matter, the lines get crossed. Of course no one really belongs to anyone and nothing lasts forever. But I hold on to people so tightly because I’m so scared of losing them. And on the opposite side of that, I push people away to protect myself so that if they leave, I’ll somehow be prepared? I know right? Make it make sense. But important people in my life left, whether it was voluntarily or involuntarily, and it really fucked me up. It was at stages of my life when I needed them most and it’s like I am frozen in those times, never able to move forward. Still holding on for dear life to a time that no longer exists. And that’s a really big fucking piece of this puzzle.

I am trying so hard to be someone that doesn’t care. To be someone who lets things flow. To be someone that doesn’t let things bother me. And I’m picking myself apart trying to figure out what still fits and what doesn’t. And some days I’m strong and feel like I can do anything. And other days I feel absolutely hopeless, like I’ll never move through this point in my life. I need to breathe. I need to be kind to myself. I need to remind myself that I am this way because things happened, but it’s up to me to change it. I don’t want you to read this and think I’m blaming anyone because I’m not. This is my responsibility to fix and I will fix it. It’s just taking me much longer than I would have liked. The living in survival mode shit has to stop.

So yea, to circle back to the beginning, my relationship with the internet is a love/hate thing. I still don’t know if it’s actually useful for someone like me to have this much access, but I can’t imagine going through all of this and not be able to calm the crazy when I’m in the throes of it. Anyway, sorry if it got heavy, sometimes we need to put the heavy things down somewhere and this is my somewhere.

As always, thanks for reading and I’m always here if you need me.

well, I’ve been afraid of changin’ ’cause I’ve built my life around you, but time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I’m getting older, too…

Song name: LANDSLIDE/ Artist: Fleetwood Mac/ Year: 1975

WAIT FOR IT

I am the one thing in life I can control, I am inimitable, I am an original, I’m not falling behind or running late, I’m not standing still I am lying in wait…

Something shifted. And I wish, so badly, that I could put the feeling into words. I have zero explanation for the way that I’m feeling, it’s just different. And it’s weird as hell to be feeling it, so I just came here to write it out and see if I can make sense of it.

The last couple of days I have just felt off. Very unlike myself. And I’m not really sure who the hell I am right now, so it’s even weirder. My physical body is here but my mind seems to be somewhere else. And again, I can’t explain where it is, but it’s not fully here. It’s off in the clouds or something? That is the only logical way to describe it. I am disinterested in things I used to be interested in. I am uncomfortable in my body in such a cringy way. And I keep trying to make sense of it, and the more I do that, the less I can make sense of it. If that makes sense…

I have been so wrapped up in the frustration of all of this that I have not taken much time to sit with everything and process. I’m afraid if I process, I will change. So I try to process, little by little, and then I stop myself. Because I’m still not ready. I go through all of the stuff that I’m holding on to. All of the bad memories and times that I felt less than. And I die of cringe at all of the things that I allowed. Now that I know the reasons why I allowed those things, it makes me so sad. All this nonsense bubbles up to the surface and I hate it. But I’m trying my best to work through it and then let it go. It happened for a reason. Did I learn from it? Yes. Then we need to move on now.

I was walking to the dentist today and this song shuffled in my earbuds. And I swear to God, I got chills up my whole spine and then through my whole body. And something came to me. Obviously, the show Hamilton does not reflect my life at all LOL. But this song always struck a chord with me. And it’s been a while since I’ve listened to it on repeat. But when it shuffled, my brain felt like it woke up. And all of these thoughts started firing on all cylinders.

In “Hamilton”, Aaron Burr is chastised by Alexander Hamilton the entire show. Hamilton is ambitious and takes what he wants when he wants. Burr is cautious. And that’s where this song comes in. He sings about waiting for it while he watches everything happen for everyone else. Especially Hamilton. And so as you watch their relationship progress throughout the show, you can see Burr’s frustrations grow because everywhere he goes, Hamilton is already there. In all the places he wants to be. So in the show, it’s ironic that Burr has “waited for it” for the entire 2 hours and 45 minutes but the one time he doesn’t, (SPOILER ALERT) he kills Alexander freakin’ Hamilton. Poor bastard.

Anyway, this isn’t a Hamilton review, let me move on. I relate, very much, to this version of Burr. My last two posts have been about how I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust myself to make big decisions. I wait and I wait and watch opportunities pass me by. And I make excuses because I’m scared. I want change so badly while simultaneously being absolutely terrified of it. So I’m stuck in this very weird in-between void. And when this song shuffled today, it made me very aware of the fact that it is only me who is holding me back.

Not like I wasn’t aware of it before. But I was walking to the dentist for crying out loud. I didn’t expect the mental assault at 8:45 AM. But like, what am I waiting for? What do I really want? Why don’t I believe that I deserve it? And most importantly, why am I too afraid to admit it to myself? Because people rely on me. Because I don’t want to disappoint anyone. Because I don’t want people to think less of me. Because I don’t want to seem selfish. There’s a few reasons that I’m saying, out loud, not in my own head. “I am inimitable, I am an original…” why am I so worried about who the real me will be and what people will think? I never wanted to be like anyone else, so why am I holding myself back?

It has always been a constant battle within me. What I want versus what everyone else needs from me. And it’s not like those things don’t ever match. Of course they do. But this year I’ve just been watching my past on a giant movie screen, day in and day out, wondering what the fuck I’m actually doing here. I’m terrified that I’ll spend my life waiting and making excuses because I’m too scared to give in. That’s where this shift that I’m talking about comes in. The last couple of days have given me the tiniest bit of hope that I won’t always be like this. That my eyes are finally opening to how bad I am at taking care of myself even in the most basic ways. And I really don’t like it. So I made a tiny plan for myself today. And I am going to do my best to hold myself accountable. Because I really, really don’t fucking like this.

So my hope is that next week, when I have more free time, I will use it wisely. I will take care of the things that need to be taken care of that I ignore because I’m too mentally exhausted to get off the couch. That I’ll start implementing new daily routines that are about me taking better care of myself. That I’ll actually start caring about the person I spend 24 hours a day with. If it really is the case that we only get one shot at this life, then I need to be a little more Hamilton and a little less Burr…

As always, thanks for reading. I didn’t know where we were going today, but I’m happy you were here.

life doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints, it takes and it takes and it takes, and we keep living anyway, we rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes, and if there’s a reason I’m still alive when so many have died, then I’m willing to wait for it…

Song name: WAIT FOR IT/ Artist: Leslie Odom Jr./ Year: 2015

BREAK THE CYCLE

circles and cycles and seasons, for everything there’s always reason, but it’s never good, never turns out as it should… no one ever held you, no single moment of truth, but if you were mine, I would’ve looked into those eyes and said tell me the words you long to hear and I’ll sing them loud and clear, let me heal the wounds you’ve held on to for all these years…

This healing journey officially started a year ago. But I believe it was brewing for a long, long time. Both sides of my family have their own shit. And I’ve always been knee deep in one side. Dipped my toe into the other side and that’s to be continued. But the side I’m knee deep in, well that side never manages to not catch me off guard despite being knee deep. If that makes any sense.

Anyway, today I had another profound moment. It wasn’t bad at all, it just took me by surprise. I learned so much in such a short amount of time with my grandmother and I really wanted to write about it. So I hope you’ll have some patience with me as I try to put this on paper.

Most times when visiting with grandma, she doesn’t talk much. She wants to hear about what’s going on in your life, and so she will ask little questions here and there to keep the conversation going. Today was different. We talked about mundane things at first and then somehow took a turn into Unresolved Trauma Land. I don’t even remember what triggered the direction change, but she expressed to me that she worried if she made the right decisions in her life. Particularly the decisions regarding her husband. He was mentally ill at a time where mental illness was not known or accepted, and his life was really difficult. Which, in turn, made life difficult for the people in his life. And without going into detail because I wasn’t there and I don’t actually know, she still questions if she did right by her family. More than 50 years after it all went down. Guys, I literally just wrote an entire post about not being able to trust my decisions only to find out a few days later that my 101 year old grandmother does the same fucking thing.

That’s a weird thing to find out. Especially since I’ve been struggling so much with literally everything lately. So when she brought up the subject, I just tried to support her in the best ways that I know how. She told me that sometimes when she thinks about those things, her heart feels heavy. So I told her that no matter what has happened in life, she has to have faith that she did the right thing. That we are all here because of the decisions that she’s made and we are all okay (even if we’re not totally okay sometimes, she doesn’t need to know that).

Whenever she talks about my grandfather, I try to pay attention. There are so many things that weren’t understood in the 1960’s and 70’s that have come such an incredibly long way. Things that actually would have been extremely beneficial to my grandfather and would have changed the history of my family that brought me to this place. But here we are. And so every time she talks about him, I try to explain to her that he couldn’t help it. That he didn’t choose to be the way he was and that medicine and therapy just weren’t available to him at that time. And she seems to understand, I can tell by the bit of relief I see on her face when we discuss stuff like this. There was nothing anyone could do for him. You can’t imagine what this feels like. It’s like a blessing and a curse to be able to give her some solace, but it’s so sad to hear what she went through.

And so all of this makes me think nonstop about why I am the way I am. This whole time that I’ve been trying to heal myself, all I keep hearing is that I’m the one to break those cycles. And I never understood why the fuck it would be me. I’ve said it before that whatever this fucked up legacy is, it will die with me. I don’t have children to pass this along to. BUT, what if it means that I’m here to help my grandmother heal all the trauma that no one helped her with? She seemed so distraught today, and I told her that sometimes we carry really heavy stuff around that we don’t need to be carrying anymore. And maybe it’s time to put it down? And she looked at me and smiled.

So when I left her today I told her that I am always here to talk with her. That I am a safe place whenever she feels like what she is carrying is too heavy and we can talk it out and put it down. And even though I was talking to her, I was talking to me too. And that was really cathartic for both of us I think. I’m still processing all of it. When I said goodbye to her today, she was smiling and seemed lighter and that was a good thing. We tied our conversation up with a bow so I didn’t leave her like a completely open wound, which I for sure would have lost sleep over tonight.

I have been close with my grandmother my whole life, but like most of my family, we got really good at shoving all the heavy stuff way down into our guts. And I think that after the life that she has lived, she deserves to have an outlet to let it out when she needs to. She has never expressed anything like this and I am really glad that I can give her the safe space that she needs. She wasn’t my mother and I don’t harbor any resentment towards her like her children do. And I wasn’t alive when these things happened, I didn’t live through them, so technically I’m an outsider. I don’t have my own version of the story to “yea, but” her about it.

It was proven to me today that there’s a possibility that if I don’t start letting go of the shit that weighs me down, that I could end up being a thousand years old and still living with regrets about things that I can’t change. And that was a little jarring if I’m being honest. To know that the trauma eats away at her made me really sad. I am happy that she opened up about it. And I hope that she will continue to talk things out with me. If I can make the last years of her life, no matter how many more we get with her, any easier then I’m happy to do it.

I left our visit today with a heavy heart, but was not hopeless which was a nice change from the usual bullshit. Because helping her helped me without even realizing it until I got in my car. I had a lump in my throat and let myself have a quick cry about it. It’s another blessing and curse to be able to see what your future looks like if you don’t make the necessary changes. My grandmother is one of the strongest women I know. And I’ve made it this far because of her. But knowing what I know, I won’t make it to her age at the rate I’m going. So for the sake of both of us, I have to start letting stuff go. I can’t sustain at the rate I’m going. I need to start rewriting this story and break the cycles. I see now why it’s important.

So I’m going to try my best to take this lesson I learned today and move forward. And if I have to take baby steps, then so be it. Trying to run before I can walk has proven to be unsuccessful. So I’m going to slow down and assess and just tell myself that it’s better late than never. I didn’t expect this today, but I’m taking it seriously, maybe for the first time ever.

As always, thanks for reading. I am always here if you need me…

break the cycle, break the chains, love is louder than all your pain…

Song name: BREAK THE CYCLE/ Artist: you+me/ Year: 2014

TOLD YOU SO

I know you like when I admit that I was wrong and you were right, at least I try to keep my cool when I’m thrown into a fire, and they go “I hate to say I told you so”, but they love to say they told me so…

I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what makes me tick. I’m finding out that a lot of the things that I feel are caused by repressed anger. And it’s not a great feeling. Depression and anxiety stem from anger that’s buried. Years and years of burying deep into my guts. If I had known that 100 years later I would be in this position, I would have just let it all out while it was happening. The thing is that no amount of therapy or talking it out will change anything that I’m going through right now. Those things won’t resolve years of damage that I’ve done to myself. For some ridiculous reason, I am an emotional hoarder and have chosen to let all of this stuff stick around and eat me alive. I haven’t given up hope on myself, it’s just that I’m tired and this all feels so stupid.

I never realized how angry I was until I started this healing journey. It never occurred to me that the feelings were related to anger. When I think about all of the times that I rage cried and explained to people “I’m not sad, I’m crying because I’m frustrated!” it seems that the writing was right there on the wall. I just chose to ignore it and blame something that seemed more logical. Of course I cry when things legitimately make me sad. But the crying I do when I’m angry is very different. It’s almost childlike. And when I do the mental inventory of all the times that I have big cried in my life, the majority of those times was because I was big fucking mad.

Lately I have been feeling like a walking trigger. Everything is bothering me. Because for so long I have been in this survival mode of making sure everyone else is okay. Making sure that I did what everyone else needed me to do for them while ignoring my own needs and never asking for help. And now that I’ve admitted to people that maybe I’m not alright all the time, they help me and I don’t want it. At least not in that way. I guess I spent my life, unconsciously, taking care of everything just so people would love me in the way that I really needed. Except that’s not how anything should work. And now I’m here, in this very stupid place, and it’s like mentally I’ve reverted back to a child like state where I just want to throw temper tantrums all day. Just like when I was a child and no one cared to listen, I’m still fucking here. And it’s just not okay.

Very recently I came to a huge realization. There has always been this nagging feeling of dread when it comes to taking care of anything involving money. It started off small and has just grown into this absolute monster that has completely consumed me. I am now at the point where it is crippling and making it more and more difficult to function. Anyway, last week something very basic happened, but it brought me to this revelation and I want to talk about it.

My grandmother is 101 years old. I have been taking care of her finances since her 85th birthday. As if handling my own financial problems wasn’t enough, I went and added another person into the mix. It’s my grandmother and want to do everything I can to make sure that she is taken care of, and what’s better than a hyper-vigilant anxiety ridden granddaughter when it comes to finances, right?! Anyway, she has been paying into a very small life insurance policy for the last 15 years and I am the beneficiary of it. Last week, she received the payout for it. It made perfect sense to me… after all of these years of quarterly payments, it’s paid off. They sent her the check, boom, we’re done. So, of course, I tell my mom about it, in passing, just saying I was going to deposit it into her account. My mother asks if it’s a real check. Why would they pay it out? You should call them, what if it’s a mistake? Don’t deposit anything without calling them first. Wait, what?!

On paper, there was no reason at all for me to question any of this. It said on the check stub exactly what it was for. The policy wasn’t some absurd amount that was going to send my grandmother into another tax bracket. It was tiny and she finished making payments on it because she is 100 and fucking 1 years old. So, like a CHOOCH I called them, because I was instantly filled with dread that somehow if I deposited this check without calling the company, that I would find out later that I was wrong, the check was fake and my grandmother was doomed. Fucking why?! I will tell you why. Because my whole life, I have been told to question every single thing when it comes to my decisions. That I am not a trustworthy person, even though I have been handling everything.

This is years of destroying any chance I ever had at believing that I can do anything without outside validation. I can’t be trusted to make big decisions because I don’t know any better, even after all of these years of being a fully functional adult. And the best part is… I have fucking allowed this. Without even knowing it, I have become this robot who seeks out validation for every decision that needs to be made. This stupid check arriving in the mail and the conversation that followed was enough to open my eyes to all of this.

I wasn’t this bad 5 years ago. I guess I’ve just been worn down into submission out of sheer exhaustion. Now that I’m thinking about it, there was a time where I did stand up for myself, but I picked my battles wisely. Standing on my laurels when it came to hills I would die on, and then allowing others to dictate my direction when it was a decision that I wasn’t 100% on anyway. Or if it was something I didn’t really want to do, I could easily shift blame to someone else not agreeing with it and that’s why I ultimately didn’t do it. Nice little system I had going there for a while.

Except this isn’t working anymore. I have zero faith in anything. I have become a shell of who I was, which wasn’t a whole lot to begin with. And now it seems I’m even in debt when it comes to my own self worth. Things are spiraling out of fucking control. And I’m glad that I am aware of it now. It’s just that I can’t let go of the fear and just trust myself. And it’s causing a LOT of internal problems for me. And it’s part of the reason I am in this mind frame now. I don’t trust anything that comes from me. I can’t make decisions about my own life without having a panic attack. That needs to change and I am working on it. This is a huge piece of the puzzle in this healing journey. Because I question every single thing that I do, with zero confidence to back it, asking for everyone’s approval before I do anything, and that is fucking bat-shit crazy.

It’s still really difficult for me to stand by my decisions. I hate giving people opportunities to tell me that they told me so. Because I feel like I have a lot of people in my life that are just waiting to smile at my errs in judgement. And that makes me really fucking sad. It’s not everyone, but it’s important people. And this is just another realization that I’ve stumbled upon that makes me so fucking sad. Because I really want to believe that I have people in my corner, but the ones that share my DNA seem to smirk when I do it wrong. It feels like people are waiting for me to fail so they can scoop me up when I do and show me that I really was never capable. What. The. Fuck.

This is why I have lived with this underlying victim mentality. And it has hindered my growth. It has set me back in so many aspects of my life. Because we all just want to be fucking saved, even if the feeling is unconscious. We just want people to know what we’re thinking without us having to say it or ask for it. The truth is that no one is going to save you. I’m not saying that hopelessly, I’m stating a fact. You have to be able to save yourself. You have to be able to write your story and have faith in yourself, even when you’re wrong. And I need to keep reminding myself of that. This is MY life. And I don’t know exactly where I lost control, but it’s time to take it back. I have to learn to be okay with the commentary that will come. And I have to be able to tell myself that whatever I was wrong about was a lesson and grow from it.

The anger and the sadness that have been consuming my life lately are starting to subside. Things are shifting and I am learning to let go of the feelings and memories that cause me pain. I have to stop associating current situations with the memories that I am harboring that caused similar reactions. When I see it happening, I now have the power to change the reaction. I can’t continue to hold on to resentment from things in my past. And I have to be able to turn those situations around now that I’m aware. Controlling what I can and letting go of what I can’t. It’s an insane process and I guess I better start showing up for it.

There will always be people ready to proudly tell you “I told you so” but that’s a them problem, not a you problem. There’s something a little bit wrong with finding joy in someone else’s mistakes. Again, that’s on them. So this is here now for me to continuously refer back to when I need it. And it’s here for you too in case you need a reminder. Everything will be alright. I need to be kind with myself and understand that life is a balance. Things aren’t happening to me, they’re happening for me.

I know it was another all over the place post, but it’s important to write it out here. It is important that I keep telling myself that my destiny is not to be an angry and miserable person. That all of this is happening now so that I can become the person I truly want to be. And most importantly, I don’t need any one else’s input when it comes to the life that I want to live, so it’s up to me to stop actively seeking it out in order to move forward.

As always, thanks for reading and here if you need me 🙂

throw me into the fire, throw me in, pull me out again, “I hate to say I told you so” but they love to say they told me so…

Song name: TOLD YOU SO/ Artist: Paramore/ Year: 2017

SAINT HONESTY

so we won’t sleep tonight while we brace against the wind, oh, these hearts, they’re weather-makers, we’ll go where they take us until we find ourselves shelter again… we won’t settle for the silence, we won’t drown in the tears, we’ll say every single word even if we think they’ll hurt, let the rain wash away these tears… rain on us, Saint Honesty, salvation is coming in the morning, and now what we need is a little rain on our face from you, sweet Saint Honesty…

The last month has been a blur. I’m not okay but I’m doing my best. I’m still on this mission to heal and it’s killing me. I can’t eat much and when I do, I don’t feel right. The only reason why I sleep is because I’m too exhausted to stay awake. There is an empty pit in my stomach and my heart races 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And that’s just on regular days where there is absolutely nothing going on. 

On the days where shit is happening, I don’t know how but I manage to make it through. Just doing my best to make it through the day. I am fine most of the time. But that’s only because this seems to be my life now and I’ve gotten used to dealing with these feelings on a daily basis. I don’t want it to be that way, but I’m too exhausted to fight it.

There is the smallest glimmer of hope that things will change soon and that’s what keeps me going. It’s a tiny twinkle but it’s enough for me. When I manage to control the thoughts and think about all of the good that I have in my life, I genuinely smile and feel grateful. Some people don’t even have that, so that’s a win for me.

The problem with all of this healing is that a lot of shit is making its way out of me. And I’m faced with dusty ass skeletons making their way out of the closet. They make me feel unworthy and awful and creep out at the most inopportune times. They stop me in my tracks and make me want to run and hide. I have managed to isolate myself quite a bit and it’s better that way for now. There is a lot that I can’t cut out of my life or avoid though. And I’m learning how to cope with all of that without feeling guilty for taking the space that I need. Being uncomfortable and angry, but trying as hard as I can to handle it as gracefully as possible. The hardest part in all of this has been waking up to the realization that the important people in my life don’t understand me and might not ever be able to.

If I’m being honest, the most profound realization I’ve come to lately is that I’m toggling between two different worlds. And the longer I try to ignore it, the longer I’ll stay exactly where I am. But facing that fact is scary and makes me feel strange. So I lie to myself or ignore the issues because facing them is scary. This is the only way I know how to be. And it’s not working anymore. And taking that step outside of everything that I know makes me feel all the feelings. What if I change into something that no one recognizes and they don’t like it? Here’s the thing… I can’t care about that. 

The problem is that I still very much care about that. The good news is that I’m finally getting to a place where I care a little bit less. The last couple of weeks have been absolutely brutal and it’s unfortunate that there is a bright shining light on all of the things that make me the most unhappy. And I’m not okay with those things anymore. So at the very least, I’m grateful that I’m not turning a blind eye to those things anymore because it’s easier for everyone else. I’m in a really fucking dark place, and being able to see what makes me unhappiest has been a blessing. Because normally I would just ignore those things for the sake of everyone else. And I realize that I physically cannot do that anymore. So it’s a start.

Now I have to really start putting the work in. The work that I’ve been shoving aside for months and months. It’s time to start being completely honest with myself and working through all of this. I don’t want to be sad girl. Sad girl is not my destiny and I know that now. It feels like my soul is crying out and I can’t ignore it anymore. I get glimpses of what life could be like and I need to hold on tight to that and move with purpose.  I need to stop getting in my own way. I know what I need to do it’s just that breaking old patterns is difficult. But being hyper aware of it is part of the solution and quite frankly, I’m tired of this shit.

So I will say this much. If all you did this year was survive, CHEERS. You deserve a fucking medal! You don’t have to worry about the amazing year that you see your friends post on Instagram. People are out there living their best lives, and that’s AMAZING! I love seeing wonderful things happening for the people that I care about. But you don’t have to use other people’s prosperity as an example for where your life should be. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.

2023 absolutely destroyed me. I’m standing in the ashes of everything that I was. And it’s bleak right now but all I see is a bright future ahead of me. The tears will eventually stop pouring out of me and everything will finally make sense. I know the potential and the strength that lives inside me. And in 2023 I allowed myself to break. But tomorrow when I wake up I won’t give into those bad thoughts or fears anymore. I can’t allow it anymore.

So here’s to better blog posts in 2024. Posts that involve moving out of this very dark place and into a place that serves me and my highest good. A lot of this will be a solo mission, but I have the support I need to push through it. I wish you all nothing but the best in 2024. I appreciate you and I am grateful I get to share this trash fire journey with you! I look forward to the new year and the new adventures ahead.

Goodbye 2023!

oh, we won’t let go, we’ll be soaked to the bone, baptized by truth, we will reap what we sow, build our own higher ground when the rain’s coming down, this is worth it to me, Saint Honesty… rain… salvation is coming in the morning, wait patiently, aiming straight for it, but now what we need, is a little rain on our face from you, sweet Saint Honesty…

Song name: SAINT HONESTY/ Artist: Sara Bareilles/ Year: 2019