We all know the famous saying “ To be or not to be” by William Shakespeare. We have read the book and discussed the lines but we forget sometimes to just be. To just be us to not be what the world is telling us to be. We fight our whole lives to become adults- we rush through childhood. We become adults and forget what it is like to enjoy the simplicities of life no matter what age. Rather it is watching a sunset with a few friends or taking a walk by yourself with no human insight. We take in so much on a daily basis whether it is from social media to books that we read, everything affects us. Some people understand how much others don’t.
I am a highly sensitive person that also happens to be an empath(I’ll go into depth in another blog for those who don’t understand). Most of my life I was diagnosed with one mental illness from bipolar to schizophrenia and more in-between from a very young age. It took reading a lot of books and finding a few great therapists (since its really hard to find one you “connect” with) to find out that my moods sometimes reflects others, and that I needed to learn how to control my emotions more than the other persons’ emotions were affecting me.
Now mind you I failed to tell my family a lot of my progress with my mental health, in recent years. Being the youngest in a family where they run the opposite way from emotions, let's just say I was the ugly duckling if you will. Instead of trying to figure out why, and asking the 7-year-old that is freaking out about picking a cereal. They just made charts on what days had what cereals. Since there couldn’t be too many choices and I didn’t feel rushed at all (sarcasm for those who don’t know me).
I have learned from some of my past. I am not saying that It’s my family's fault for everything, but I feel like I could not talk about anything when I wanted to when it came to me. I was always the trouble. The first one in the family with mental health and quite frankly it was like I was a soiled sheet that was never washed or dealt with. Looking back on it now it was like how they were perceived and how I was supposed to behave mattered more to them then I did. I can not recall being asked how I felt being on meds for what seemed like forever, how being on medication from such a young age I knew would affect how my brain developed, but I couldn't speak up about any of that.
I have made so much progress with my mental health and whenever I tried to approach the subject of going full time my mothers’ and grandmothers’ response always was that I would not be able to handle that. It always pissed me off, they always seemed to see me as a 12-year old that had tantrums and screamed when I didn’t get my way. It seemed that unless I was there to care of family members or help people move I was not needed- it got tiresome.
I had to take steps to be more of me and not more of the me my family still saw. Cutting ties with my maternal side (since I only talked to my father [parents are divorced] and stopped talking to him too) besides my two cousins, was kind of the best thing I ever did for myself. I have grown and continue to go since I have more positive in my life. It was a life-changing day when I realized how negative my family was and how I really did not want to be like them. I honestly can’t tell you when it was or where it was, but it was a light bulb that has never turned off since, and I have strived to work towards every day since.
I hope that when you are done reading this you will take the time to go over your life and see where you are not happy and what changes YOU can make. Don’t count on anyone else to make them, for only you are the one that can do what needs to be done. You have the strength inside of you, it’s been wanting to surface- let it surface. Do a pro/con list, write a list of your dream and the steps you need to get there a 5-year plan a 3-year plan, whatever it takes. Baby steps are still steps and you are still moving forward. Don’t focus on what you have failed at, focus on how far you have come.
~Until the next different type of view~ RoriLelu
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