I am Me

Acceptance of yourself is hard enough.  But it becomes even harder when you notice the people around you treating you differently because of your own differences. It shouldn’t be that way, but the reality is that people look and treat you differently because you are different. One minute I might be happy And I could be strolling down the street humming a song. A couple minutes later something may have triggered me and tears may be streaming down my face. Am I still a human being? Absolutely. But I have feelings and I am no different than you. I am still trying to succeed in life, I still have goals, and I still worked extremely hard to reach those goals and to succeed in life.

I have worked very hard to get to where I am today. I have a Masters degree and three certifications. Do I currently use them? No. Because right now I am working on my own health and that is what needs to come first right now. Excepting that was a hard feat for me but it is something that I have come to accept and something that I wish others would not look down on me for. It's something I need not look down on MYSELF for. Do I need help, do I need assistance? Yes. And is that a bad thing? No.  Does that make me less of a person? Does that make me any less important of a person? No. In my eyes it doesn’t. But in your eyes it might. And is that fair? No! It absolutely isn’t. But I’m going to keep living my life, and I’m going to try to ignore the perceptions of other people and the judgments that they placed against me. Because I’m going to keep singing my song regardless. This is my life and I’m doing what I need to do to take care of me.

I have invested way too much  since I started treatment at the age of 13 and being at the age of 30, it’s hard to look back and realize just how much of my life has been lost to mental illness. I am working on taking my life back and having control of the things that I can control. And letting go of the things that I cannot control. And the fact that people treat me differently, the fact that I’ve lost so many friends due to the fact that I have mental illness, that is out of my control And that is something I am trying to learn to let go of.

So here I am, singing my song, and living my life, because that is what I need to do for me. And if that’s not OK with you, I am not sorry because this is my life. And I am going to live it, for me.

I didn’t ask for this...

I didn’t ask for mental illness. I didn’t ask for the injustices that were done against me to be done. The mental health illnesses that have been created have been intensified due to the injustices that have multiplied over the years. The things that I go through on a daily basis I have tried over and over again to talk about freely and advocate for myself to help others understand. I am constantly judged for these things and looked down upon. My hope is that one day others can speak about their experiences openly and not be judged And that people can live their lives freely, experience their hurts, go through their falls, and not be looked down upon for it. Yes, I have my faults, and I didn’t ask for the majority of them.

6 Months of ME

It took me a good 10 minutes to figure out what to name this entry.

Do I name this blog "success"? Do I name this "recovery"? Health? Steps in the "right" direction?

It's hard to determine if I'm having success. If this is true recovery. If I'm really healthy. If I'm headed in the "right" direction. But then I tell myself, struggling with mental health leads you on a road of a life long term of recovery. Am I healthy? I'm healthier. I choose healthier coping, yes. Do I fall? Yes. We all do. And if we lie to ourselves that we don't than we're in denial. No one is perfect. We all have our demons we may give in to, the things we're trying to stay away from and may do from time to time. If we can choose healthy things in their place we can rightly reward ourselves and agree that "yes" we are taking care or ourselves and may be headed in the "right" direction, wherever that be leading us.

From the age of 9 I started hurting myself. It's safe to say that much younger than that I was fighting a demon darker than I knew how to handle.

By the age of 13 I had my first hospitalization and suicide attempt. I really don't know statistics from there on out, but I do know that from September 2016-September 2017, there were 6 attempts alone.

In the last 6 months, AS OF TODAY, there have been 0 attempts.

0. Zero.

I have not been in a hospital for 7 months and 23 days.

I may not have it "all" together. I may not have the "picture perfect life." 

I may go to to therapy every week, the psychiatrist every month, and have an intensive case manager that comes to my house a couple times a month....

But this has been 6 months of me, living, breathing, no attempts, in MY community OUT of a hospital...

When you've spent more days than not in a hospital from 13-29 years of age, this is kind of a win. So I'm not sorry to write a post about it. This is kind of important. And if it's not to you, well then, I'm sorry you took the time to read it.

since my last attempt

since my last psychiatric hospitalization

The storm will NOT defeat me

“The storm is out there and every one of us must eventually face the storm. When the storm comes, pray that it will shake you to your roots and break you wide-open. Being broken open by the storm is your only hope. When you are broken open you get to discover for the first time what is inside you. Some people never get to see what is inside them; what beauty, what strength, what truth and love. They were never broken open by the storm. So, don't run from your pain — run into your pain. Let life's storm shatter you.” 
― Bryant McGill

I read this quote on someones wall tonight and it really had me thinking.
WOW. Yes, and sometimes seeing such beauty, seeing any amount of strength, it scares us. What is the "truth?" And love? Are we capable of such a thing? Someone to love us? I mean, sure. but to love ourselves? How dare we. To think that these things are inside of us is such a scary thing. It's a new concept after the storm has wiped us down for so long and tried to take away all of those things and mask what was good.

It's the rewiring of the pathways and living out of lives and believing that there IS goodness in us, in our TRUE and GOOD selves AFTER the storm that is sometimes JUST as HARD as the actual storm itself.
YES, there... 
And why?
Because we still have all these painful memories we're finally feeling strong enough to process, so there's that.
I have PTSD from multiple sexual traumas, from childhood, a few times in my teenage years, and at 19 and 23. The pay back for that is not the discussion here, it is part of the big storm I am referencing.

We're trying to function in life, but we don't believe in ourselves, so when we have setbacks, we're extra hard on ourselves and can't find the good in ourselves quite yet because that rewiring of the pathways hasn't been successful yet.

And to even begin to structure our days, to find a way out of this antagonizing pain we have lived in our whole lives. How do we ever get out of such a rut? 
We work as hard as we can, we get up each day. We challenge ourselves. And damnit, we fight. Because we are warriors. 

Not every day is a good day. But I'll tell you right now, March 6, 2018, age 30 is better than March 6, 2017, age 29. And I'll take that as a win. I am out of the hospital for 7 months and 17 days and on March 12th I'll have gone 6 months with NO suicide attempts. (From just Aug 2016-Sep 2017 resulted in 6 attempts, I call the last 6 months a win. Will not even go IN to what my first hospitalization at age 13-the last 16 years have looked like.)

Like I said, not every day is a good day. It can't be. Or you wouldn't appreciate the good days. I'm doing better than I ever have, for what that's worth, I'll take it. Somehow, someday, I'll be on top.

After the latest slip, I deciding to live.

It is summarized from the "Color Atlas of Forensic Medicine and Pathology" that when hanging, one can find themselves theoretically to have lost consciousness after 15-20 seconds, or to have suffered irreversible brain damage within 4-6 minutes.

I laid with my neck in that rope for 6 minutes at 23 seconds before gaining consciousness and began to lift myself off the ground and figure out a way to maneuver myself out of the mess I had created.

Now, my full body weight was not engaged in this, however, I was most definitely being drained from cutting of the circulation and was losing pressure.

However, I lived.

Once again, I survived. God was with me. And damnit, it was a sign. RIGHT in front of my face, obvious as it can be, clear as a bell, "YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!"

"STOP what you are doing, and LIVE a little!!! not a little.. but a LOT!"

"YOU have REASONS to LIVE... go out and DO it!"

And here I am today.

I may not have it all. But I have life. and THAT is something to be thankful for.

I may the aftermath of some mental health problems, but I am conquering them day after day.

I am surviving. I am a SURVIVOR. And I can and WILL survive life.

I have overcome SO much in life. There is NOTHING that is going to stop me.

Not the 5 people who I thought took my life away from abuse, not the people who have called me terrible names, not the people who hurt me, not myself, not past relationships, not my poor self image, self esteem, body image, boundary issues, poor relationships, being fired, having no money to fall on, the fear of losing my apartment and car, not being sick and struggling through a lifetime of hospitalizations....

NOTHING will stop ME from success.

I made a decision after my last suicide attempt to LIVE and THAT is what I am going to do.

Let it be known, since the age of 13, I have attempted suicide more times than I am aware. But in just the last year, I have tried 5 times. 

NO more. I am LIVING my life.

I made an oath in August when I joined an amazing company, Younique, to be positive. I had made MANY changes at that time... new job, new apartment, leaving 2 other jobs, new church, moving away from my girlfriend for a new start, all in addition to Younique, ALL within the same week or two... I was determined it would provide stability and structure.

I may have lost the means to provide the stability. BUT, I will not lose the structure, and I will FIND a NEW way for the stability because I am a PROBLEM SOLVER who is DETERMINED to SUCCEED.

I am on board the game of life. And I've got this. God's got this. We've got this.

I've got me.

Life....

"You have such a positive attitude."
"You're in such good spirits compared to other people"

It's stressful to say the least.

And I just want to do well.

I don't know how to do that right now.

And right now, that is all I have to say.

Disney Movies remind us to find HOPE

"Maybe some moments weren't so perfect
Maybe some memories not so sweet
But we have to know some bad times
For our lives are incomplete

Then when the shadows overtake us
Just when we feel all hope is gone
We'll hear our song, and know once more
Our love lives on

How does a moment last forever
How does our happiness endure
Through the darkest of our troubles
Love is beauty, love is pure

Minutes turn to hours
Days to years, then gone
But when all else has been forgotten
Still our song lives on"

It was at the end of Disney's latest version of, "Beauty and the Beast," that tears actually started coming down my eyes.
Cheesy?
Maybe.
But Belle fought for her father. She wanted him to live his life so he took his place in the castle.
In the mean time, she fell in love. In doing so, she saved the lives of all the people in the caste and her fathers, too! She saved her own life, as well.

And it was no easy fight.
There were certainly hard days, for sure. But she made it through. And her father sure had his hard times, but he didn't give up, either, no matter what he had to go through and no matter how many people didn't believe him about there being a "Beast" in the "Castle" in the "snowy land." They wanted to lock him up and throw away the key just when Belle showed up, and then they went to lock them BOTH up to go and kill the "terrible" Beast.

In the end, it's all happy.
Can't life always be that way.
A great... BIG... "Happy" Ending?

Disney movies have a way of doing that.
But they can give you hope.
Hope to keep fighting when no one wants to believe you about your struggles.
Hope to keep fighting when people take advantage of your trust in them.
Hope to keep fighting when it seems like all hope has been lost.
Hope to keep fighting when others do things that in turn seem to destroy you, but you have every ability to put one foot in front of the other and say, "No, today I am strong and capable and I will NOT let this destroy me."

Let your life have a happy ending.
You are capable of making YOUR ending a happy one. Why not start now?