I used to fit myself into these small boxes of what I thought was going to be the best for me. An example I’d go to raves to spend time with my friends because I felt like they didn’t want to hangout with me if it wasn't something like that. It used to be fun to party with friends as well, since it’s what my friends wanted. But at the end of all of it, the people who I thought would be around for a while weren’t.
I thought if I didn’t go out every weekend and act like I was happy, people would know that I wasn’t. It became a coping mechanism, I’d be able to forget about the terrible shit going on around me and the mentality that my depression was something that could be hidden through fake smiles and laughing. I was letting this anger, sadness and hate become the last thing on my mind because I couldn’t focus on anything other than that.
I thought that living this lifestyle was going to be the easiest way to forget about the pain, I thought having “party” friends was the key to it all. When I realized I was unhappy with this and with who I was, I felt like DROWNING. I felt like I'd lose all my “friends” which I ended up doing anyways. It really felt like no one wanted to be around me when this want of validation from all this stopped. I remember telling my mom over and over again that it felt lonely, but when it became lonely now that’s something else.I haven’t been a wild friend in a long time, I calmed down, focused on fitness and clearly fighting my depression. This year has been a world wind of emotions for everyone, I’ve learned who my real friends are, the friends to keep in contact with every so often, and then people who aren’t meant to be permanent.
When your depression gets so bad, and you can’t go longer than 30 minutes without crying, and you stop eating for a month and a half. Now that’s the person who was afraid to be shown all these years, that's the girl who would crave to go out dancing instead of dealing with it. And when I say this, I am so thankful the party stopped, I’m thankful my heart got broken by numerous people, I’m thankful to have realized that sometimes family isn’t always blood, and I am thankful for the fight. I’ve fought the monsters inside my head, my heart and the monsters around me. I have become someone who doesn’t take shit from no one, who doesn’t let people walk all over her, and most of all someone who enjoys being alone. Which for someone with severe depression and anxiety is huge. But now, I value the time I spend adventuring through the city, I value the time I spend reading my book on cold park benches, I value singing in the shower, at home yoga, and most of all I value spending time analyzing my emotions and thoughts that are burning inside my mind. Now, I don’t wish this upon anyone, but the time I spent feeling lost has shown me there’s so much power in being lost.
Over the last four months, I’ve practiced self awareness and wellness, I’ve stepped outside of my comfort zone, and most of all I think I’ve discovered who I am. And in honour of tooting my own horn, I’m the person I’ve always wanted to be, but who’s been too scared to evolve too. Sometimes you have to lose everything around you, and be completely at “rock bottom” in order to pick yourself up and try and fix it. You have to experience the pain of feeling your heart be completely shattered and lost, I felt like I was stuck inside a snowglobe for so long watching everyone around me live a completely different life. But now, as cliche as it is I’m the main character and I’ve been able to find coping mechanisms that are dependent on healing, and manifesting the life I know I will have.
It all starts with the fire inside of yourself, discovering healing and focusing on myself is lonely, yes, but it also is the best feeling in the whole world. I’ve been working intensely on practicing the love I give others onto myself, I’ve been working on being alone, or even just letting myself cry when I feel like it. I’ve learned to take my anger out on the gym, which sucks but is also liberating and there’s no harm done when you're running until you almost vomit. I also learned to journal my thoughts, I will write endless pages of emotions and vibrations that threw me off, I also at the end of each entry write “thank you for these emotions you wrote, and thank you for handling them this way”. I know it’s easy to get caught up in the negatives, I mean we are in a global pandemic but practicing gratitude is a work of art in it’s own. It helps you show some of the tiniest shit you’d never even think of being grateful for, but you are, the one for me that I never appreciated was a warm bed to come home to everynight. Which I never would have started becoming grateful for if it wasn’t due to volunteering. Do not be afraid to get uncomfortable, to get scared, anxious, or heartbroken, because sometimes you have to understand these emotions in order to find something new.
This is an homage to the girl I used to be, the one who was afraid of life, I can promise it gets better.
To anyone struggling to find who you are, it will happen you will get there I can promise.