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alliekatsblog-blog · 6 years ago

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Writing The Pain Away

Disclaimer: some phrases are direct quotes from the book wonder over worry and from there, reflected on how it applies to me personally.

It has been approximately a year since I have left home and tried to make it on my own. My failures have come full circle as I am home once again, working, and doing my chores— everything I was supposed to do in the first place. Over the past few months, experience has made me wiser in a way no one should ever have to learn a lesson, but as I have come to realize, it was necessary for me to grow (even if it was a horrific experience). I want to have an open communication with you so that I am open and honest, no longer lying to myself or others; that is the foundation of moving forward.

I will spare you the details of eating out of garbage cans, living with total stranger in between living with “friends”, sleeping in bathrooms, and almost having a criminal charge for stealing food so that I could eat for the first time in four days. Simply put: it was really hard in many ways. The hardships went so far as to be sexually assaulted in Planet Hollywood, which is where many women are sold for sex trafficking. I am blessed to have survived. Without a doubt, I lost my way. Last year, I was religious and happy, things going neutral with my relationships with my parents (that’s a huge improvement from the usual constant arguing). I will talk mostly about how these experiences led me to suicide and what I have learned from the advice from my parents, professionals, and total strangers who have no motive to steer me right or wrong. Each perspective was helpful and unique in different ways.

My parents have never been perfect—what human is? I, myself, am extremely flawed. Something I’ve learned from reading self-help books, talking to therapists from everyone ranging from Mr. Moses to Ms. Mia Perry is that my upbringing has played a huge role in who I am today. It is a mixture of both nature and nurture. I am, by nature, bipolar, depression, ADHD, and anxiety. And that’s okay. It cannot be helped—it is a chemical imbalance that cannot be controlled. Something that could have been controlled was the abuse and sadness I endured. From the very day of our birth there are things that will change who we are and how we see the world. I saw abuse and felt insecure, stupid, and degraded for as long as my memory goes back. That’s not totally the fault of my parents—part of it is, but it is also based on things outside their control. There are so many factors that made me feel less than for a long time. I felt low and terrible about myself and knew I was different, disliked, and many other things among my peers around second grade. The point of no return happened around middle school. Physical abuse stopped, but emotional abuse continued. And what I came to realize, is that while the delivery was missing the mark, my parents only acted this way to protect me. They may not have acted in a way that I wished they would have been— more gently supportive—but they did that while I was going up and was not effective. That is my fault. I was not receptive to that method, so they had to change tactics at some point. My parents are not to blame for everything—only their actions and it’s my responsibility to take blame for my actions as well.

From the eighth grade to this very day I have felt like a slut. I’m not going to go into detail about that, but it was a very big part of who I thought I was (more on that later). My depression deepened but I was not honest with myself and therefore could never tell doctors how I felt properly, only saying I am feeling fine and so on and so forth. For many years I couldn’t get on the right medication. That is also my fault. I lied to others for so many years because I was lying to myself.

The “missed high five” happened in high school. My parents gave me unconditional love, support, freedom, happy memories, and many smiles. It was me who was not putting in an effort. I had not forgiven my parents in the way they forgave me. My mom and dad were trying to move on from the past and work for a better future, but I was stuck in the past. I was deaf, dumb, and blind to the hard work my parents put in to giving me a better future. That’s around the time I started going to therapy, if my memory serves correctly. I was so resistant to any and all help given to me because I was in denial about my parents’ love, living in the past. However, with Dr. Trent (mildly) and Dr. Mia Perry, I have been slowly starting to heal from the trauma that I faced, making me feel ready to move forward. It is hard work, but I can feel the difference in my heart. The easiest way to describe it is that my heart no longer feels black.

The feelings of being a slut, a dumb girl, unworthy, unlovable—and many other derogative adjectives that I refuse to speak of because they are nothing more than lies—are the emotions that became too strong to cope with in Las Vegas.

Now to the true point of this open letter to myself and my parents.

I have come to realize many things this past year—the obvious true value of family, the dark reality of friendships, abusive relationship, finding love in all the wrong places, degrading my self-worth, esteem, and betraying my personal values to please others.

I would like to digress for a moment and talk about Miley Cyrus. She was a sweet and young girl before the Disney channel, but fell into bad behaviors and making bad choices. She did this to experiment and find herself, enjoying the fast party life. It was all about having fun. Within the past year, she found herself again. You can even hear this in her music, “Malibu” and most recently (and the one that hits home for me) “Slide Away”.

Woo ooh, woo ooh, woo ooh

Once upon a time, it was paradise

Once upon a time, I was paralyzed

Think I'm gonna miss these harbor lights

But it's time to let it go

Once upon a time, it was made for us

Woke up one day, it had turned to dust

Baby, we were found, but now we're lost

So it's time to let it go

I want my house in the hills

Don't want the whiskey and pills

I don't give up easily

But I don't think I'm down

So won't you slide away

Back to the ocean, I'll go back to the city lights

So won't you slide away

Back to the ocean, la la la, you'll slide away

So won't you slide away

Back to the ocean, I'll go back to the city lights

So won't you slide away

Back to the ocean, la la la, you'll slide away

Once upon a time, it was paradise

Once upon a time, I was paralyzed

Think I'm gonna miss these harbor lights

But it's time to let it go

Once upon a time, it was made for us (For us)

Woke up one day, it had turned to dust

Baby, we were found, but now we're lost

So it's time to let it go

Move on, we're not 17

I'm not who I used to be

You say that everything changed

You're right, we're grown now

So won't you slide away

Back to the ocean, I'll go back to the city lights

So won't you slide away

Back to the ocean, la la la, you'll slide away

So won't you slide away

Back to the ocean, I'll go back to the city lights

So won't you slide away

Back to the ocean, la la la, you'll slide away

Move on, we're not 17

I'm not who I used to be

You say that everything changed

You're right, we're grown now

This song made me break down in tears for around thirty minutes because I could relate to her so much. Sure, I didn’t drink alcohol very often and never did any drugs beyond weed, but it still hold true. No matter how “harmless” it seemed, it took a major toll in a way I could not see.

Who I am, This is Me

I have many talents and gifts within me that have gone years untapped and abandoned. I will not let these gifts given to me by God die inside without making a change in this world. Tomorrow may never come, so it is my responsibility to put in the hard work to make those changes today. Why wait for tomorrow when you can make a change today? There are many thoughts that come to our minds—who are you to do this? Will anyone care? They are better than you—but those are worries. To live a full life we must choose wonder over worry. I worry about imperfections and mistakes I make, living a life with nothing but regret. I worry I’ll never repair my family relationships. I have a million ideas I want to go for but do not know how and I’m afraid I’ll never make my mom happy. I’m being forced into the grownup world and realism but I’m also not someone I recognize anymore.

I am faced with a choice each and every day of my life that I have to make an effort to really change my life. I have to tame my thoughts and worry to make room for wonder. I have to say, “hello judgment/anxiety. I see you and know you’re trying to keep me safe, but what you’re doing isn’t always healthy. I’m on an important adventure and you are forbidden from navigating it. Worry has manifested into myths I believe about myself, but that’s just the problem: they are myths and there is no merit to what they say about me. I am not smart enough. I am not talented enough. I am not attractive enough. I am not powerful enough. I am not strong enough. I am not lovable enough. I am not perfect enough. All these myths held me back and made me feel as though I wasn’t worthy of real love and acceptance from people who care, so I turned to abusive boyfriends and weed. We can let myths determine our lives or we can move on and create a new story that lets us thrive. That is how we choose wonder over worry.

We will always find evidence for what we choose to believe about ourselves based on self-perception. Sometimes those perspectives serve us positively and others will tether us to never growing up and becoming who we are meant to be. As individuals, we must live out our wild truth—for me, it’s a writer who becomes a figure to change lives of others, to be a caring wife and mother, get more piercings and dye my hair, go to college and get my degree… mostly, I want to express “wild child” personality in a more responsible way that is acceptable for my age, values, morals, and religion. When I try to live up to the mirage of what another person wants my life to look like—Mom, Dad, abusive boyfriends, fake friends—I am literally killing myself, slowly and painfully. I will lose my soul and purpose in life. I must always obey who I am, the vision I have for myself, and who I need to be to find my own happiness. When I am where I want to be, secure and safe, others will see my change and will be willing to have me in their life. I have betrayed myself trying so hard to the point of tears and anxiety attacks to be what I envisioned as a “perfect daughter”. I did it again trading myself and who I am for the sling of boys who don’t care about me. I didn’t listen because I didn’t know who or what I was. Nothing connected to my heart the way I am starting to connect now. I learned that in the past I have been a person who is vulnerable to change who I am to please others. That is one of my most toxic traits, even if the “change” is for the “better”. I can’t change who I am, but I can change my bad habits. There is no reason for me to be someone I’m not in personality if I am a good soul. I’ve also learned that I have to live in this moment. Thinking too far into the future and my path made me anxious because I saw who I am now in twenty years; by doing this I lost precious time today. I have learned to ask myself this simple yet complicated question: What’s true for you in this moment, and how will you live it out?

I have thought of three times that I lived in the moment and it made me grow for the better.

*going to college—I won’t make the same mistakes when I go back and I learned how to be among people who are equally as smart as me, who I can connect with and learn new things

*learning how to write because I am now able to see a brighter future for myself

*talking to Haider because even though it was rocky for a while, I was able to grow into a smarter woman who is much more prepared for a serious commitment with a quality man who my family likes

When I feel as though there are no reasons to continue in this moment, during a depressive episode, I realize that I must become one with my mental storm, move along with it, lean into the rain, listen to what it says to me, and use it as fuel to move forward. I must learn to love even the darkest parts of who I am because I am never going to part with those negative thoughts—even if I have the more than other people, other people still suffer from the same thing. I am not alone. The only way to move with the darkness until I reach the light, I have to ask myself: What’s the right next move? I must ask this question every single step of the way up the stairs of success. Even though I am scared, I am ready t repair my relationship with my parents, go to college, and work my way up the ladder at work. My next move is to communicate to my parents how I feel in a letter (hi there daddy! I took the first step!) I also need to pay my loans off (preferably by the hundreds! Since I’m at $700 now, if I take $100 each month, I’ll pay it off in 7 months, but maybe a little longer since I’m paying rent to mom from now on. Either way, it’s still progress. I won’t pay the $25 minimum because I REFUSE to settle for going back to school by 2021.)

Through minimalism and the lifestyle it brings, I’ve started asking myself, “What brings me joy?” with material items, but I am now asking myself that with every aspect of my life, which is why I did not hang out with that girl from work. Being high, committing crimes, and drinking are not things that spark joy inside me (though that was my intention with taking part in those things). I used to want to do things that made me happy, but I’ve come to realize that those things did not bring joy and thus were destroying me. Things that spark joy within me may not align with every single aspect of what my parents want for me, what Haider wants for me, what my “friends” wanted for me, but that’s okay. I am my own person and I have to find my own path… Just because I’m not a perfect daughter doesn’t mean I’m a slut, a smoker (anymore), or any other extreme. I have found a balance that makes me happy. And from there, I can build myself up to be a better person who I aspire to be.

This is my time to shine my light as bright as the sun. Two things will come from this: you find those who support you and who are threatened by it—who are the ones who bring you down, even if they don’t intend to? My fake friends were threatened by my talents that made my work make me a CT before any of them. In a way, Mom and I are both doing this to each other. The difference between family and friends is clear: we still love each other and will overcome this. Fake friends are only there when things are convenient with them. By taking time apart (or cutting people out completely) allows you to protect your energy. I have to be myself one hundred percent of the time, without fail because if I am not true to myself, I will always hold onto self-hatred and never grow. The people who should be in my life are the ones who feed my soul—family, Iman, Selma (who I met in college and helps me remember God and includes me in her prayers). Everyone is worthy of human decency and respect but not everyone is worthy of my love.

I still have a long way to go, but this past year has not gone without a major metamorphosis that has made me a better person, no matter how gruesome the experience was. My next targets are: feeling shame, unlovable, defeat, “imposter syndrome”, hiding, judgment (towards myself), jealousy (not so much this it it’s still a good skill to have anyway), anger (in more depth), suffering, avoidance, overwhelming feelings/anxiety (more in depth), loss, addiction to fake love, perfectionism and it’s unrealistic expectations, applying wisdom, feeling whole, beginning my true journey, and feeling complete with a full and graceful heart.

#worry not #be strong #be brave #strong #faithful

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alliekatsblog-blog · 6 years ago

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Tribute To My Teachers

For many years I have been in a creative slump. Partly it was due to my depression, sucking the life force out of my body with every breath. Partly it was due to a lack of inspiration. Mostly though, it was because I had lost my mentor. Growing up, I'd always loved reading and have always had a great imagination. I enjoyed everything from the Magic Treehouse books to the Boxcar Children all the way to reading the Odyssey. Every teacher I had knew reading was my passion within weeks of meeting me. As a child with severe ADHD, I had always been the firecracker, so to speak, of the classroom. To calm me down, they would allow me to read. After a single picture book or chapter, I would be able to return to my desk and finish my work. Then I would be rewarded with more time to read my books again.

In the second grade this method was taken a step further by Ms. Daniels. I would draw my imaginary friends inside my notebooks instead of doing my classwork. She would make mathmatical word problems involving them, a secret kept between us alone. In English, they were used as examples. In my mind, seeing these characters buy twenty-two watermelons and dividing then among friends and so on and so forth gave my imaginary friends life. They were no longer stuck figures on paper, but whole entities with personalities and lives of their own. These friends stuck with me over the years as I was (to no surprise) the nerdy weird child who was bullied. Sometimes, if I was lucky enough to come across a few friends who would temporarily make my life better, would leave for one reason or another. To hide from the bullies, avoid the friends I'd made and lost, and to avoid all schoolwork that wasn't "fun", I would go to the library.

It was a magical kingdom where I could get lost and entire a whole new world, leaving the reality of everyday. Reading helped me cope with child abuse, isolation, lack of social interactions, and general problems that made me uncomfortable. Sitting on the floor and getting lost in a spy novel, reading a paranormal romance at night under the covers so your parents don't notice (though they always did) made me feel safe.

Who would have thought that such an avid reader would become a writer? Not me. Well, I can't really say that. I'd always had a skill for writing essays and papers, making them sound "mature" for my age. I could write an argumentative essay with enough ethos to make anyone's heart burst. But I never saw that as a talent. I saw it as a way to pass my English class because Lord knew I wasn't doing well in any other class other than history.

Enter my True Mentor: Dr. Stanton Simandle, my sixth and seventh grade English teacher. I'm friends with him on Facebook and while he hardly ever is online, seeing his profile makes my heart burst every time. See, he'd gotten a PhD, been a principal for a school, taught English, published books, and had many years worth of experience underneath him to know children, their weaknesses and strengths, and how to apply them. He told us great advixe that comes only from living and learning from mistakes. Once, he told my mother that my older brother would not make it in college. Come time for my brother's first semester of college, he dropped out. (Right again, Dr. S!) But Dr. Simandle also saw something in my brother that no one else saw: a lot of potential. He went into detail of ways my brother could be successful without a college degree. Lo and behold, that's exactly what ended up happening to my brother. He's smart, successful, recently married. He "has it all". In regards to me, Dr. S knew college would be hard. Trailing with C's and D's, sometimes an F, which would be bumped up at the last moment was not going to be an easy fix. He knew that once I got the prerequisite math and science classes over, that I would enjoy my English degree and make many friends who I could connect to on an intellectual level. That being said, I needed to make it to that point. In order to fuel my fire to get there, he challenged my writing abilities. With our creative writing prompts and essays, I genuinely believe he graded me far more harshly as my writing improved. He did that to help me grow as a writer and I would soak in his opinion like a sponge. His writing assessment grading system ranged from 1-4. By seventh grade, my first four assignments were at a solid 4.5 (a rare grade only for stories without a single flaw or the stories that were so creative and well-paced). I had gotten a few 4.5 grades in the year previous, but I would usually have 3-4's.

At the end of each year with him, Dr. Simandle would conduct the challenge that changed my life. We had to self-publish a book on Amazon. Everyone did it, he would edit the stories. This would go on for the last two months of the school year; if you didn't do it, then you would fail the class (even if you had nothing but 4.5 papers the entire year).

Spending nights drawing inspiration from the books I'd read and creating the world I wanted to live in took my breath away. And, much to my surprise I would write about my imaginary friends— how they would interact in the situations I would throw their way.

I did this publishing twice. With the confidence I gained from this man springed me into high school, where I took honors IB classes (these are AP classes on steroids). I didn't get the certificate for IB, but I was allowed to continue the honors class for English and take basic classes for all other subjects. My writing impressed everyone and by the time I was a senior, I decided to be an English teacher. I could tutor and help almost every single student who needed me when the teacher was busy. It made me feel alive. More importantly, I would also be a writer and continue my passion without restraint.

When college came around, things were rough and I fell off my path by choosing a career path I didn't have a talent for (envrionmental science technicology, I'll make a post about that some other time). It made life harder, I dropped out, now I have to pay off the last of my student loans before I can go back to school. But this time, I know what I want and I know who I am. I'll make Dr. Simandle proud, yes, but more importantly, I'll follow my heart and fulfill the piece of me that has been missing for the past year and a half.

I'm coming, world.

#writing #writers on tumblr #writing prompt #teacher #teachings #mentor #booknerd #booklover

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