Crossroads: Hold On, You're Coming Home
There are many different times in our lives where we come to a dead end, or rather a crossroad where we have to decide to continue on the same path, take a detour, or simply change our destination. Sometimes we end up making a decision that ended up being good for us, and sometimes we end up making a decision that took something or someone away from us that we really weren’t ready to lose. And now we have to live in this pain every day over that decision. The thing about being human though is we all make mistakes, and we all take the consequences for these mistakes. However, there is this thing called forgiveness that allows us freedom from the pain and trauma of any and all bad decisions we have ever made. Freedom isn’t easy to always come by as many people do not know how to let go of their own pain to forgive someone else.
Many individuals spend so much energy and time in their lives suffering from pain that isn’t even theirs. They suffer from hate towards other people, something that they have full control over. You can change your perspective in any situation if you really try hard enough. Hating that person, or day, or event is only hurting yourself. I can guarantee anyone else involved has moved on and is not letting this affect themselves the way you are allowing it to affect you. Why are you allowing this certain thing that happened to hurt you? I know you most definitely cannot love the feeling of pain, so why? Life is much too short to allow yourself to be miserable over something you have full control over, even if you feel like you have no control; try to gain control and you will.
I cannot tell you how many countless days I spent over the last five and a half years of my life hating myself in every way that I possibly could, to the extremes of self harm because I seriously felt I was so worthless. Looking back I wish someone had told me right to my face how much of a waste of my time that was, how I deserved better for myself. It took a lot of my own strength to get me to where I am today, I did not have someone by my side every step of the way in the ways that I needed. I wish I had had someone because it was a very lonely, and confusing process of figuring out who I really was and finding my worth within myself. If you have someone by your side helping in your recovery, bless their heart, you are a very lucky person to have someone love and care for you even in the most broken state that you are in.
Over the years I ended up coming to the same crossroads over and over again. I unfortunately chose to stay on the same self destructive path I was on. I chose this over and over again because my misery was my comfort zone. I didn’t know anything other that misery and as soon as I would feel like I was getting slightly better, I would feel weird because I wasn’t use to being happy and I would stop going to therapy or taking my medications. This is unfortunately extremely common within mental illnesses, but I am telling you it is a rigorous cycle and please stick to your treatment plans. It is extremely uncomfortable changing your entire life, actually being happy every single day, but it is time. It is time for you to leave all that misery behind and start a new life for yourself. You deserve it!
It took me to hit the farthest rock bottom that I could possibly hit with a suicide attempt. My wake up call was death. Please do not allow death to be your own wake up call, if you are reading this right now and know you are at rock bottom, you will rise. I promise you that you will. Death had to look me in the face for me to make the decision that I needed to get off this road and change my destination or I won’t have my life anymore. I won’t get married, I will never become a mother, and thinking about these dreams I have always had gave me motivation to change my path.
I took my life into my own hands. I stopped believing that my mental illnesses is all that I was and started believing in the person I truly am and that the mental illnesses are just an addition to me that can be easily managed. I took the initiative to change my life for the better. You can too. You too can change and become the person you are meant to be. You were not put here on this Earth to endure trauma and live it over and over again every single day. Find the strength within yourself to believe you deserve happiness in whatever form that may be to you.
For those with someone who is at the bottom right now. This message is for you. Do you remember a time you were at rock bottom? Do you remember the feelings you felt? The thoughts you thought? How you desperately wished for someone, anyone to fight for you because you were struggling fighting for yourself? I know I remember all of these things. Please open your heart and let out your hand to whoever this person or people may be within your life. Let them know they are not suffering alone, that you are with them.
Much too often we meet people and decide we don’t like a certain trait about them. We decide well I know there is someone out there who doesn’t have this trait and then I won’t have to deal with it anymore. These traits could be an illness, addiction, literally anything. So, we leave this person because we think there are a million people out there and one of them has to not have that trait, so that will then make you happy. What we don’t realize is we build an entire life and relationship with someone, just to not like one trait about them, leave thinking we will find someone without that trait and be better off, but instead we spend our entire lives looking for the perfect person that does not exist. Everyone has bad traits, trauma changes people. You will find yourself in a continual cycle. This new person may not have the old person’s trait, but they have a new one of their own you don’t like, so you leave to find someone without that trait. End the cycle.
Realize that no one is perfect. No one can recover from anything by themselves they simply do not have the strength to do so. People need people. Good people. Surround yourself, open up your heart, open up your mind, and let people help you heal. No one deserves to live comfortably in misery. It is not worth giving up on one another simply because you have hit rock bottom. It is not worth losing an entire lifetime of friendship or love simply because someone is struggling. We often want to push everyone away when we are low. We don’t want to have the responsibility for hurting anyone ever again because that pain digs into ourselves like a knife.
So think. Instead of pushing away all of these people who are trying to help you, who genuinely love you and care for you (even though you may truly not see it), take the responsibility of not hurting them anymore and allowing yourself to heal with them and through them. Pushing them away is only causing more harm. These people DO want to help you! Please allow them to.
We come to many crossroads throughout our lives. Never give up on yourself or anyone else. Never believe that you are worthless, that you are undeserving of love because you have so much more worth that you could have ever imagined and you are deserving of a love so pure and unconditional. Accept the love given to you. Accept your worth. Heal. Take a deep breath. It is a bad day, not a bad life. These things within yourself, these demons you are fighting, they will leave, you will heal, but you have to choose your path wisely.
Please choose the right path. Do not wait over five years to change your path. Do not waste years of your life hating yourself and being so miserable simply because you don’t want to change your destination. You think you are destined to be this one person, but that can change overnight. You must accept your new destiny. If you continue to keep fighting for your old destiny and continuing on the same path you will never reach the true potential of the incredible human being that you are capable of becoming. I may not know you personally but feel free to get in contact with me if you need a hand to hold to take that initial step. I have been there and I know how terrifying it can sometimes be. You do NOT have to do it alone. I am here.
Here are a good list of resources that may help you find any sort of help you need for those very first steps:
Photographer: Narvold Photography, Dress: Linyage, Hat: Gigi Pip, Floral: Jennifer Joyce Designs, Make Up- Jules Ann, Hair: Pins and Powder Beauty, Venue: The Enchanted Barn