If there was a way to go back in time and rewrite everything that happened to me in the past eight months...that would make things a lot easier for me now. Mostly because I have this thing with procrastinating on this blog, because so much happens that I don't know where to start and then I don't know how to recap so much time. However, each day of the past year has been full of the most intense moments of self-realization and growth that I have had in my entire life! It has led me to this point where I want to finally open up about some very serious things (surprise), and my hope is to give some sort of a light and place to talk for those who are at the point that I was a little over a year ago. 

Denial in all of its forms might be one of the most detrimental points of thought that I have encountered. Denial that I have mental illnesses was something I have been overcoming since my diagnosis last year. Denial that there has been a lot in my past that has left me completely unsettled and has been hindering my emotional stability and wellness for years and years now. Denial that emotion is not a bad thing, but in fact a good thing that helps me receive closure and provides me with the resilience to continue through trials. And most of all, denial that my life isn't a total failure because I am not in the same place as others, the same weight as others, the same looks as others, or the same life as others.

 {Photocredit: Jeremy Parker}

Now that is a healthy dose of honesty right there that might border on embarrassment, but then again, why should I feel embarrassed about things that I deal with? A large chunk of those "things" are totally out of my control, so how can I spend even one more second stressing and becoming encased in defeat over obstacles that I cannot shape to my liking? I find myself always asking those questions that never seem to have an answer. Very rhetorical in nature, and yet there is emotion behind them that leads me to action without even thinking about it. Anyways, I'm starting to sound a little spacey and floating off of the subject so let me bring it back.

Recently, a lot of things have been on my mind in regards to family and what that means. It's always the strangest thing to look back on your life and realize your reality is quite skewed, in a way, from society. By that I mean that the way I was raised was so far from normal that the therapists I have met with in the last year and psychologists I have seen have called it something specific. Before I continue, I know that some of the people who read my blog and who know me personally might feel offended or irked by the rest of this post but if I am being 100% honest, I just can't seem to find it in me to care. Not that I am completely heartless or that I lack compassion for others (I actually believe that empathy is one of my biggest personal attributes), but that I have so much going on in my heart and brain that I am trying to come to terms with and get a handle on, that stressing and worrying about people who refuse to understand my feelings and point of view does not make the cut for my to-do list.

MOVING ALONG

Throughout my childhood I was subject to, at times, extremely intense child abuse, in an emotional and physical manner. What a sentence. I do not think I have ever been so open and to the point like that, except for maybe in my personal journals. Despite my weariness to write that out, it does not hinder the truth of the matter that because of the way I was raised and how my parents treated me, I am plagued with extreme self-doubt, an inability to trust those I love, and an intense desire to run from/ruin long lasting relationships that I may encounter. To me that is stating the obvious, because how else would I develop socially and emotionally when I would be told loving and affectionate phrases one day and then verbally and physically pushed around and slapped down the next? It would take a very strong sense of will and purpose, as a child, to have come out on top of the world and perfectly unscathed. 

Another point I want to emphasize, is that understanding and coming to terms with being abused physically and emotionally growing up in an unhealthy sense of reality, is a very difficult thing. For example, I find myself on a lot of days thinking that maybe things aren't as bad as I thought. That other people have worse things going on in their lives. That maybe my mother was right when she said that it was how I perceived things, or also that maybe there is just something wrong with me in the head like I was told my little brother was. No matter the excuses I was given, it does not change the past or how I feel now. I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to forget my past and forget the way I was raised when I finally was able to move straight out of the house not long after graduation. I tried to fill my life with every luxury I believed I never had, spent a few years of college completely screwing around, and surrounded myself with friends. Still, I found myself holed up in my dorm room for days on end, not going to school, eating copious amounts of sugar, and not realizing that the feeling of deep sadness and suffocation was not my fault. I was suffering from a mental illness that had always been brushed under the rug in my family. So, only following what I had always known, I tried to "deal with it", and kept trucking along as my insides were slowly but surely falling apart. 

Looking back to the years in my house, I can now say with confidence that I dealt with depression regularly. Yet, I had a feeling that those who were in charge of me knew what was going on and still decided to just let me go along. I would imagine that false facade of a loving and dedicated family was quite the battle to try and uphold. And I know I can think about how I had a roof over my head, and clothes on my back, and food in my stomach (more or less) that that should mean that I should be grateful and content and just move on from everything negative. Like I mentioned earlier, I WISH I could just forget and move on. As a matter of fact, I am in the process of coming to terms with my past and setting the stage for a healthier future. Doing that is a lot better than just forgetting about things and forcing myself to move along. The trouble I face is just trying to stay in touch within my marriage, and not wanting to just cut and run intertwines right along with everything else. Now how is that for people calling me dramatic and thinking that I just overthink everything? Well, I do admit I have a weird ability to think the worst of every social and personal situation and relationship, but I seriously cannot think of how the details of how I act are not in direct correlation with how I was raised. 

THERE IS HOPE AND HEALING WITHIN ALL OF THIS...

{Photocredit: Gareth Chalk} 

Up until recently, I have absolutely resented when people would tell me how strong I was and the way I always have an ability to get through the worries and misgivings of life. I mean everyone has some sort of Hell to get through, this girl included, but I never thought I was doing anything brave. I was just living, I just kept going. Yet, I want to attest to everyone out there who could possibly read this and who feels the same feels as I'm expressing, that there ABSOLUTELY IS STRENGTH AND RESILIENCE AND BRAVERY IN LIVING! It may feel like we are just alive, like we just kept going through the terrifying and almost unbearable times in this world, but choosing to STAY ALIVE and to not give up despite everything in your brain (that was extremely well built to comprehend logic) telling you to fight or choose flight to another existence that does not contain the total confusion that you are experiencing...that is everything.

I chose life.

Growing up as a teenager sometimes it was harder to think logically and to overcome the immediate emotions of moments to survive. Hell, I heard about enough suicides where I started believing that they had something right. That life was not worth this pain. I would be damned if I let the person who adopted me and was under a complete obligation to care for me and love me and treat me like a precious child, would have me to abuse and manipulate for one more second. The aftermath of those choices made by my guardians followed me into adulthood and just this past year, landed me in the hospital because I was just too much of a danger to myself. 

I left my house a little over four years ago, and still I couldn't leave it behind. Still depression leveled my spirit and the weight of a totally changing lifestyle where I was single and independent and free to carry my own burdens, to married and reliant on someone else and needing to all of a sudden open up completely to them, made a break inside. I in no way am saying that marriage to an incredibly giving and loving man was the worst thing ever, but getting married when I wasn't fully ready and locking down a lifestyle that was not based on my own decisions (that also had a very strong kinship to my life I had growing up) was what did not work. I cannot emphasize enough that it has nothing to do with who I married or us having a terrible life. It all is a matter of an emotional awakening and situations that change our lives. How could I continue living these ideals and following these life choices that I had grown to resent because of how it made me feel suffocated and trapped, just the way living in my home had felt? Under such strict almost totalitarian rules, how could I have taken the time that most teenagers go through to really figure out what I believed in with regards to religion, and what I wanted in regards to just my life?! So I quickly came to discover that I could no longer hold up the facade I had been forced to hold up all of my life, and I could no longer be that girl that I was growing up. I was changing, and evolving, and becoming the true woman I was born to become. The young woman that did not hide her social anxieties, or be ashamed of her depression, or be afraid to break off from the pressures around and choose a path specifically for her. 

 {Photocredit: Stephanie Parker}

Despite my life feeling completely inside out and confusing, as I attempt to lay down my new roots and embrace a wide open future, all the while trying to decide the boundaries for those familial relationships that I thought I needed closest and figuring out a way to no longer be a victim or let those younger than I be a victim...I have never felt such love and kindness than from those I have been able to open up to about everything that has been going on with my life. I believe those people will know who they are and what they have done that has literally kept me sane and helped me to believe that my life can change and that I can bypass the unhealthy avenues of thought that have borrowed their way year after year into my psyche. 

I have my incredibly patient and understanding friends who have showed up for me in more ways than I could say this past little while. With even a friend who was willing to send me money to get out of town and clear my head, and who showed me the incredible sessions that is the "Lucid" app (shameless plug right there, but it is seriously so motivating and has helped me be so much more self-aware). I have found incredible friendships in my second family of in-laws, some of whom I thought I would be enemies with forever (hahaha), and I can now say that I have a healthy friendship within a mother figure...which is something I honestly did not think I would ever have. And of course I could never forget some of my wonderful siblings that have opened their hearts to me and shown me that I am not alone. Along with Jeremy and his patience and support through these changing times, and I do not know how I was blessed with someone like him! I know that we are now banded for life for whatever happens and for whatever we do.

Life can be incredibly difficult, yet it is also incredibly rewarding when you realize how far you have come and the great things you have yet to do once you open yourself up to all the possibilities. 

If I haven't mentioned it enough in other posts but once again, THIS IS REAAALLYYY LOONNNGG, and I am grateful to all of you that have stuck it out with me to read my truth and hear more of my story. I'm hoping to start blogging more consistently so things won't be so long and hopefully also more on my jobs and plans for the future. While things are never set in stone and who knows what will happen within the next couple of months, I just hope to be stable and sure in whatever life I choose and the paths that I find. 

Wish me lots of luck, yeah?

Sincerely,

JESSI HOPE