Who is that?

 Who is that in the purple shirt? Look at her. She is so beautiful. Her confidence radiates and is evident through her smile. That person is me...

i.am.beautiful.

No one can take the beauty away from me. They may break my body but they can no longer crush my spirit. I am beautiful independent of what I do.

My life is amazing. I am a miracle. It's something to be said that I am here right now for my childhood could have dictated a far darker outcome.

I am not a victim. What I've come through does not lessen who I am as a person. It makes me greater. I have everything I need to face my childhood fears with an adult maturity. I am succesfully building relationships, creating healthy boundaries, and exploring what I want in companionship. 

All of these things make me uniquely qualified to do what I'm doing now, where school is going to take me and all I'm going to accomplish. My purpose is so much bigger than I can comprehend. I am going to do great things.

I cannot allow my fear of falling/failing stunt my growth or slow my climb. It's both my faults and the things I do right that make me beautiful.

What you focus on increases

"You don't have to take life the way it comes to you. You can design your life to come to you the way you want it."

I haven't blogged in a while. I've been depressed because I decided I didn't need a med and the decision caught up with me. I've spent the better part of the last 3 weeks in bed. Going home from work and doing minimal. Checking the chores for the house and laying in bed. Not wanting to do anything because doing them requires moving forward and movement is difficult.

Since the last time I have done any type of update I have found out that I was accepted into the disney institute, have gone through the training, and have been placed in a work group perfectly suited for my personality and abilities. Work is going good, I continue to hear good things from those around me and, just recently, at the training with my primary doctor, she even said how good I was at my job. This validation makes me feel good and I have actually started seeinng what others see: a smart, beautiful woman, with so much to offer those around me. I like what lays before me, I see purpose in everything, and I know I'm going places.

I went on a date recently. The man is wonderful and there are so many things I absolutely love about him. However, a cultural difference caused a huge relational boundary to be crossed. It took me a few days and acting on behaviors to realize what was going on, why I was emotionally shutting down to realize this. In the process of realizing this I acted on behaviors and then confronted what had happened. So, we are not going out again. I stood up for myself as an adult, but it took a few days.

In the last couple weeks I've binged for emotional reasons, purged for emotional reasons, weighed myself for emotional reasons. I'm STILL acting on behaviors, still have a scale until next year, still restrict, still have body image issues. Intellectually and cognitively I know that the weight doesn't matter. But, I'm so scared of gaining, of the weight I have gained, that I can't get emotionally past the number.

So, I must decide what I want to happen. Do I want to respond to emotional upheaval that I feel I have no control over? Or do I want to actively build up my emotional coping skills to have in hand so situations do not even bother me? Do I want to get so sick I can't pursue my dreams, or get myself-both emotionally and physically- to a place I can find and procure all that I want in life? I choose to create the life I want and that involves actively fighting what I've allowed on my path. To be strict with myself and get out of bed in the morning and allow time to do the things I enjoy. But to also be gentle because I'm just a person with faults as well as good things. The faults make just as beautiful as the things I do right.

Learning to breath

I'm worried about losing my job, losing my family, losing my friends. I'm receiving a package from family I don't talk to and it is heavy on my mind. Never mind the fact my mom is struggling and she must be (must be) going crazy. And the lady at work, the damn bipolar lady at work, is driving me crazy. Top it all off, I can't get in to see the doctors.

Suddenly my chest constricts and I cant breathe and I'm crying because I'm afraid of losing my job. I can't breathe over the thought of what might be on its way to me. My mind is a jumble of thoughts because, no matter the cause, my mom is struggling and I cannot help her. I can't speak in complete sentences, and therefore, cannot articulate that I'm worried the abuse my mom has suffered is real and I may be repressing something from childhood.

It's been estimated that 99 out of 100 things we worry about never come to pass. If you stopped worrying about what might happen tomorrow, wouldn't that give you more time to actually enjoy and savor today? What did you worry about six months ago? A year ago? Five years ago? How many of your biggest worries have actually come to pass?


All of these things, all of them, are things that caused me to go on a high level of panic attack medications in the last month. The thing is, whether I worried about them or not, the way they would've unfolded would not have changed. Meeting them with anxiety only consternated the situation.

And I can say, my worry about losing my job is far unfounded. I have recently interviewed for an opportunity at work in which the vice president of human resources interrupted to say how often she receives positive praise in regards to my work ethic. So, this worry is not something to fear.

I know this worry was compounded by the other concerns. In fact, the box did hurt a lot. But the silver lining in the situation was the breakdown to ground zero and the building up of the desire to recover. My mom is still here, I'm still listening to her, and praying she follows through on a release of information, so I may find out better what is going on with her. That's all I can do right now to help and I have to remember my own sanity because I have to put my recovery in front of my mother's needs.

I guess, I have found the strength and the difficulty in refusing to worry. Not worrying gives the added benefit of being able to meet situations with a grace and strength. I say that to say this: I am worried about recovery, worried if I'll get there. But, I refuse to give credence to that. Because I WILL recover. I refuse to carry this disorder any longer. So, I make a daily, an hourly, a second by second battle to lay it down. Until I don't pick it up anymore. I cannot worry about what the process will bring tomorrow, I just have to live in the progress of today.