So yeah, I have been quiet for a while but not because I purposely wanted to ignore my followers but, because I was on a journey. A journey of reflection and acceptance – and it may sound like this journey may be meniscal to others, but for me, it was an uphill climb and I am finally on the top.
I have had time to reflect on the past year, and yeah it wasn’t great – BUT I AM ALIVE! With business dropping in the beginning of the year, many clients closing their doors and not paying us, the year started off pretty crap. It wasn’t soon after that, that I had a nervous breakdown and swallowed a handful of pills (yeah I did that – and I’ll own up to it) – it was my own doing or should I say my own ‘undoing’ but maybe, if it never happened, I would still be fighting today with my own internal confusion (mental warfare) on why I am sad when I should be happy, or why I am happy when I should be sad – my emotions were not tying up with my reality. so yeah, maybe I needed to hit rock bottom so that I could dust off my knees and start again; and yes I realize how lucky I am – The Universe granted me another chance.
I acknowledge that I could have died on that bed before my husband found me but, I didn’t – why you ask, because maybe I have a greater purpose in this universe, maybe, just maybe my journey ‘through the dark’ is supposed to help others, even if it is just to help one other person (making a difference in just one persons life, means you could be changing their world – then that’s all that counts).
Those pills that I thought was my ‘great escape‘ from the world, could have done so much damage, and I am not referring to myself, I am referring to the people around me. The people in my life (family, friends and co-workers) – I could have damaged them in unimaginable ways. Is that really how I wanted to leave the world – hurting others because I was suffering (HELL NO!).
2019 was not just about me discovering that I have a mental health disorder, yes I can say it now because I acknowledge that I have a disorder (My brain doesn’t produce enough serotonin and noradrenaline – so Yeah I have a physical disorder), so medication is now apart of my life and I am not fighting that anymore. I take my pills like I am supposed to, because I want to be a better person. I am committed to the program for the rest of my life, and I am happy with that because I am happy with myself.
2019 also bought my first and probably my most traumatic experience to life, being involved in a major car accident in a foreign country (a country where the rules and regulations are different to those from home). Yes, if you have read my blog I am referring to the major accident that took place in Houston, Texas where we flipped numerous times across the highway. At the time I was a negative person and yes this just pushed me into a darker space (considering it literally happened a few weeks after being released from a psychiatric hospital); I was determined back then, that the universe didn’t want me here, but was just ‘toying’ with my emotions, making sure I suffered for all my past wrong doings in life.
It’s been almost eight months since the accident, and even though every day I am reminded of the accident with the continuous back pains and the fact that I may need a knee operation soon, I CHOOSE not to let this pull me down anymore.
Yeah I still get scared when in a car but, I have come to realise I am human (Not superman), it’s natural to be scared when vehicles get too close, I acknowledge that on top of my bipolar mood disorder, I now also suffer with a form of PTSD – and that’s OK. I know with time and continuous counselling, I will too, eventually conquer this. I just need to be patient with myself and accept that this is another journey, so I may as well sit back and not fight it.
2019 bought many downers for me (and I am not going to go into everything because there is way too many to list and some of them are private matters I wont discuss) but I do want to touch on one other event in my life, and that was when my mother called me in tears to inform me she had “Colon Cancer“.
Again I felt like the universe just wanted to punish me. I had to realise pretty quickly that this was not about me but about her, and that this was not my journey to take, it was my mothers. All I could do was sit from the side-lines and stare through her window, watching her conquer her own mental and physical battle around this horrible news.
Yes, it was sad at the time but it also turned out to be inspiring. My mom’s journey needed to crash into the side of mine like that car did, and force me to watch as she fought a life threatening disease. I didn’t have a life threatening disease – so why should I be complaining about my life when hers at the time was worse off. I have come to realise that it was another lesson in my life. My mother had to teach me, that we can choose to be happy or sad about our current situation, we can choose if we want to give up or fight, we can choose how we want to handle the situation – It’s all about CHOICE!
As I mentioned this has been a long journey, and I apologise for being so quiet…..it was not my intention, it was just part of my journey. I had to take myself away from negativity and plunge myself into positivity.
I realise now, that last year was my OWN DOING – I was super negative, so much so that I attracted all those horrible doings into my life because I was “attracting negativity”.
So I am proud to say that I am done with negativity in my life, I am rather focusing on the positive things in life these days. So much so that if I have a bad day (which yes we are human, we still can have those), then I try and change it into a positive memory in the evenings whereby, I will lay in bed and list 10 things for that day, that I am grateful for.
So where am I going with all of this, you may ask? It’s pretty simple, I am trying to tell you we attract horrible things into our lives if we are negative.
I am also acknowledging that Mental illnesses are common and we do not need to shy away from the fact that they are out there, and suffers do not need to feel bad about their disorder/s (Own It, it’s yours, so you choose how you want to manage it).
I have chosen to talk more about it, because to HELL with the stigma. People may think what they want of me with my disorder, because I no longer care what others think. I can proudly say I have Bipolar Mood Disorder and I am no longer ashamed of it – because it’s me, I own it in my life and I choose to talk about it and share my experiences!
So come on guys, let’s talk about this. Let’s reach out and hold other peoples hands out there, those that need to be held – there are other’s out there that are suffering currently because they need us (those of us that have been through this journey already) – so let’s reach out and help those around us.
This is me signing off for today – I will be back very soon.
SMIS Blog 