Jade Baca

Joined October 2019

4 stories

Stories (4)

Filter by community

Sort by (Optional)

We Fall to Rise
*Trigger warning* I’ve always had big feelings. The only time I saw a problem with this was when I was sharing my feelings with other people. Some of those people accepted the feelings I shared with them with an open heart and mind. Others would shame me, calling me a “drama queen” or tell me to get over it. I tried to keep sharing anyways, believing that the space I created for other people to feel would be given back to me. I carried the emotions of some of the adults in my life on my back but was afraid of telling them mine for fear of being belittled. When I was in elementary school I was abused by a relative. I remember pulling up my shirt in the mirror when I was in the 6th grade and looking at the raised, red flesh on my back, vision blurry as I traced the outline of large “x” marks all up and down my spine. I whispered to myself in the mirror, “They doesn’t know what they’re doing. They’re parent did it to them.” I was petrified and in pain but afraid of being punished for showing my fear so I held it in, eyes brimming with liquid that wasn’t allowed to escape, never sighing so much as a peep out. I tried to ask for help once but when you don’t feel heard as a child, and you’re threatened for sharing, believing you deserve the cards you have been dealt, you eventually stop. I’d lay in bed, eyes closed, dreaming of the day I was far away and alone. Do you know what happens when you suppress your feelings? You get sick. Physically and mentally. I spent years in the presence of people who couldn’t handle my big feelings or my big past. Instead of validating myself I retreated further and further into myself. I hated myself for what I felt. I hated myself for the sting I’d feel, for the plummeting feeling as my heart sunk further and further into the pits of my stomach. And eventually i started punishing myself for it. I thought my big feelings being rejected by others made me deserving of more pain than I already felt. I couldn’t figure out how to navigate the intense feelings I had about all of this. As desperately as I searched for balance the scales were always off kilter, never in my favor. So, I hurt myself. I cut myself for the first time when I was in 7th grade. When I was a junior in high school my sleeve slipped up in class and one of my teachers noticed my scars. Nurses from the local mental health services were sent to the school and threatened to have me put on suicide watch. When I was 19 I was starting to feel a little better. I was ready to try to move on. I never believed I would live to graduate high school. I was certain the pain I harbored would become too much to bare and I would eventually decline to continue on with this life. So, I took advantage of this new feeling. I found myself waking up in the morning full of energy, feeling like the sun was shining on me at all times. I tried to maintain that feeling through cosmetology school but regrettably found myself unequipt and unable to, which led to the cutting starting again and an eating disorder came along with it. I lost 20 lbs that December over a 3 week period. My mom was convinced I was on drugs due to my protruding spine and dark, lifeless eyes. It took a year but I overcame my ED. Then there was 27. I woke up in a room I had never seen before after going on a second date. I couldn’t remember anything, all I could think about was my face. Why does it hurt so bad? And once I sat up, my ribs. Why can’t I breathe? I walked across inexplicably shattered glass to a mirror to behold my battered face and body. I had been drugged, knocked out, and stomped on. I was too sick to manage to escape that day. So, I had to be the bravest I’ve ever been and wait and leave my body again; to find another place in my mind. While I gave my body to someone else in fear of what further harm I’d succumb to if I did not. I had already been through so much. Not this, too. I came home that weekend with no fight left. I remember standing on the slippery wet railing of my back patio in the rain one night, leaning out over the edge, one hand on the pillar wondering when I’d find the courage to fall. I managed to keep going. Barely. Over the years that followed I continued to repress my emotions, life having proved over and over that my feelings were too big for this world to carry. There was no place for me. So I got angry. When I turned 28 my anger and need to control manifested as an ED again and I went on one of the biggest rampages I’ve ever been on. I drank everyday. I’d literally drink while I was driving. I constantly blacked out. I binged in secret and I never held down a meal. I felt crazy because I was starving and my stomach was in intense agony. I couldn’t feel anything anymore emotionally so I let people abuse me. My body was no longer mine and I punished myself even more for that. I would do things I swore I never would, I hurt people to see if it would conjure up any emotion but it never did. I was entirely numb. Do you know what’s worse than having big feelings? Having no feelings at all.
By Jade Baca 6 years ago in Psyche
The butterfly effect
Are you allowed to change? Do you ever find yourself being told who you are because of who you have been? Do you find yourself in shame, relieving old habits or mistakes because it’s who you’re expected to be. How often do we all get trapped in our past because of these expectations our peers and family have of us? How often do our newly formed wings get plucked from our shoulders before we’ve had a chance to behold our transformation? Why aren’t we allowed to change?
By Jade Baca 6 years ago in Motivation
The Glass Wall
What brings you comfort? What have you leaned on the most over the years to still your restless soul? Was it a person? Possibly a place? A pet? Most likely you align with more than one. I certainly have people I look to for support when I’m needing to feel held, together, usually. Since, like you, I have multiple resources for ease, I’m going to touch on two that I’ve recently had to deal with the loss or altered reality of.
By Jade Baca 6 years ago in Motivation
Introduction
Healing is a journey. To be completely honest with you, it’s a journey I never intended to continue on. Not too long ago, I had actually made a beeline in the opposite direction. My pain went numb and the void I felt growing inside of me made me angry. Where I had once felt great empathy, I now found indifference to others and chose to see that indifference as a gift. I raged. Never turning a simple glance to evaluate my actions or the pain I inflicted due to my own. I pushed back at the world for forcing my experiences on me. I was tired. Tired of pushing, tired of dragging the weight of the past behind me, tired of being angry. The years passed by fairly quickly and I realized, finally, that I could not spend one more day living this way and that I was finally ready to do what needed to be done in order to heal. I had always been attracted to spirituality, but I couldn’t quite make sense of it. One of my favorite things currently is how science and spirituality are finally starting to link, making the unexplainable quite simple to comprehend and yet leaving plenty of room for the power of faith. This is the model I’ve come to align with in my daily life. As someone who has endured great childhood trauma and has struggled to make sense of what happened, of myself, and my many diagnoses as well as the harmful ways I’ve coped over the years, this paradigm of science and spirituality has begun to settle my librarian scales and I’m better able to navigate the ebbs and flows of life. Every day is a new opportunity to learn, evolve, make sense, and practice the profound and underrated habit of self love.
By Jade Baca 6 years ago in Motivation