Finding strength to heal

For most of my life, I was that person that didn't care what people thought about me. I lived my life regardless of what anyone thought. I remember that before I had my daughter, I lived my life based on what I wanted to do. My family was so focused on me getting married and having a baby before my daughter. This is because they wanted to have a party, that was the only reason. And I remember saying to them that they shouldn't push me, as I would marry someone they didn't like or never even met. See as a backstory, my mother got married to my stepfather without me, without me or my sister being invited. Since then, I knew that I was going to do what I wanted, regardless of anyone else's opinion.

Now, there have been times in my life when I forgot that. When I lost myself and who I was. When my daughter was 1, they put it in my head that I needed their help. When you accept the help of people, there are always strings. So for a while, I thought I had to care what they thought because they helped me. Help for pay, I will point out. Then I tried to get it back, with my daughter's father. Leaving living close to them in order to have my own family. A decision that no one liked. When I needed their help, once again I put myself into a position that I thought I had to listen to everyone else. That I should do what everyone else thinks that I should do. A little while after I started to live with my family, I remember my mother saying to me that they helped me when I asked them to. Like somehow I owe them now. That decision has brought me a depression into my life.

I feel like I lost myself. Lost who I really am. In my core, I really don't think that I have to listen to anyone else's opinion on my life. This is my life to make myself happy no matter what anyone thinks. Losing that about myself, has made me depressed. In order to get that back, I need to find my own strength.

I know that as long as I live with my family, there will always be an aspect that I have to listen to them. Due to the fact that I live with them. It doesn't matter how much I pay for 'rent', I will always have to listen to their rules. I know that, for my own personal strength and well-being, that I need to live on my own again. So that I can make my own rules, no matter what anyone else thinks.

This strength has come with talking to my ex again. The strength in standing up for myself. He wants to get back together. Though to him, he just says that we are together, no real conversation. I am proud that I was able to find my own strength. Of standing up for myself on what I will not accept ever again. It's that strength that has done the most in my healing journey. The strength that I am worthy, that I can stand up for myself, that I deserve to be treated well. It's not that I think that he will actually do what I ask of him. It's just the fact that I have the courage to stand up for myself at all.

I know that I can live a life on my own terms of happiness. I don't need to do what other people think all the time. No one should tell you the type of life that you have to live.

-T