I knew I always deserved diamonds

A diamond?

I thought well into the depths of my mind searching for a story where I let my real self shine through, for a diamond-worthy moment. A few came to mind, but maybe only two that I thought were good enough. I thought “why don’t I have a better story? Why haven’t I experienced a better story?” As I’ve been so terribly harsh with myself over the last couple of years for not living life “enough”, searching for the perfect experience to write about and realizing I had none was no different.

The issue was, I was only searching for a story as glamorous as a diamond.

Then I thought to myself “after I heal my mental health, I will be able to move forward and live a better story of being real, of being my best story”.

Then it occurred to me: what about now? What about the process of the story that writes the glamorous ending?

What about the process of how a diamond is formed?

and then I understood that my healing process is my true self. My season of healing that I am walking myself through is my most genuine self forming her diamond. The journey I am carrying myself through to heal my mental health and energy, is where I am letting my most authentic self shine through.

The month is early November. It is significant because only recently I have finally understood and accepted that I have hit a rock bottom with my mental health. Which is good. It is needed.

For the last few months especially, I have felt a negative change in my energy, mentally, emotionally, and therefore physically. I am finally burnt out. And burnt out of procrastinating healing the negative energy. I have spent the last two years of my life living as a crushed gem, rather than a polished gem. And I finally understand.

Allow me to fill you in.

Two and a half years ago, summer 2019, I lost my best friend due to a drowsy driving accident.

This past August, I finally decided to give myself the time to disappear and learn to heal.

To reflect and understand all the ways I subconsciously put my existence on pause into a black hole, and all of the damage I did to myself along the way. To feel all of the grief and sadness and heartache I didnt let myself feel at the time.

It has been a scary thing, crawling deep into my mind to learn all of these things and to heal them.

Its lonely because no one else can do it with you, for you, and no one can understand your mind 100%.

And I didn’t know it would take me so long.

after the nightmare late summer 2019, as some started to return to their normal I had so many people tell me to “stay distracted” and “keep yourself busy”, so I suppose that’s what I did. I tried anything and everything to help myself stay “distracted”, always looking for the next thing. I started on portfolios for applications into fashion schools that I didn’t finish, I started looking for roommates ready to move to New York city but never left, I formed friendships that I didn’t keep, I planned trips that I didn’t take. All to stay distracted...but I was only distracted for a moment, until a new idea to stay busy came along. All of these things are everything I know I wanted, I just wasn’t ready.

this fall, spending a lot of time reflecting and understanding, I know now that I was never mentally present doing any of those things. Because I didnt care to do them. Because I wasn’t ready to do them. I only found the next high of “distraction” as my (terrible) form of “grieving”.

With this, I kept myself stuck, unmoving. falling down the same, dark bottomless rabbit hole.

Wondering why "staying distracted" wasn't working for me.

Nothing I was distracting myself with was working out for me because I simply wasn’t letting it. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t healed.

For two years I’ve missed out on my own life because I haven’t been mentally present.

I’ve missed out on the last two years and two birthdays of my life, because I've lost concept of time, because I've mentally blocked it out.

And I finally understood when she stopped existing in her human form, in a sense, so did I.

And in august, I decided I was finally tired. I decided I want to be mentally present in my own life again. I want to find my existence again. I want to heal.

So I have “disappeared” until I feel ok again.

I wrote some journal questions for myself to reflect on when November arrives, such as “am I healed? am I still learning how to heal? Do I feel any different at all?”

I do feel different. I don’t feel better, not even close, but I feel a relief. A relief in coming to understand so many aspects of how my grief has made me respond physically, mentally, and emotionally that I was not seeing before august. Pinpointing anxiety triggers. Learning them. Studying them. Understanding them. Coping.

I almost feel a burden lifted off my body, a wave of feeling so proud of myself for this small progress.

And similar to the process of forming a diamond…

I am forming myself.

I am holding myself together, alone. I am on my way to picking up the broken glass I have been using to cut and damage myself having to exist without my girl. I am learning to undo and heal the damage I did to myself by remaining shut down, existing in a black hole.

I am learning to heal. To be better. To form my best self.

To become a diamond. A diamond formed by the rough.

And in all of this, I am being the most “real” I have been to myself in my 23 years of existing.

**Thank you for allowing me to leave a vulnerable part of myself here. I really and truly wrote my whole broken heart into these words, so I ask that you please be gentle when you read.