My Resilience

My Resilience

In a world we face many challenges, I have faced mine and I am sure you’ve faced yours too.

In order to tell you a little about myself, let me take you by the hand and take you into my world and share the journey’s I have faced along the way.

From primary school to high school, I was severely bullied and it kept me very isolated from not just my peers but everyone. I became distant and I created my own world, one where no one could hurt me (or so I thought) from the ages of five all the way to the end of the high school it was one long torture of bullying, beatings and name calling.

My friends if you could call them that, never really helped in anyway although I must admit some tried, while others sat idly by and let it all happen. Resilience! I woke up every day and went to school and faced what was going to be before me. It was long before social media. Words on a screen being bullied is one thing but being beaten up from school kids and being teased for simply being me was a complete and other world I’m glad I escaped from.

As times went on I had to shake the negative thoughts and things that transpired over those years and it wasn’t until my mid-twenties did that even happen for me. Everything I tried to achieve in school I was frowned upon, even some of the teachers didn’t do much to encourage me with my school work and it made me rather depressed. Not knowing where to turn I delved into writing, poetry mainly but I also wrote out a lot of feelings into stories and it made me feel better, sometimes when we feel as though we have no one to turn to we can turn to ourselves. At the end of the day, we have to live with choices we make and how we cope with them. But of course, it’s human nature to search for answers, to look for others to guide us, but in my case. I was who I was. I chose to write; I chose to fight and look at things in a different light.

Those times where absolutely miserable and I felt like giving up, but again RESILIENCE! That word followed me and became a friend I could turn to, whenever I felt like giving up, I looked to the future, we sometimes think we are in a situation in time that will last forever, it will never end and sometimes it does feel that way, but it does and time does pass. But does time heal all wounds? Yes and No. We can carry that heaviness of it all, but we can construct on how we feel about the negative things.

I have always been a very painfully shy person. Always worried what others think of me, then like a lightning bolt shooting down from the sky it hit me. I wasn’t going to let it get to me. As I grew older, I had the haunting memories and still had people talk about me behind my back and trying to have people change their personal opinion about me. These are from people that talked about raising others up, but apparently, I didn’t make their cut. Did that worry me? For a little while. Do I care now? Not at all. Why? RESILENCE!

Thoughts carried me into dark places over the troubled years of my life. The fact I was thinking of chucking my life away and felt like I had no living left to do. I had enough.

But if we permanently take ourselves out of a situation to a temporary point in time, we will never face what’s around the corner. It may not always be brighter but we make it for what it is. We must face life head on. It’s a bumpy ride and we must face the challenges that face us.

I went from being painfully shy and slowly crawled out of that confined shell. I was invited to do a talk on suicide I wrote eight pages of notes and I sat down at a long table and spoke to a bunch of people bases on that subject. I looked down at my notes and I tore them up and spoke from the heart, I got a round of applause. I saw the tears in the eyes of those that identified with what I was saying. I touched their minds and hearts and I knew then and there I made a difference to them. So I pushed on further, I continued to talk about suicide awareness. I didn’t tear up the poems I read out to them. Those I kept and as I read, I would look up and look in the faces that were listening. I went from that quiet kid nobody wanted to hear from to a woman but deep down that kid is inside that’s scared and has self-doubt but again RESILENCE!

More challenges risen over my life. Watching my mother pass away in front of me in hospital in 2014 broke my heart into a billion pieces. I was very close to my mum but to watch her fade away into eternal light broke me. My heart has never nor will ever truly recover. When she went that day a huge part of me went too. RESILENCE! When I felt like I wanted to end it all just to be with her I had her voice tell me, I brought you into this world and I gave you this life so live it.

Now, I go on and I had to live on without her. A huge person in my life all that I happened to me I would turn to her. Somethings that happened to me, I kept to myself. Sometimes we keep things to ourselves to not hurt the ones we love the most. Sometime we carry burdens but eventually like a free bird set at flight the wings are open and they fly away, away from our minds and hearts and we chose not to worry anymore. Because those times are gone and we stay strong.

My mother passed away when I was just 32 years of age. Since her passing I have come to cope more and more and somethings have happened to me along the way I didn’t come to expect, firstly apart from doing a public speech on suicide I became an author and wrote a book called A Rising Moon on Domestic Violence that was released in 2017 another thing that the doubters and naysayers would say ‘would never happen’ I am happy to say it has and I did. Why? RESILENCE! I have done author talks and book signings and speaking in front of crowds although still frightens me it is getting easier because I am reaching people. I hope what I do just makes a difference in someone’s life even if it’s just for a moment in time.

I kept going, not just for myself but for my mother too.

Now let’s fast forward to last year June of 2020 I got the surprise of a lifetime

I found out I was going to be a mother. Now let me paint you a picture as to why I was more surprised than most, I was told I could NEVER get pregnant due to hormonal issues and PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome) they said it was almost impossible. After a decade of letting nature take its course and nothing arising, you pretty much call it a day and think well that’s that. Then Fourteen years something comes along and shakes your world. Now there I was looking at something I thought I would never ever look at. Motherhood. How will I be a mother? How will my pregnancy go? Will I be, okay? Will my baby be alright? A million questions flooded my mind. But the joy I instantly felt Is still felt right now and my baby girl at this moment in time is less than three months old. I have to pinch myself to see the beautiful girl my husband and I created ever day.

I am fortunate that it has happened for me. But I know the pain that others go through that are in the same boat of trying and not knowing if it will ever happen. We just never know what the future has in store for us. I get asked time and time again was it done through IVF? The answer to that is no, it was nature taking its course. Now if I had to bet on this ever happening, I would surely lose that bet because fourteen years is an extremely long time. But I am grateful. I love being a Mother and all I can say is this, we get faced with challenges every single day and its how we deal with that that’s the issue.

For me, I write it out. For others it might be to seek it out, whether it’s a group, friends, family or loved ones or a place of worship or community groups or some other way. Find your RESILENCE!

Truly and Resiliently,

Elizabeth Blade

You can find me on Facebook & Twitter

Facebook.com/ElizabethBladeWriter

Twitter : @Moondance_81

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