Voiceless

I know, I'm sorry. It's been 3 months since I last submitted anything. Three months since I touched my fingers to this keyboard. This year hasn't been easy you guys. I keep fighting against these waves that crash towards me and I swear these currents will not take me! Life is hard, I know you guys know what I mean. While life can be a whole shit show, this year has been transforming me into a completely different person. I had some fucked up shit happen, faced demons in people, places and myself. I want to tell you about something I started doing months ago, maybe its been years. This year however, this year has changed me. I'm scared still, but that fear is giving me the drive to run the opposite direction of the path I've been taking. A path where I put myself first, where I stop caring or people pleasing. Why do we do this? I can probably tell you a little bit about why, that'll take time though and I can't completely give you the answers. However I can share with you my experience. My experience with something I'd like to share with you all called "shadow work." Before proceeding I want to just take note that somethings in this article, (read.. whatever you want to call this) could be triggering. Please read with caution and practice self care after reading this! It's important to care for our selves in any moments of heavy emotional topics. I will be talking about mental health, childhood traumas and well, we will see where this goes? I am kind of just free flowing my thoughts for now. So grab your coffee, tea, maybe light a joint or take a dab and let's chat?

I promised myself that if I did anything this year, it would be to finally put myself first. Twenty-eight years old, and truly what do I have to show for it other than a bunch of failed relationships and high functioning anxiety? Every new year I go into, I set myself up with goals; obviously ones I never meet. For years, I have been battling myself and the world around me trying to figure out how to take on both. I felt like I had to fit into society's demands of being a working parent. Don't get me wrong I love working, but I am not the most perfect employee. Along with anxiety, I was also diagnosed this year with bipolar disorder, PTSD, depression and figuring out the rest as I navigate through therapy. The demands of working stem from my fear of not being enough and that is something I have been learning on my own. Every time I start working I do a few things: throw myself into the job letting it become my entire world, get a second job because any free space left open from the first job feel like time wasted and I feel like I'm not going anywhere, get two jobs all the while trying to take on my mental health and all the projects I want to invest into. It's exhausting and at the end of everything I am always reminded how disposable of a person I am to people. So why even bother? Then depression settles because nothing seems enough! This year I found a home in a store I felt so ready to bring whatever life I could to. Unfortunately I lost it. I had just been offered my own store not too long before I was fired. Losing my job wasn't just losing a job to me, I lost a piece of me. At least that's how I have been feeling this whole time. I felt that my mistakes during a moment I was not mentally myself really outweighed all the efforts I had been showing prior to my work ethics towards the end. I felt I was being punished for simply feeling, something that is so new to me. Why are we being punished? Especially when we are around these people every single day. Some understanding and compassion can go along way. Please don't get misconstrued, it's important for us to show up and do our work properly. I hold myself to high standards in my work ethics, I just don't feel I was given an opportunity to show what I am capable of. I feel like I was just getting started, and then I was raped. That changed my entire emotions, it changed how I interacted with people.. it changed my identity. I felt myself spiraling inside while trying desperately to keep myself together. I didn't want to disappoint my coworkers who to me became my friends. I wanted to keep being the fun energetic person everyone around me was used to. Then everything crashed on me, I started having melt downs finding it hard to express how I was feeling everything was getting lost in translation. I remember hitting 50 hours at work and then falling completely apart. I couldn't take everything on anymore. I was feeling sick, overwhelmed, completely lost and then I was fired. It took everything in me to not crumble, truthfully I did. I broke, and in all of that I found myself again.

Writing has been my life long passion. I remember being a kid writing in notebooks and journals. Anything I could put on paper, I would: my thoughts, feelings, books I liked to read, even places or signs I would see while I'd be out with my parents driving around. Writing has been my best friend, truly. It's the easiest way for me to properly communicate what I am thinking or feeling. Most of the time it's difficult for me, it's partly why I feel my relationships with people are so weird. So my relationship with writing, words, letters...it's been there since I was small. I told myself, just like last year and the year before that I would put my writing first.

This year started off very different than what my life looks like now. I was tucked away in the mountains without any internet or truly anything; isolated, depressed as fuck, starving for everything a human could possibly want and need. I was dying. Mentally, physically, I was just trying to survive. Honestly trapped in another persons world yet again. I don't blame anyone, I take responsibility for my choices and for staying in places I know were not for me. However I need to break this weird silence I put on myself. I wasn't happy. I was truly miserable. I have a really good way of painting a pretty picture for things. It stems from my unhealed traumas from past relationships, as well as my childhood. However in my last relationship we both were faced with each other's unhealed emotions. It took something beautiful and turned it quickly into chaos. Which leads us to "shadow work". A quick google search says,"shadow work involves getting in touch with the parts of yourself that you've repressed — or what many might refer to as their "dark side."' It's called "shadow work," and involves "diving into the unconscious material that shapes our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors," honestly for short it's a whole lot of FUCK THIS SHIT and crying. Truly. It's exhausting and I was not at all prepared for what I have faced. Digging into my wounds, the ones I've hidden deeper than I could possibly even remember. World's ago type of wounds. Shit is weird.

I have been doing shadow work on and off for years, I just never had a name for it. This year though I was faced with my demons yet again and I'm just going to say, I'm tired of running. I'm tired of being afraid of the dark shadow that follows, you know..the child hood traumas. My adopted parents failed to protect me, in fact they were a part of my abuse I endured through out my childhood. Which has lead me to the lack of understanding safe spaces and what that looks like until this year

Shadow work and the process of healing has allowed me to regain my voice in many ways. I am still struggling, but I am trying. I do it for my inner-selves that lack the confidence because of years of repressing my inner voice. Regaining my voice has allowed me to properly communicate with those around me, I can express my boundaries as well as my emotions a lot better now than I had in the past.

Also while finding myself this year, I have found different types of safe communities who have taught me what healthy living looks like. That we all deserve love and safety.

Not only was I sexually assaulted this year, but I was also followed home one day on my way home from a friends house. The man followed me until I was about six minutes from my apartment. Because of these things one of my biggest obstacles this year is feeling safe. I'm always on edge, always assuming someone is out to get me or even thinking horrible thoughts about me. However through the midst of clearing out the harmful people I have truly been surrounded by genuine support and love. While facing my inner demons and past traumas, I not only have I found comfort in therapy, I have fell in love with meditation, reading, sound-bath healing, and Reiki healing as well. There is a beautiful community of people in my local town that practice different healing rituals and they bring this back to the community. This has been a huge soul healing experience as I navigate the healing journey these days. It has taught me balance in my life as well as how to be vulnerable in the right spaces.

Along with my spiritual community I have found comfort in reconnecting with my Queer family and friends! Being able to connect with a community of people who understand the depths of rejection, depression, isolation, it's sad in ways however it's brought me comfort as well as deeper empathy for those around me. I am so proud of my Queer friends who are living out their truths and waking up despite everything that has made us believe we shouldn't. I love you guys so much.

Shadow work has taught me that nothing is at all what it seems and we all have so much healing to do. I know I have been hurt, but I am also the cause of some peoples hurt as well. This is where shadow work brings inner healing as a whole into play. This is why I have fallen so in love with the process. It's truly about undoing all you have learned throughout life that isn't correct or your own to hold onto. I am not anything like people may think I am, just like you probably are not like anything your friends and family assume you to be. But what if it's deeper than that? What if you're nothing like you think you are? We all have been told who we are by someone at some point in our lives. Maybe it's about time we all start learning who we truly are! I've been learning about how much I love hiking, museums, yoga, meeting new people and simply just living life. I'm learning to unmask all the years of learned behaviors, survival traits and my own ugly things. I want to make space for transparency, safe people and new adventures. I am also here to welcome love still, because I deserve it in all forms! I've been holding myself back in fear of disappointing people around me when really I don't want to disappoint or hurt myself. I am exhausted and I just want to continue healing and enjoy this weird journey I am on.

I'm unsure of where my writing journey is going here. I have zero expectations for myself right now. I'll be posting, but it won't be on anything specific. I will definitely share more mental health topics. Mental health doesn't get discussed as much as it should. I see that it is growing in conversations and topics which is great! I want to continue being a part of that. If you enjoyed this read please give it a like, share and subscribe!! I hope you are having a great day loves. Don't forget to PUT YOURSELF FIRST! It's not selfish, it's absolutely necessary. If you read this far, I appreciate you for listening to me talk!