I had courage but no humility.
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Tag Archives: mental
Midday Thought
Everyone will reach a point where not even all the money on this Earth could buy you another day of life.
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Done staying silent
I spent most of my life, holding all of my thoughts and feelings in. Thinking that I was what was wrong with the world. The psychic damage passed down through my grandparents and then my parents, left a gaping hole in my soul. They did not know how to help with mine because they had covered theirs up with a thin piece of cloth. They did not want to dive too deep into mine, as they were afraid of ripping open their old wounds. I looked around at all the paler faces around me. Their chests had no sign of emptiness. They were shielded from this pain, due to ignorance passed down from their grandparents and then their parents. Because ignorance is bliss right?
Because they had no hole in their chest like me, I wanted so badly to be like them. They seemed to admire me when I did so. My chest slowly began to get covered up by a thin cloth and for a while I felt okay. Then, I opened my eyes and recognized the invisible poison building up within me and around me. I panicked, moved too quickly, and ripped my cloth. Everything that was there before leaked back out again, except there was more. It consumed me. I was drowning.
I felt myself give up and sink to the bottom of the hole, heavy with my thoughts. I felt as if I would never be good enough, smart enough, pretty enough… Why bother trying to swim to the top, I asked. I will never measure up to everyone’s standards. Swimming to the top was too hard and I am too heavy. I felt the weight of my words on my back, holding me down.
In those deep waters, I saw a blurry reflection from above the water. She looked like me. She looked like a goddess with her dark brown skin and thick black hair. She was reaching a hand out. She looked so beautiful and at peace even from so far away. I could feel myself wanting to be up there with her but realized my thoughts were still holding me back. I started tugging at my weights. I twisted and turned in the water, fighting with myself. I started screaming, “I like who I am! I am worthy! I belong to myself! I owe it to myself! I have no limits!” The weights broke off and I began to swim to the surface. In the back of my mind I thought about how easy it would be to just sink to the bottom again, but then I remembered how agonizing it was, and swam even faster.
As I breached the surface, I was met by the warm sun. I floated on top of the water and pondered to myself. How did I get to that point? That hole was too deep to be caused by just my own pain? Who else helped to dig that hole?
All of a sudden, I realize the hole I had once been sinking in, has closed up. I am lying in shallow water. I sit up and hug my knees to my chest. I rest my cheek on my wet thigh. I am grateful to have made it out. I never figured out where the woman I saw in the water went, but I knew I had to share what has happened so no one else would be stuck in that place again.
Kondo-ing the mind
You can run from your emotions and let them catch you or you can build the container you want it to live in
To not run from your emotions does not mean fighting them, but articulating your thoughts and emotions. Conversing with them. Not letting them take over your mind with their lies. Facing the reality of the situation, accepting it, and conquering it. This is a practice that I know will take a lifetime to master, but I am determined to build a beautiful container for all of my seemingly scary emotions, thoughts, and feelings instead of running from them. They can’t hurt me unless I let them. They are not me, but a product of me. I just need to handle them as they arrive and clean up my mind before it turns into a bigger problem.
Afternoon walk
As I was walking down the sidewalk, just two blocks away from my home, I felt a presence behind me.
At first, I did not pay them any mind, but then they wouldn’t go away.
I would turn a corner and then they would.
I could hear the clicking of their shoes, the quickening of their pace as I quickened mine.
I kept seeing their shadow out the corner of my eye and could almost feel the warmth of their body, sending shivers down my spine.
I was walking faster and faster, my mind clouded. I was tripping over my feet, my mind was racing.
I felt my heart in my chest, my vision started to cave in…
I felt like I was never going to outrun this person.
I made it to the front steps of my apartment.
I started pulling hastily at my keys but felt an urge to glance back, still afraid of what I would see.
I was then greeted by a couple of leaves dancing in the wind. I stared at my empty street and chuckled to myself.
There was no one there all along. I should’ve just enjoyed the walk.
Is it possible to stop hating your 9-5?
As I do have a job that is not strictly 9-5 (more like 7 to whenever you get finished), I wonder why on earth we are prepped to live this way. I thankfully came from a diverse and rich with life undergraduate institution where I felt free to express my opinion and ask as many questions as I pleased. When I entered my graduate studies 2 years ago and started as the youngest in this lab I am currently working in, I felt excited to start dressing up and acting like a “young professional.” I am always a respectful person, but I still have my goofy traits and I also have opinions. I speak up (even if I am shaking with nerves) about things I see that I feel are not right with an explanation and a conversation to hopefully follow. I enjoy getting to know every person work with and I normally trust that mostly everyone at work just wants to do a good job at the end of the day.
All of this might be naive, but most people in my field I have interacted with up until 2 years genuinely wanted to learn and grow. Well, now I can tell you these beliefs have been challenged again and again during these 2 years. And right now I am at my breaking point. I never wanted to say this but I hate my job. And it is not that I do not enjoy what I do for my job, I actually get a lot of satisfaction from working. But the office culture, constant discrimination I face, and feeling so dehumanized every day is taking its toll on me.
I have stood up for my co-workers and myself regarding behavior I have found inappropriate by talking to the person directly in a calm and respectful manner. In this professional environment, every blatantly disrespected comment that I have argued against down falls back negatively on me. Especially if the person I am challenging is white like all of my management, I am probed to think how I am making them feel uncomfortable by saying I feel uncomfortable by their racist comment… I have been told several times that no one cares about me, I should be grateful to be here, and I could be fired at any second. I have been told several times to know my place, though all I want to do is learn how to be a better worker. I know this is not how it might be everywhere but it is unfortunately too commonplace at my university, especially for minorities.
I have had other jobs in customer service and have been an RA, TA, disability tutor, and worked in other labs.. Though I have worked with so many people in many different ways, I never felt so little support or so little regard for me as a person before like I do now. I have heard countless times growing up in my family, on how my aunt or uncle’s bosses did not care about them and how they hated their jobs. I used to think that they were perpetuating the negative environment by their attitude, but I am learning now that no matter how hard you try, the bosses will make sure you can’t go above and beyond if they don’t want you to.
I have been lied to countless times with no proof to show, been sent around in circles for whatever reason, and have had serious needs ignored. When I came back from work after my two week medical leave, my work was given away. They make us stay late too often and are on us if we are more than 5 minutes late the next morning. The schedule is not effective and I feel like I am working for nothing sometimes. Everyone is miserable, and I was usually the positive ones that kept trying to uplift people and tell them it would get better but it just got worse. Multiple people of color were fired or left because of arguments with white colleagues. Even white people are uncomfortable with what goes on in the workplace but are too scared to speak up because of what happens when you do. People of color are continuously undermined and sometimes jokingly called the “help.” The jokes are too much and hour “HR” department does nothing about these issues. Management actually brags about how close they are to them.
After a lot of thinking and working through a lot of my anger in therapy, I realized that I am always going to be this emotionally invested person. I care about the company I work for, the people I work with, and the cause I work for… and I fight for it. This is not always the norm and I should probably work for a place with similar values that I have, and not because of the topic.
I still don’t understand why people are not first when it comes to every company but I have come to accept that not everyone thinks this way. I personally have always thought if you take care of the people, then the job will be done more efficiently and better than if you don’t. And when I say take care I mean make sure they have time to take their lunch breaks, use their time off, listen to them, discipline is fair, and acknowledge that people’s personal lives matter.
I worry if I will be able to ever find a “9-5” that will fit my needs. I thought I would easily be able to since I always enjoyed working in the science field and spending time in lab, but now I am unsure. I will be starting a yoga teaching training program soon, and I am not sure if I will actually teach but it will be nice to not only have the option of a more flexible job but get to learn in a supportive environment.
Maybe 9-5s will be thrown out the window sometime soon. Maybe I am just not meant for that. Who knows, it is just unfortunate overall. I am learning to accept that it is not a failure that I feel trapped and cornered in this full time work life, but hopefully a push into a better direction.
I really just feel like people do not see all of these roles that are put on them at work are just roles they need to play and not who they are at their core. I think a level of formality is needed for certain settings but we are also people with so many layers. I feel like unless we are currently doing brain surgery, people of all different backgrounds should feel comfortable being themselves without having it held against them. Again, maybe I am just being naive.
Using Resistance to My Advantage
“For ever action, there is an equal and opposite reaction…”
Sir Isaac Newton
My love for science has been questioned, chewed up, and spit out more times than I can count recently. As I was pondering about science in general, I was recently reminded of good ole Newton’s 3rd law. As quoted above, this seems like a phrase that is common sense when it comes to the objects you may encounter on a daily basis. If you throw a bouncy ball down it will come up, if you jump off that middle school canoe, if will be pushed the other way. Easy right? ..But of course this is not always the case.
There are constantly other forces acting on objects that prevent that spring-back motion we think about like in the bouncy ball example. And we also know some objects have an easier time springing back or forwards, sideways, whatever, than others. Then my mind turned to resistance. I was thinking about how resistance plays a role in the energy around us and why do some things have so much more damn resistance than others. So what do all these questions and thoughts have to do with anything? Well maybe nothing… but as I stretched my mind past the sound of my old physics teacher saying these things to me, I was able to relate this to my brain.
I am starting to accept that my brain is this flawed organ that is just here keep my whole body functioning. It is selfish and it tricks my thoughts or what I believe is my soul, into doing what it wants. But your brain does not always know what is best for you… It is going off of society’s standards, cultural standards, and its own selfish needs mostly. It also LOVES negative thinking and can be too eager or too apprehensive. It can hold you back from living your life if you let it. However, I want to figure out how to not always listen to those negative thoughts and decide on my own what I want… and make my brain follow through with it.
To get any change in my thought patterns or actions, I realized I am going to encounter resistance. Now, this was the first thing that always left me disheartened. It led me to the “Why can’t it be easy, it looks easy for that person” type of thinking. And I “believed” I couldn’t do whatever I wanted to do. Or in a different scenario let’s say I want to do something that I’ve never seen be done before so I “believed” I couldn’t do it. Well the thing is, I probably can do more things I set my mind on but what has been holding me back is that I was listening to my brain. My brain who was calculating risk based off of my past instead of actually coming up with solutions to get where I want to be. I would let my brain win every time and trust its selfish nature, and eventually give up. I want to re-train myself to suppress those negative thoughts as they do not benefit me. From an evolutionary standpoint they are necessary as they helped us survive all this time as human beings. But right now all of those negative emotions do is hold me back and cause me anxiety. For me, it is best to check them more often than not.
But here is another thing about resistance, it is tricky. It can deceive us into thinking if we just push harder and push through we will make it. Like if I wanted to push an imaginary box across an imaginary floor for the first time in my life. The box could be filled with anything, flowers, medicine balls, you name it. I don’t know what that box can be filled with but I want to get to the other side. Now the floor will also exert its resistance on the box, which depends on what type of floor it is,something I can see, giving me a false illusion mostly on how much resistance I may encounter. Again, I can make a guess about how hard I need to push but I don’t know for sure. Now let’s say I have one try per day to try and push this box at a constant and fixed speed without stopping or knocking the box over to get to the other side of the room (I am making this more complicated but hang in there). The best way to approach this would be to start small. Feel it out. It is better to start small instead of over exerting yourself, potentially crushing the box, or hurting yourself, than to take it slow. You start small, and you make adjustments to get to that sweet spot right over the threshold where you are pushing that box at a steady pace. You can’t possible know what is inside that box, but you can learn enough to get where you gotta be.
Overall this whole scenario in my head gave me hope. I was thinking about resistance as something that can be overcome with persistence instead of something I should avoid. As someone who suffers from GAD, I can tell you if you try to avoid anything in life your brain is going to bite you in your ass. If you let the crap from the past dictate what you can and can not do, your brain will go into survival mode 24/7 and tell you all the ways you should inhibit your life to protect itself from these newfound “dangers.” I don’t know about you but I’ve come to the conclusion that my brain is an unreliable you-know-what sometimes.
I know I can’t achieve my goals overnight, and I also know that is okay. I am beginning to learn how to push myself in a healthy way, and that it is normal to continuously adjust to the ever changing resistance we feel in this world… that is how we get stuff done. These rules set in mother nature are fair and they can be utilized to my advantage. And though I have been questioning my love for science and branching out, I also realized that it still has my back and I will hold all of its lesson close to my heart.
My personal journey with depression
Going back through the past and owning it as part of myself has been a hard journey. However, I think it is completely necessary to face all of the ugly parts of ourselves but also truly feeling good about the good parts of yourself. Admitting all of it has been very healing and has broken some of those walls I have put up in my mind from repressing what I thought was bad about myself.
I have really been dragged through the mud these past few months. Though I may have reached a low point in my life, I feel that it accelerated the uphill healing that I needed. This is because for most of my life I felt numb. I would see horrible things and have horrible things occur to me and my family… but I felt nothing. Because of this numbness I started to self harm. I was about 13. I thought for some reason that it would open up whatever was blocking my emotions. Plot twist… it didn’t.
Self harming made me more closed off and I quickly fell into one of my first long depression spells. I did not care about what I looked like anymore. I blanked out for most of the day at school. No one ever mentioned anything, or maybe others assumed something was going on at home. I was just floating through life.
I remember the adults around me were always explaining to me how my life was going to go and how I have to do this and think about a college major. I most definitely needed to heal before I could run but no one knew what was going on in my head. I barely knew because it was my normal. I was starting to feel overwhelmed. Then came my anxiety.
I kept feeling like my heart was going to explode and though I was fit, I was running out of breath even going up a flight of stairs to a class I was stressed about. When I would hear heavy critiques from my mom or if a random guy was catcalling me at the mall, I would get this same feeling. The only things I felt at the time was this void or the feeling I was having a heart attack.
One day the dark cloud went away, and I went along with my seemingly normal life like nothing had ever happened. Years passed and I was suddenly 16. By this time, I really pushed away any thoughts I had that might upset the people around me, like my family or mentors. I looked like how I thought they wanted me to look and I did what I thought they wanted me to do. I received a lot of positive praise for this as well. I had this false feeling of peace. I still had the void and this numbness but life was good, I had no complaints.
When I went away to college and spent more time alone in my single dorm room, the dark cloud returned. Combined with stress and being at a college I did not want to be at, surrounded by people who had completely different views than me at a small catholic college, I became depressed again. I would just study and go back to my dorm without eating to just sleep in the dark. I performed well in school my first year but felt I was barely hanging on. I think my summer job as a lifeguard with all of my best friends that summer truly saved me to return me back to my “normal” self.
Up until this point, I thought it was completely normal to have constant negative thoughts abut myself. I did not like a single thing about myself and I did not know why. I constantly wanted to (and still do most times) be invisible. I thought I was not worthy of anything I wanted and I was not excited about life.
Sophomore year, the depression came back. Classes were difficult, I was realizing more and more I did not align with anyone I was spending my time with. I did not feel I had a safe space anywhere. Though shit was bad, this time the depression came with all of my emotions. I felt as if all of my repressed emotions over the years were spilling out and were out of my control. I was crying all of the time. Lying about why I was crying because it would come out randomly in class or in meetings. I was having constant migraines, neck and back pain, and grinding my teeth. My health was at its all time lowest point.
And though I was experiencing emotional roller coasters all day, deep down I was happy because I felt more human. I felt so much better to be able to genuinely cry and experience emotions other than that void. There was still so much fear in me but I was beginning my healing process. Memories from my past were coming up and I felt like I wasn’t blacked out all day. I felt present in my body. Through this intense period of my life, I decided to make major changes. I transferred colleges and made the decision to go against my parent’s wishes. I hung out with people I liked and decided to cultivate a life I wanted.
Beginning of junior year. A friend from life guarding committed suicide. I grieved. It was a wake up call that I need to do everything in my power to help myself when I am feeling my mental health is not quite right. I told myself I would not be ashamed anymore or tell myself it was not a big deal. I would reach out for help no matter what my pride and ego told me. I learned how powerful our connections with other people are. I slowly scraped myself off the ground and decided to keep moving forward.
Senior year. I was appreciating myself more. I was setting boundaries with the people in my life. I felt so happy this year. I was feeling accomplished and I felt ready to bloom into my next self. However, I was still unsure about what my next self would look like, and I thought the answer would magically come to me if I waited long enough. I was going to therapy. I was taking care of myself.
Now. I have been learning, healing, taking steps forward and steps back for the past two years since I’ve been in grad school. I have accomplished things I never thought were possible and I am excited about the future. I am thinking about peace corps and yoga teacher training and more schooling and just how to live my life the way I want to. I understand my depression will always come and go but I can always rise above it. It can be a part of me but it does not have to define me. I have permission to grow. I have permission to heal. I can be whoever I want to be.
I love my thick afro
I love my skin
I love my hairy legs
I love my arms
I love my scar on my breast
I love how flexible I am
I love how far I can run
I love my voice
I love my eyes
I am smart
I am worthy
I am whole
Back in the office after burnout
I mentioned briefly before that I took a break from work due to mental exhaustion. Pushing myself and not setting the proper boundaries pushed me into depression for a short period of time. You would think having a two week break to just focus on you would allow you to be completely recharged and to be better suited for the emotional roller coasters you face throughout the work day upon your return… well you thought wrong.
During the break, I did put in a significant amount of time focusing on myself and learned a lot about what my body needed to function properly. I thought this would be all I needed to take on my stressful work environment. I also did ease my way back in with my first day just attending a training and doing no desk or lab work. Then someone tell me why was it that I wanted to just cry during my first meeting. I also felt even more nervous than before being around some of the people that triggered my anxiety in the first place.
After spending time in therapy, I uncovered that my response has been completely normal considering the amount of stress I have been through. However, that does not change the fact that some things that I was put through at work had been completely unacceptable. Learning to trust my instincts and acknowledge my anxiety instead of thinking every emotion I feel is wrong because of my mental health problem has been helping a lot.
I am slowly but surely feeling better in and outside of work and gaining more confidence. That does not mean I am not fearful that something will said to me might shatter it completely. However, I am working on facing those fears head on now instead of ignoring them. Why do I feel like I want to cry if someone insults my past? What are the objective facts of the situation? How do I view the situation? How might someone from the ‘outside’ view this situation? How can I confront the issue in a healthy way? I used these questions as well as some things I have learned during my break while I have been back to cope with all of my feelings:
Learning to separate work from your identity is a must. You do not need to be your work. You do not need to work 24/7 to feel accomplished. Life is so hard and messy and every aspect of it deserves attention. Listen to your body and learn what you want out of life. Work towards building that up. 100 years from now, you having a certain dollar amount in your bank account will mean absolutely nothing. Think instead about how you can incorporate what truly matters to you in your life and how much money you would need to do that.
I’ve also learned to stop holding onto material things. Have you ever had or seen a roommate who meticulously labels all of there things and is constantly accusing you of touching or even breathing near their stuff. Well, I actually haven’t but I’ve had friends who had and it seems so illogical. Ask yourself why a situation is making you upset and if it truly is the situation at hand or your own ego.
And last but not least, everything is temporary. These feelings are temporary, that boss is temporary, this moment is temporary…. the list can go on and on. So do what matters to you because the only thing that will be consistent in this lifetime is you…
This post might be all over the place but this is what has been on my mind. Getting back into work after time off is tough no matter what but it was probably the best decision of this year. Take care of yourself peeps.
Bad day not a bad life
I have been having a lot of bad days lately and even on my good days I am anxious about life turning upside down. Today I woke up feeling physically sick and also sick of the place I am living in. I got up to go into work, late as usual but ended up getting a lot of work done. I feel unsure about an exam I have coming up next week, completely regretting everything about it. I have been in and out of depressive periods throughout my entire study period and I have no focus. I also found out today that WOW airlines just decided to completely quit. I had a trip for next Saturday planned through them.
I quickly scrambled to get new tickets for the same time period as I went through so much to get time off and to plan some festivities. I am going to Iceland and then to France hoping my second solo trip would go a lot smoother than the first. I was able to get tickets but goodness they were expensive. And I am moving in May…. I am fortunate to even be able to afford new tickets but now I do not have much room for error for these next couple of months.
Despite all of this chaos, I am excited to move in with one of my best friends, I am excited for my trip, I am excited to graduate from my graduate program this upcoming May, and I am excited that even though I might fail, I will be taking my MCAT next week. I am so grateful for all of these things in my life right now. Maybe it is the anti-depressants keeping me from having a mental breakdown but I am doing okay despite all the stressors in my life. Barely floating, but there.
Just a reminder that even when everything seems to be turning upside down, you can look forward to the things in life you are grateful for and what brings you joy. It is keeping me calm and hopeful throughout the chaos.
The Chatty Cat 