No post this week. We’re on vacation. We’re spending time with good friends and hopefully will get a chance to see some family. I’m not sure there will be a post next week because we are driving home next Saturday and may be too tired to write.
Author: Aimee Eddy
GOD GIVES US TOOLS
God works miracles in people’s lives every day. People survive horrific accidents, they are miraculously healed of illnesses, they find a long lost love, or they find money when they are down on their luck. God is awesome, but he doesn’t always perform miracles. Sometimes he provides tools to help us get through illnesses and hard times.
I have heard from Christians throughout my struggles with mental illness say, “Give it to God and he will take your mental illness away.” It’s not that easy. God sometimes works miracles, but other times he provides us tools to help ourselves. It would be easy for him to click his fingers and our mental illness goes away, but what is he teaching us by making life easy? We learn when we help ourselves by using the tools God give us.
Just think of what a miracle it is for therapists and psychiatrists to have the knowledge and compassion to work with us to navigate our way through mental illness. Then God gives some people the knowledge to create medications that balance the chemicals in our brains to manage the symptoms of our illness. To other people God gave the ability to come up with coping techniques for us to handle hard times.
God worked a miracle in my life and gave me tools to help myself in my struggles with mental illness. In college I was at the bottom of my dark hole. I was suicidal and self-injuring, and I wasn’t sleeping. I took a year off from college to take care of myself. My mom went to a hospital in another state to find me help. They gave us information about a therapist who let me pay what I could afford since I had no insurance. The therapist set me up with a psychiatrist that used programs to help me get my medication for free. I saw the therapist each week and she taught me coping techniques. In time I started feeling the best I have ever felt. My therapist took me off my medication and told me in a few years my illness would return.
After I discontinued therapy and antidepressants, I started living the life I always wanted. I had lots of friends, I got together with a group of co-workers to go bowling until 2:00 AM, and I started dating. In a year I went back to college.
When I was getting ready to graduate, I went to my therapist’s office to give her an invitation to my graduation, but her office was empty. When I asked someone who had an office in the same building, he told me that my therapist’s office had been empty for a very long time, and there had never been a therapist in there. God gave me an angel to get better so I could live life and graduate from college. The therapist angel was right, though. A year or so after college I fell down that hole again.
I will admit I have had to search for the right therapist and psychiatrist to help me, but God did provide me with the ones I needed. After my abusive ex threw me out, my whole life seemed like a hopeless wreck. I started seeing a therapist who told me to watch a funny movie. I was unhappy with her, so I went to a program through my work that helped me find a new therapist. The new therapist knew I was a writer, so she had me journal out my feelings, and we worked on them in our sessions. She gave me homework, she taught me how to notice my unhealthy thinking techniques and change them, she taught me coping techniques, and she helped me learn to love myself.
When I met my husband, she did couple therapy with us to teach my husband how to handle my illness. She helped me stop injuring, find recovery, and start a new life. My therapist became like a friend to me. I miss talking to her. She is a tool God provided me to help me get better.
When I went to visit my husband’s uncle and aunt in Georgia, his uncle, a psychologist, noticed my hands shaking. He sat me down and asked me a series of questions; one of them was what medications I was taking. He told me my medication was causing the trembling. When I returned home, I told my psychiatrist. He took me off all my medication and I went into withdrawal. A friend told me about another psychiatrist who was good. I contacted him and he tried me on different medications, and when they didn’t work, he carefully weaned me off. I still see this psychiatrist every three months, and he has me on the right amount of medication to keep me in recovery. My husband’s uncle and the new psychiatrist are tools God gave me to help take care of my mental illness.
God has also provided me friends, family, and a husband to be a part of my support team. God didn’t cure me, but he gave me tools to help me reach recovery. I had to do a lot of work to get to recovery, and I had the right tools to help me get there. He continues to provide me tools to stay in recovery.
God does work miracles, but some of his miracles are in the form of tools to help us work through our mental illness. God gave therapists and psychiatrists the ability to obtain the knowledge to help us get through our illness. He also carries us in our struggle to reach recovery. By fighting this illness with God’s help, we learn to fight for ourselves, to take care of ourselves, and to ask for help. If God cured every illness, we would never learn lessons about life and ourselves.
Each day I use the tools God gave me to stay in recovery. I take my medication, I lean on my support team, and I use coping techniques to help me stand strong in the light of recovery.
SELF-CARE FOR MENTAL HEALTH
While struggling with mental illness, we may be so busy with jobs, college, children, and other responsibilities that taking care of ourselves gets pushed away. Or we could be struggling so much that we give up on ourselves. Wherever you are at with the mental illness you are fighting, you must take time out to care for yourself. Self-care is important in all aspects of mental illness, even in recovery.
In my journey through mental illness and as I work to stay in recovery, I came up with a few ways to practice self-care. Here are some important ways to take care of yourself.
- Eat healthy meals. This is something I am working on. It’s important to watch how much sugary food you place into your body and to put together healthy meals. Add vegetables to your meals, snack on fruits, limit late night snacks, eat out less, and look into preparing wholesome meals.
- Make time for meals. I always make sure I have three meals a day. If you’re busy, make a plan to take time out of your schedule to eat three meals daily. If you feel depressed and are avoiding eating, then force yourself to take time to eat. Put it on the calendar or set an alarm in your phone to remind you to take the time to eat. Food gives you the nutrients and strength you need to fight this illness. If you don’t eat regularly or avoid eating, you can cause physical health problems for yourself.
- Take time for relaxation. You can spend money on a spa day, a massage, or a manicure. You can also relax without spending much money at all by taking a bubble bath, doing crafts, watching a funny movie, or listening to music. To relax I woodburn, soak in a bath, or write.
- Take care of your mental and physical health. Listen to your body; if something doesn’t feel right or you feel sick, take care of yourself. Call off from work, go to the doctor when you need to, and allow yourself time for rest. When you notice you’re not handling your illness well or you’re getting worse, ask for help. Go to your therapist, take your medicine, turn to your support team, or build one, and do coping techniques. I go to the doctor when I need to, and if I don’t, my husband makes sure I do. My husband never lets me work when I’m sick, and when I struggle with my mental illness, I have coping techniques and a wonderful support team.
- Get plenty of sleep. If you’re having trouble sleeping, talk to your psychiatrist for medications that can help you. Pick a set time at night to go to bed. Shut off your TV, social media, and phone. If you struggle with anxiety or racing thoughts, find a relaxation technique to try like deep breathing, listening to relaxing music, or muscle relaxation. I like to imagine myself lying on a beach with water coming up around me and I do deep breathing.
- Take care of your basic needs. If you’re really struggling, you might not get out of bed, take a shower, comb your hair, or take care of your hygiene. Make a plan to get out of bed and sit in the living room, or get up and take a shower, or comb your hair, and brush your teeth. Taking care of these needs is important in self-care. When I was at my worst, I neglected to shower regularly, and I felt filthy. When I took a shower I felt refreshed.
- Take time to socialize. Spend some time with people you care about. If your anxiety keeps you from going to places or events that involve a lot of people, then ask a friend to hang out with just you. Sitting alone at home leaves the mind to wander and makes you feel lonely. Go out and have some fun. You deserve to have a good time. When I’m home alone my mind wanders and I feel more depressed. My husband and I like to go out to dinner, to events, and the movies. Sometimes I go to dinner with friends at another friend’s house.
- Take some time to be alone. If you live with other people and you get overwhelmed with things going on with them take some time to be alone. Take a walk, go to your room, sit out on the porch, or find a place you can go to be by yourself. Sometimes you just need a break from the people in your life, and that is okay. Take time to be alone and de-stress. My alone time is at night when my husband goes to bed. It’s when I write, when I journal, and when I snuggle with my dog. It gives me time to focus just on myself and my own needs.
These are only a few things you can do to take care of yourself. You are important and you owe it to your physical and mental health to practice self-care. Your mental health is connected to your physical health. If you don’t take care of both, you will not only struggle with mental illness, but also physical illness. Taking care of the body and mind will help make you stronger to reach or stay in recovery.
I make self-care an important part of my life, and because I do I dance in the light of recovery.
Happy Easter!!
Because of Easter and I spent some time at my parents house I didn’t write a blog post this week. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I went to church with my parents and had dinner with my parents and cousins. My husband had to work but he came over afterwards. We all had a great time. What did you do for Easter?
THE LITTLE THINGS
God looks down on us and sees we are struggling or need guidance. He provides for us through little things and thoughts in our minds. It’s easy to miss these little things while we are struggling. When mental illness clouds our minds, it is simple to blame God and to hate him for what we are going through. We may lose our faith and miss the little things God’s doing to take care of us.
When I was at my worst, I stopped going to church and I lost my faith in God. In spite of this, he gave me a wonderful mom who went to great extents to find me help. He gave me a therapist who helped me reach recovery long enough to live a life I didn’t get to as a teen and to graduate from college. When I moved in with an abusive boyfriend and hit rock bottom of my illness, God gave me a friend to support me and save my life.
When I had turned away from God, he gave me a special friend to invite me to her church and a Bible study she led. In time she sat with me in a sanctuary, and we prayed together asking God to come into my life. I had traveled miles away from home to a writing conference to meet her and find out she lived in my area. God works in mysterious ways.
When I was living with my ex-boyfriend, he took in a stray dog named Daisy. I didn’t want anything to do with Daisy, but she was determined to win me over. She nudged my hand until I pet her. When I went to bed at night, she slept right beside me and when I felt like giving up, she cuddled with me. God gave her to me to get through the abuse and the illness that I struggled with. From that time on, every dog I have ever gotten I’ve heard a voice inside my mind say, “That dog is the one for you.” Each one of my dogs provided comfort to me through different stages of my illness. I know that God is the one who led me to each of the fur babies I had throughout the years.
When I had given up on men and dating, God gave me a friend to set me up on a date and other friends to encourage me to go on that date. That guy turned out to be the love of my life. He is my husband and my everything. He encourages me, he supports me, he takes care of me, and he gets me through the hard times. I have never had a man treat me as good as he does, and he knows how to handle my bad days. He is the reason I’m in recovery. He is truly from God.
When I was working on publishing my book, God gave me two fellow authors who are also editors to edit my manuscript for free. He gave me another author to create my cover. Step by step God led me through writing my book and publishing it. He gave me a wonderful husband to comfort me when I cried after reliving the emotions of the past and to encourage me when I felt like giving up. God wanted me to tell my story. God has given me the strength to speak at many events to spread the awareness about bullying and how it can bring on mental illness.
When I was going through breast cancer and grieving after a bilateral mastectomy, I met Alexander Kovarovic through a Facebook support group, and he asked me to be part of his nonprofit. Five years later I am his assistant overseeing Advocacy and Education for his nonprofit One Life Project. God put him in my life so I can help young people with mental illness and hopefully prevent youth and young adults from suffering like I did.
Saturday, I got out of work at 2:30 PM. My husband and I went for a ride and stopped at a secondhand store. I walked past this rack of puppets and then I turned around, walked back over to them and I looked them over. Then I walked away. A voice inside me, God’s voice ,told me to buy one. I looked at my husband and said, “I think I should get one of those puppets.” He encouraged me to buy one, so I did. Then a name came to me, “Lucy.” My puppet’s name is Lucy. I know God was talking to me.
I will practice making her talk without moving my lips. I plan to use Lucy to talk to young children about bullying. I handed out my information to Girl Scout and Brownie leaders selling cookies at my store. Hopefully one will call or email me so Lucy and I can tell our story. We have a lot to tell young kids about how bad and hurtful bullying is. I know God will provide me the opportunity to do this.
Look for the small God things in your life. He is helping you through rough times without you even knowing it. Open your eyes to the tools and people he is providing you to get through your mental illness. You might think he is punishing you, but he’s not. He’s carrying you and taking care of you. Think about the things and people in your life that are helping you through this struggle. They are not there by coincidence. God is providing them for you.
God gave me special people and tools to guide me to and to keep me in recovery. God is walking beside me in the light of recovery.
TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS AND MENTAL ILLNESS
Getting into toxic relationships can happen to anyone. Sometimes we must go through bad relationships before we find good ones. Some people are more prone to unhealthy relationships than others. Many who have mental illness fall prey to toxic people. These people see the weakness in those struggling and take advantage of that. Those who are struggling find themselves unable to fight back and only sink deeper down the hole.
When I was in high school, I had a friend with an overprotective and in some ways an abusive mother. It took a while before her mother would even let her come over to my house. The friend and I became very close. I was sinking into depression, and she seemed to understand what I was going through. Then my senior year my cousin was killed in a car accident, and I fell into the deepest part of my hole. After I graduated, I moved forty-five minutes away to my grandparents to go to college. I continued to write to my friend and visit her on weekends. The deeper I fell down the hole, the more abusive she became. She played games with my sick mind and abused me in other ways.
I didn’t have many friends growing up and those I did have either moved away or turned on me. I was confused on what a healthy friendship was, and I was too sick to decipher what was wrong or right. I held on to her tightly even though she kept hurting me and it only made me sicker. I became suicidal, I had anxiety attacks that made me sick every day, I couldn’t sleep, and I began to cut and burn myself. I had hit rock bottom. The abuse continued until she moved away to college.
Years after I graduated from college, I was set up on a date. I thought I was in love. I moved in with him and planned to marry him. At first it was great, but slowly his kindness turned to abuse. I couldn’t use certain pans because I might ruin them, my cooking was no good, I was a failure because I was unable to go on to a four-year college, and so on. The verbal abuse worsened and then came physical and sexual abuse. He told everyone how well he took care of me and how awful I was to him. He went to therapy with me and told my therapist how I abused him, and I got lectured. I couldn’t see what he was doing to me. I was falling apart. My illness continued to worsen.
After he kicked me out, I ended up in a mental health hospital. It wasn’t until I started to work towards recovery that I realized what he had done to me and that he preyed on people who were weaker. He used my mental illness to get pats on the back for taking care of me.
Later, the abuse I went through with my friend and ex-boyfriend led to PTSD. I had nightmares of what happened to me. For a long time I was uncomfortable with hugs from other women because it sent me back to the abuse I received from my friend. I struggled for years trying to understand what happened to me. I’m not sure if my friend did it because of her mother or because she saw her chance to take advantage of someone weaker. For a long time I thought it was my fault, because I let it happen. I was too sick to fight back, and I allowed myself to be abused. I had to work through that in therapy.
After my ex-boyfriend, I swore off men. I moved back home with my parents and planned to live with them for the rest of my life. How could I ever trust another man again? I lost a lot of friends because of my ex and I lost myself. I had to work on it in therapy. Even when I met my husband, I was afraid to trust him, but it became impossible to deny that I was falling in love with him.
No one deserves to be in a toxic relationship. No one deserves to be abused. If you’re in a bad relationship, walk away. Look for the signs of a bad relationship such as physical harm, verbal insults, controlling behaviors, being forced into uncomfortable situations, refusing to let you be around friends and family, and forced sex. You are important and you deserve to be treated with love, respect, and kindness.
I am now in a very healthy relationship with my husband. I have some very good friends who treat me with kindness and respect. Because I am in healthy relationships, I stand in the light of recovery with happiness in my heart.
RELEASE YOUR FEELINGS IN A JOURNAL
When struggling with mental illness, many are bombarded by racing thoughts, painful emotions, and an overload of feelings. Our thoughts trigger our emotions and feelings. Together they can cause physical problems such as achy shoulders, chest pain, upset stomach, and labored breathing. Often feelings become trapped within, causing anxiety, panic attacks, and unhealthy coping techniques like self-injury. A good way to release those feelings is to put them in a journal.
When I was in a mental health hospital, a friend brought me a journal and a pen. I began to journal every day. I poured out all my feelings on the pages. It felt like a weight was being lifted off my shoulders. When I got out of the hospital, I took my journal everywhere like a security blanket. I wrote in it at restaurants, on my break at work, sitting at a park, in my car, and other places.
My therapist gave me assignments to write journal entries about certain things that were bothering me and then we would discuss them in our sessions. She used them to develop a plan on how to teach me coping techniques and to learn how to change my pattern of thinking. She even had me keep a separate journal to write positive things in each day. It was very hard to come up with things good about my life at that time, but I worked hard at it.
You might think, “I don’t know what to write in a journal,” “I’m not good at writing,” Or “I’d rather draw.” You can start by writing, “Today I feel..” and let your thoughts and feelings flow. You could even put an emotion down like “I am sad and that makes me feel…” You could write a letter to yourself or to someone who hurt you. The possibilities are endless.
The good thing about journals is that you don’t have to be a good writer and you don’t even have to be grammatically correct. You could even write so badly that you can’t read your own writing. Just write. No one is going to read it but you.
If you’re not good at putting your feelings in words but you like to draw, then draw pictures that portray your feelings. Get a journal with blank pages and fill it with your artwork. Express yourself with pencils, colored pencils, markers, or whatever works best for you. If you’re feeling like your world is falling apart, then put it into your drawings in your journal. Release your feelings in the way that works best for you, whether it be writing or drawing.
As I mentioned earlier, therapy my therapist had me keep a second journal where I wrote positive things about my day. At first it was very hard to come up with good things, but in time it got easier. If you decide to keep a separate positive journal, that’s fine. You could also write out your feelings in your journal and then add five positive things at the end of each entry.
You might be so far down in the hole of your mental illness that coming up with positive things seems impossible. Start small like “I got out of bed today” or “I took a shower.” For many with mental illness it’s a struggle just to get up and moving. Some find it takes a lot of energy just to take a shower. To accomplish these things is wonderful. As you work hard towards recovery, the positives become easier to come up with.
You can become creative with your journal, you can use stickers or pictures. You can cut out inspirational sayings from a magazine or news articles and put them in your journal. I have put obituaries for people I have lost and compliments from my customers in some of my journals. It’s your journal; you can put whatever you want in it and decorate it to your liking.
Journaling isn’t for everyone. If you’ve tried journaling and found it didn’t help you or you just couldn’t keep up with it, then investigate other ways of expressing your feelings like painting, playing a musical instrument, singing, or walking. Don’t keep your feelings inside you. They only cause more harm when you let them fester and build up with no release.
For me journaling has become a healthy coping technique. I no longer carry my journal with me everywhere and I don’t journal every day, but it still gets me through rough days. When I’m going through a hard time, I sit and journal. I not only put my feelings in it, but I problem solve, I brainstorm story ideas, and so much more. That’s how I came up with these blog posts. Journals can have several purposes. So, use your journal in whatever way works best for you.
Because I release my feelings in my journals, the light of recovery fills me.
YOU CAN DO IT
When you are struggling with depression, you lose interest in everyday things and you have feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. It becomes too easy to neglect your health and daily routines and tasks. You get stuck in a rut you can’t get out of. Even getting out of bed becomes very difficult. You feel as if you can’t move past this horrible sadness that has taken over your life.
I grew up with parents and grandparents who didn’t believe in the words, “I can’t.” Whenever my siblings or I said I can’t do something, my mom would look us in the eyes and tell us “There’s no such thing as can’t. You can do anything you put your mind to.” Her words were my inspiration and became my motto. If someone told me, I couldn’t do something I found a way to prove that person wrong. Throughout elementary they told me I couldn’t read, so I worked hard to learn how to read; they told me I couldn’t longer pass classes on my own, and in high school I passed my classes with “As” and “Bs.” My teachers said I would be on welfare when I grew up, but I graduated from college, I have worked the same job for twenty-eight years and I have written a book.
When I realized I had major depression in college, I felt like my life was doomed. I couldn’t sleep at night, I got sick every morning, I became suicidal, and I self-injured. It took all my strength to get out of bed each morning and go to my classes, yet I continued to get high grades. My life seemed like an endless cycle of hopelessness and inner agony, but I refused to fail at college. It was hard to pass my classes when I was so sick, but I could still hear those teachers from school saying, “You can’t succeed.” This drove me to study long hours to pass my classes.
For many who are struggling with depression, the simplest routine tasks like taking a shower, combing hair, eating, or getting out of bed seem impossible. It’s easy to give up and say, “I can’t do it.” The thing is if you dig deep down inside yourself, you’ll realize you can do it. You can get out of bed, you can take a shower, you can eat, and you can stand up to depression. Remember there is no such thing as, “I can’t.”
Are you lying in bed feeling too tired and depressed to get up? Then say to yourself, “I can get up,” several times. Dig deep down inside you until you get the determination to slip out of bed. Take small steps. Be proud of yourself for each step you take and shout out, “I did it!” Your illness doesn’t have to run your life. You can fight it, you can work towards getting better, and you can reach recovery.
Reaching recovery was the hardest battle I have ever fought. So many times I felt like I just couldn’t go on and I didn’t want to go on. I felt like I was doomed to a life of misery. My mom’s words, “There’s no such thing as can’t. You can do anything you put your mind to,” kept me pushing forward.
When I got home from work and the man I was living with told me he was kicking me out, I ended up in a mental health hospital. He told me he couldn’t help me because I could never get better. His words inspired me to fight harder. In a week I got out of the hospital and started on the path to recovery. I moved back home, I started going to group therapy, and I found a new therapist. Through several years I took steps towards recovery.
You might feel like reaching recovery is impossible and there is no way you can reach it, but you can. Take the first steps now. Start slowly and build your way up. Recovery doesn’t come easily so plan on fighting hard. Remember there is no such thing as can’t. “You can do anything you put your mind to.” Fight for happiness, fight for a new beginning, and fight for yourself. I believe in you. “You can do it.”
I believed I could get better, and I fought hard for it and I reached it. I stand in the light of recovery shouting, “I did it!”
ALWAYS BE YOURSELF
High school is a hard time for teens. They are at the dating age, they face peer pressure, and they work hard to fit in. If you dress differently, are too skinny or too big–boned or have any noticeable difference, you are teased and put down. Many try to change who they are to be part of the popular crowd or to fit in. Bullies are people who act aggressively towards people who are different. They pick out someone whom they determine is weak and abuse the person physically, verbally, or by cyberbullying. They prey on people who dare to be different.
My older sister was in the most current style before the others in our small-town school. She wore lots of makeup and got up early in the morning to do her hair just right. She was beautiful. I just got up in enough time to brush my hair, get dressed, and go to school. Even as a child she was a girly girl. I was always the opposite of her. I was a tomboy. I played with cars and action figures. I didn’t mind getting dirty. My older sister played with dolls and hated getting dirty. My parents loved us for the individuals we were.
I spent my childhood being bullied for having a learning disability and then in high school they found new things to put me down for. As a teen I liked tee shirts, sweatshirts, and jeans. Some of my clothes came from yard sales. I didn’t care about what was considered in style or doing the latest hair style. I hated makeup and nail polish. I was what my classmates and other teens considered an outcast. Many teens in my school picked on me about my clothes and hair. They abused me verbally for being my own person. They made me feel ugly and worthless. I wanted to fit in, but I liked my own style, which was simple.
Then a couple of teachers in my special education class decided to hold a beauty day for all the girls in the class. They had a beautician and makeup artist come in and make us up. I hated every minute of it, but I was willing to give it a try so that maybe I could fit in with everyone else. The eye shadow made my eyes itch, rubbing foundation into my skin felt weird, my eyes watered, making the mascara run, and I couldn’t help but lick my lips, wiping away the lipstick. My hair was curled and styled with a curling iron, and when I looked in a mirror I felt like I was staring at a stranger.
The teachers were trying to help me without realizing they were asking me to change who I was to fit in. I went along with it, and I tried to do lipstick and eye shadow on my own. I tried different hairstyles, but it didn’t change things. I was still an outcast and I only hated myself more. I felt ugly in my new style, and I felt like I wasn’t being true to myself. This only deepened my depression and destroyed my self-worth.
Through this experience I learned to never change who you are to fit in. Be true to yourself even if your classmates and your bully use it to put you down. Trying to be someone you are not only deepens your lack of self-worth and your depression. Be the person, the unique individual, you are meant to be and the person you feel comfortable with. Don’t let anyone change who you are just so you can be accepted by others.
Many teens who dress like the popular crowd are not being themselves. They are often just following the crowd and hiding their true selves. Each one of us has different likes, dislikes, styles, and personalities. Owning our differences and daring to embrace them, even though others don’t agree, is a bold and strong step. We must be true to ourselves whether others like it or not.
As an adult I’m happy to be my own person. I rarely wear jewelry, and I don’t expect my husband to buy me any. The only jewelry I wear is my engagement ring and wedding band. I don’t put makeup on; I feel comfortable with my natural looks. Most of the time I wear tee shirts, jeans, or sweatpants. I like short hair that I can just run a brush through and be ready to go. I have a streak of pink in my hair to symbolize that I am a breast cancer survivor. This is who I am.
Being myself is what lifts my self-esteem and carries me in the light of recovery.
EMOTIONS FROM THE PAST
Wounds on the soul from the past can heal, but a scar remains. We can move on from abuse, forgive those who have hurt us and heal, but the memory and the scar inside us never goes completely away. Sometimes things that happen in our lives reopen the wound and a storm of emotions flood us. How we handle the feelings is what matters the most.
I was looking at my reviews on Amazon for my book, Escape to the Garage: Family Love Overcomes Bullying, and realized I got a five star review last month. There was no name to tell who wrote the review. The review stated that he or she was a classmate of mine and had good memories of me. Then it stated that he or she hoped he or she was not one of those I wrote about. This opened an old wound. Who could have good memories of me, but not know if he or she was one of the bullies? I had friends that moved away when I was younger, and the few friends that I kept more than a year would know they were not one of the bullies.
Who would have good memories of me when I didn’t talk to my classmates? We had a very small class and often kids follow the crowd when it comes to bullying even if they don’t agree. That doesn’t make what they did okay. Even when you don’t agree yet you participate, you’re as bad as the bullies. Was this one of those type of people from my class? Was it someone who didn’t even try to talk to me because he or she was afraid of getting bullied? Or was it one of the friends who turned their back on me? I went over and over in my mind who it could be who wrote the review.
I want my classmates and the bullies to read my book and see what they put me through. The person did acknowledge that he or she is happy to see my success which made me feel good. Then the person wrote that now that he or she is an adult, none of that horrible kid’s stuff matters. He or she didn’t seem to understand that it’s not just horrible kids’ stuff. When I was younger in the eighties and nineties when kids were mean to others, they didn’t recognize it as bullying. It was kids being kids, but it’s more than that. Bullying doesn’t just happen with children; it happens to adults too. Adults also can be bullies. Plus, what happens to a victim of bullying can affect them into adulthood. The reader of my book obviously doesn’t understand that bullying isn’t just kids’ stuff and that angered me.
To me saying It’s kids’ stuff is just like saying kids will be kids, and the pain and damage I had to struggle with into my adulthood didn’t matter. I spent many years in therapy learning to love myself, change my negative thinking, mend the inner wounds, and forgive and move on from the abuse I faced as a child. Years of being put down by classmates and teachers destroyed my self-esteem, led me into a mental war with myself, and caused wounds no one could see. It also led me into bad relationships, made me afraid to stand up for myself, made it hard for me to trust, and made me agree to things I wasn’t comfortable with because I was too afraid to speak up and so much more. This led into my adulthood. The pain of that resurfaced with the five-star review.
The song “Because of You” by Kelly Clarkson is about someone who was abused, and the lyrics hold true for bullying too. Think about the lyrics as you read them and imagine that child or adult who is being bullied. Here are the lyrics:
Because of you
I never stray too far from the sidewalk
Because of you
I learned to play on the safe side,
so I don’t get hurt
Because of you
I find it hard to trust not only me,
But everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid
It took me years to overcome these things the song talks about. I had to go through therapy and take antidepressants, and even now I fear being hurt again. I am an adult now and my wounds are scars that at times reopen. The scars are from the bullies who verbally and physically abused me and the bad relationships I got into as an adult because I didn’t know how to have a healthy relationship.
Because of you (my bullies), sometimes my scars open up and the pain floods back, but because I’m stronger I can handle the pain and I stitch that wound up. When I read that review, I texted my friends who are also part of my support team, Cheryl and Amy. They both mentioned the positive side of the review and told me not to dwell on who it might be. I didn’t want to hear the positive, but I listened, or more like read it. Amy suggested I write this post about it, and it is very healing.
To my classmate who wrote the review you’re right; I have succeeded. I am not done yet. I have more books to write, and I am working hard at giving talks to bring awareness to bullying. Thank you for your review.
If old wounds are reopened, turn to your support system, don’t let the wounds push you down, and stitch them back up. Because I stitched my old wounds back up, I stand tall in the light of recovery.
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