I know life can be crazy stressful sometimes. And when that happens you can make the mistake of getting in your head too much and thinking about all the alternate possibilities of your future, or mistakes of your past, and it can really take a toll on your brain. But the thing is, your brain needs some TLC too. Which is why I’m here to remind you that everything is going to be ok. Let me say that again:
Everything. Is going to be. Ok. Nothing, not even the intense emotions you’re feeling right now, last forever. They will subside, things will fall into place, you’ll figure it out, and everything. Will be. Ok. So let your brain rest, take a deep breath, think some positive, hopeful thoughts and click that reset button.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am in no way diminishing nor removing therapy, medication or other forms of mental health treatments from the equation, but at the end of the day my higher purpose is this☝🏽⬆️. And all the rest of it- medication, therapy, etc. is simply a means by which Allah has given me to treat myself and return to Him, humbled by my difficulty, and grateful for my higher purpose at the end of the day. This simple piece of knowledge always brings me to a much more peaceful place than anything else. Subhanallah. Alhamdulillah.
Day….3million 7 hundred and 40 something of depressive episodes underway. I feel like I just can’t catch a break. Fear, self doubt, paranoia, the feeling that whatever I do will never be done as well as I want it to be done. These things are constantly wracking my brain. Its the reason I haven’t posted regularly in a long time on here. Its the reason I’ve deleted all my identifying social media platforms because I’m afraid of what other people will think and/or judge about me.
I go to a toxic workplace where people gossip about me and that has ramped up my paranoia to another level. And then mull over and over about the embarrassing things that I’ve done while I was there. I mull over all the things I did that I hope wasnt obvious but probably totally was.
I then relate those “great” memories to all the embarrassing moments prior to me starting this work (aka throughout my entire life) and start to convince myself that I’m crazy. That my family looks at me like I’m crazy. That they look at me the same way they look at my bipolar disorder aunt who is 40 and lives with her parents and hasn’t had a job for over 20 years now.
I’m beginning to dwindle but this writing is helping a lil right now.
Its reminding me of how fortunate I am too have all the caring and loving people that I Do have in my life. A loving grandmother who will do anything for me. All of my grandparents being alive. A wonderful mother and brother. I’m reminded that people don’t look at my aunt the way they do because she is crazy but because she is not helping out. Because she sits at home all day. I’m reminded that that does NOT have to be me. I’m reminded that I sent in my applications yesterday and I can sign up for classes somewhere if I don’t get in anywhere.
I’m reminded that this is just a toxic workplace and that when I am around my friends and the people I love, I am NOT weird to them. I’m not messed up. I’m funny, im understood, they don’t take my jokes the wrong way but rather get them perfectly. Ok I’m done I should get dressed for work now.
Buh bye ✌🏽
May 1st- lol I’m reading this right now and this really sounds like period mood swings. Also, I’m fasting so probably a little hangry too. But reading it is helpful for me to realize how much I can psych myself out just by being in my head for too long. Its good to get out of your head. Put words on paper, do a painting, take a walk, deliver a pizza, help an old lady across the street, just DO something. Its really easy to not do something nowadays because we have our phones. But hopefully we can learn to put it down and be an active member of society instead.
(Descriptive Details is a post series on my blog in which I write little tid bits of short stories. In some ways it helps me practice my descriptive writing but in other ways it’s really just plain fun😉)
So I found a lil story draft intro that I wrote a little while ago. Here it is….
It was a dry and cold morning. The kind that nipped the air and made your nose red and frozen, but warm enough that the rest of your body could stay warm. Salamah sat in bed wrapped in a dozen blankets, attempting to conserve any body heat she could retain. “This is ridiculous” she thought to herself. “Just get up and go find a heater ya doofus. It’s not like you’re some homeless guy on the street in the middle of a polar vortex!” She turned over on her back so she could look at her vaulted ceiling. “I wonder how one would go about painting something like that” she thought. “Also, does the attic just have a weird pointy line running across the floor where this ceiling is?” she thought to herself again.
Salamah thought to herself a lot. She wondered about the world around her with a level of curiosity very few could adequately match. She asked questions about anything and everything, which unfortunately came to the annoyance of others eventually, so she learned not to ask too many questions aloud.
*Knock knock* Good morning my darling! How did you sleep? In walked her happy, smiley, sunshiney, mother Asra. Salamah smiled. There was a time during her angsty teenage years where that cheery and blithe personality would have set off a series of eye rolls and mumbles under her breath, as she would drag her feet to the bathroom. But today was not teenage angsty Salamah anymore. In fact, that was almost 7 years ago. Salamah was now 23 years old and what a world of a difference 23 was from 17.
“Good morning Omma!” (word for mother in Korean). I slept well alhamdulillah!” Salamah said with a smile. There was someting remarkable about her mother’s smile and morning comments that always brightened her day.
“Well I was thinking of making some omelets this morning, did you want some?” her mother remarked.
Salamah’s eyes opened wide, shining, as if someone had drawn 2 cartoon stars inside them. She really loved omelets , and especially her mother’s. As a “hybrid-latchkey” sort of kid, she valued any moment she could taste her mother’s own cooking as opposed to frozen meals or ramen noodles. Her mother chuckled seeing her daughter’s face and said “Well I guess I will take that as a yes!” Meet you downstairs?” And with that she walked out of the room, leaving Salamah back with her thoughts again, in the relentless, unforgiving, frigid room she called her own.
The Warrior Within 