Category: mental health

mental health, Reflections

Learning Confidence

by KimLeave a Comment on Learning Confidence

“It is the bright shine of all the endured sorrow that will make us glow” –Tyler Knott Gregson

Confidence is not something that I’ve ever had in abundance. It’s not even something I’ve had a decent amount of. I suppose part of that is my personality and wanting to be in the background more than the forefront of anything important, but it has been a deeply seeded part of me for as long as I can remember.

I tend to read into things far more than I probably should, but I trace a lot of my actions and life decisions back to my lack of confidence on a regular basis. I’ve never thought that I was truly smart enough, pretty enough, worth enough, etc. for some of the things I wanted to do with my life. So I settled. I settled in my relationships, my job choices, and in probably more things that I’m even aware of. The problem with settling is that your soul senses that something isn’t quite right. This leads to unhappiness and uneasiness, which then tends to feed into the lack of confidence again, and the cycle continues.

The funny thing is, the last time I told someone that I have very low self-confidence, they didn’t believe me. They said that I seemed very confident, and I think I laughed at that. I’ve always been a second-guesser, someone who always worried that the decision made was the wrong one. I still overthink practically every decision I make, but I’m trying to take more leaps of faith in my choices. Perhaps it’s this attempt to dive headfirst into decisions that gives me that false air of confidence. Or maybe that attitude is slowly transforming me into a more confident person without me really realizing it.

It’s not that I don’t want to be confident. I want to be confident in who I am and what I’m doing more than anything else in the world. It’s just the struggle between wanting to be a certain way and actually being that way. Just as in everything else though, there has to be a desire for change before that change can actually happen. Like I’ve said before, I don’t really do the “New Years resolution” thing, but I am trying to make it a life goal to build my confidence. I’ve been taking the struggles I’ve worked through and am trying to turn them into something positive. The feedback I’ve gotten back on all of that has probably been the key factor in building whatever kind of confidence I do have at the moment.

I know now that I do have something worth offering and I want to do everything possible to try and share that more and more. I’ve got my life story and while parts of it are incredibly painful, learning to embrace all of the dark and ugliness is what makes it all so beautiful. Like I’ve told everybody I’ve encountered lately, if reliving even part of that pain needs to happen in order to help others through their struggles, it’s more than worth it. Perhaps the confidence will appear as an accompaniment to the peace I feel every time I know someone has been able to relate to my story.

Niederrad, Germany- October 2014
Niederrad, Germany- October 2014

listening to: Damien Rice, Bastille

mental health, Relationships

The Hardest Part of the Story

by Kim3 Comments on The Hardest Part of the Story

The only thing I’ve ever published on this blog and then deleted is still a hard story for me to tell. It’s one that needs to be told and one that I don’t try to hide, but I was far too emotionally invested to write about it appropriately.

People that have known me for a while remember when I got married back in 2010. Looking back at everything now, I realize that the marriage shouldn’t have happened in the first place because I was already far too consumed by my depression, but in the moment, it made sense. The marriage lasted three years. Most of it is now a blur to me, but there are still some very vivid memories.

I suppose I should start back before I even met him. I should start back at my freshman year of college. That was the year that everything started to change for me. That was the year that I partied far too often and invested time in some people that didn’t have good motives. That was the year that I lost any innocence and not all of it was by choice.

Fast forward to the next year when I met the guy I would later marry. There were moments at the very beginning that should have been clues that there was something wrong with my psyche. If I felt too constrained in a blanket or a hug was too tight, I wouldn’t be able to breathe, my eyes would instantly tear up, and my body would just freeze. Panic attacks would become more frequent as the years progressed, but I should have realized that something wasn’t quite right at the very beginning.

What started off as a casual friendship turned into a pretty serious relationship. I became dependent on him and went as far as to drop out of college and move to another state to be with him. That was when he proposed. Part of the reason for proposing was so that we could live together without the complete and utter disapproval from my parents.

Looking back, the year we spent together while engaged was a year of my emotional and mental health utterly deteriorating. I started waking up in the middle of the night because of panic attacks. There is nothing more terrifying than being unable to move and so frozen that your brain can’t process what is going on around you.

The wedding day quickly approached. I clearly remember wanting to call off the wedding day, but also being so concerned about what others would think if I did that I carried through with it. I was a mess the weekend of. There wasn’t a waking hour that I wasn’t fighting back tears. I thought it was happy nerves, but I’ve never been that out of control with my emotions, and I know now that the overwhelming emotions were more signs that there was something off.

We were married, and things were fine for a while. This is where things get even harder to talk about. I suppose typing it out is easier than verbalizing everything, but there were three different instances during the three years we were married that changed everything. It was a kind of abuse, the kind that is both hurtful and degrading, and I was completely unequipped to respond properly. After the third incident, I finally realized that there was nothing more important than getting out. I’ve always used the same example when explaining this, but it was as if there was a pane of glass that kept getting cracks in it until that third time. That final moment of hurt and abuse was enough to shatter the glass and make me realize just how badly I needed to remove myself from the situation.

I’ve found that this is a tricky topic to discuss for a couple of different reasons. For one, I needed to escape for my own health and safety, but I’m not out to paint my ex husband as an evil person. There are numerous great qualities about him, but I can’t look past the pain he caused me. I’ve never wanted revenge, but I wasn’t about to allow that hurt to continue. You hear about abuse happening, but you don’t imagine it happening in a seemingly happy marriage. You don’t imagine someone who is beloved by everyone who meets him could possibly laugh when confronted with the pain he’s caused somebody.

Secondly, I don’t want pity. I’ve never wanted people to feel sorry for me. It’s in the past now, and just like the other hurtful moments in my life, I’ve learned from it. I’ve learned how to stand up for myself and I’ve learned to be far less tolerant when confronted with similar issues. I’ve learned how strong I can be when it’s absolutely necessary, and I think that strength is my most beautiful quality. I’m proud of the person I’m becoming in my recovery.

So the reason I share the basic overview of this part of my story is this: I want more people to truly understand that there can be pain when everything looks perfect on the outside. I want people to be more willing to help when they think somebody might be hurting. Most importantly, I want people who might be experiencing something similar to know that they can be hopeful, that there is another side and a way out from the hurt. Recovery is possible even after the darkest moments.

Niederrad, Germany- October 2014

Niederrad, Germany- October 2014

listening to: Vance Joy

mental health, Reflections

Feedback

by Kim1 Comment on Feedback

If there’s one thing that I’ve enjoyed about writing on this blog more than anything else, the chances it’s given me to connect with other people is hands down my favorite. I’ve written about how flattered, yet taken aback, I’ve been when it comes to old acquaintances or friends emailing me to let me know they’ve been reading my blog, but it struck me again just how incredible it can be.

Yesterday, I got the pleasure of having lunch with a friend I hadn’t seen in over 10 years. She was only back in Texas for a few days visiting family before flying back to LA, so getting to spend a few hours catching up with her was really special. We got onto the topic of my blog and how she had started reading it months ago, and it was just so exciting to get to audibly hear what somebody else thought of it. The thing that struck me most is that she found what I’ve written so far to be relatable and open, which has always been my main goal.

Deep in my soul, I have all these dreams of being able to help people who are struggling with the same types of demons that I’ve fought for years. That isn’t to say that I wish some of my past experiences on anybody, but being a support system for somebody who might not have anyone else has been a goal of mine for a while now. Yes, I do get caught off-guard every time anybody tells me that I’ve been able to inspire them the smallest amount, but it’s also exciting. It means that being as honest as possible on here is accomplishing exactly what I’m hoping for: letting people who might be struggling know that they’re not alone.

I don’t think I can say this enough times, but I like being an open book when it comes to my writing. It’s a freeing experience. I have this tendency to dwell on specific moments for far too long, but when I can write down the thoughts going through my mind, it’s almost as if I can remove myself from the situation a bit and look at the problems more objectively. I think exposing all of the dark moments is the best way for me to truly heal, so I’ll continue down the path of sharing as much as possible for as long as possible.

Cotton plants on the way out to West Texas - October 2014
Cotton plants on the way out to West Texas – October 2014
mental health, Reflections

High School Mentality

by Kim5 Comments on High School Mentality

“You’re going to have to get out of that high school mentality at some point”

Someone said this to me recently during a conversation about my present situation. I wasn’t quite sure how to take that comment. Part of me agrees. Part of me knows that I have far more to offer than what I’ve putting into life at the moment. I know that I have all of these skills and talents that could be turned into something to be proud of if I just worked harder. I think of the could-have-beens, the different paths I had planned for my life when I was younger. I see the people I graduated with who are successful in the traditional view of the word.

Then there’s the other part of me. The part that’s incredibly proud of how far I’ve come in the past couple of years and who I’m becoming. Two years ago, I would have never seen myself on the other side. I’ve written about this before on a previous blog, but it’s been a long time. Up until about eighteen months ago, I was suffering from severe depression. Severe in the sense that I couldn’t manage a job or even a couple classes in school because I could barely make it off of the couch on the bad days. I gained a little over eighty pounds, had crying episodes that turned into panic attacks, and felt that my life was generally just over.

I had a moment of clarity in April of 2013 when I finally started seeing a psychologist. There had been several moments in my life, both as a child and as an adult, that I was able to begin working through, and for the first time in years, it was almost as if a fog was beginning to lift from my life. I removed myself from a very emotionally and mentally damaging relationship, but I lost many material things in the process, including a house and more money than I could comprehend at the time. However, the most important thing to me was (and still is) that I was healing. I was becoming a person who could enjoy life again. My time spent in Germany was another way to heal. Since I had pretty much lost everything in the past year, it was a good way to remove myself from everything, get my priorities straight, and in a way hit the reset button on my life. I was able to get some more of my mental clarity back while learning new things and having adventures that will be with me forever.

While I know that from the outside, the life that I’m currently living doesn’t look like the most responsible or put together, it is a vast improvement from the one I was living when nobody knew the internal struggle I was fighting every day. There will come a time when I will have to move on and do something more productive with my life or find a different job to support the writer’s lifestyle that I dream of living daily, but I’m not planning on pressuring myself too much. There are far more important things in life to me than the “American dream” of marriage, a high-paying job with benefits, a house in the suburbs, and 2.5 kids. At this stage in my life, I’m just proud that I have some sort of drive and desire to do anything at all. I believe that depression is something that sticks with a person, even if it just skulks in the shadows. Right now, the fact that I’ve held some sort of job for the past year and have been able to continuously build strong friendships is an overwhelming win for me. There are people to meet, experiences to be had, and places all over the world to see. If that means I’m irresponsible and living a high school life, then that’s some other person’s opinion.

Winged Victory of Samothrace- The Louvre, Paris, France (July 2014)
Winged Victory of Samothrace- The Louvre, Paris, France (July 2014)
mental health

Not A Victim

by Kim2 Comments on Not A Victim

I’m sure most women can relate to the uncomfortable feeling of having to walk home alone in the dark and feeling nervous because you know someone is behind you, but you don’t want to act like you’re scared. When you know for a fact that you’re getting followed around a big city in the middle of the day, and the person following you keeps glancing at you and smiling because they know exactly how much they are making you feel uneasy, it’s just as bad.

It was last Sunday. I had been planning on spending the afternoon wandering around some of my favorite parts of the city in order to get proper photos of all these places I’ve loved spending time in the past several months. I headed down one of the main streets, and while I was stopped at a crosswalk, I made eye contact with a man who was probably in his mid-40s. He smiled at me, and while I normally am pretty friendly and smile at most people I come across, something about him unsettled me a bit. I stopped a few times at different statues and buildings, taking photos, when I noticed that every time I stopped, he stopped as well. I tried to play it off as a coincidence, but this went on for over an hour. He stayed far enough away from me, but no matter where I walked, he would be watching me. I started using the giant windows to keep an eye on his reflection, but there would be a few times that I couldn’t see him, so I’d look around, we’d make eye contact, and he would smile this terrible smile because he was aware of just how creeped out I was starting to become. At this point, I had been walking with no chance of losing him, so I stopped at a coffee shop hoping that he would get bored and leave. I waited inside for about thirty minutes, but when I left, he was waiting down a side road. I eventually lost him walking through several large crowds of people and down some alleys and through shops, but the fact that he was watching me for at least two hours still gives me chills.

I feel like I need to point out that I have never felt uncomfortable in the middle of the day like that in Frankfurt ever. It’s generally a very safe city, and I can’t even count how many times I’ve walked around the city by myself. In fact, most of the men here I encounter when walking home at night will cross to the other side of the street or will pass by in what I can only assume is an attempt to avoid making any female that might be walking home in the middle of the night feel unsafe.

This man made me mad. It made me angry because while I’m capable of taking care of myself, I felt out of control in this situation. I have encountered creeps before. Guys that think it’s ok to do things in attempt to see how uncomfortable they can make a girl. I know it’s been said over and over in all sorts of ways, but there is no reason that behavior like that should ever be acceptable.

The first time I ever experienced any sort of action like that was in 7th grade. A boy that had the locker next to mine had been inappropriate towards me several times, and when it came to the end of the year and we were all writing in each other’s yearbooks, he wrote this message in mine: “I’m going to rape you and f*ck you up, b*tch.” I was horrified. I don’t remember what I said to him, or if I said anything at all, but I do remember using white-out and covering up the message before my parents could see it. The only thought I recall thinking is that if my very strict, very conservative parents saw what he had written, they would be angry at me. I was horribly embarrassed.

I think this is the biggest problem. Instead of talking about our experiences or those moments that made us feel scared, vulnerable, or uncomfortable, we tend to be embarrassed and try to hide what happened. I lived with someone who treated me far less than desirable for three years before finally feeling brave enough to tell someone what had been happening and leaving the situation altogether. It’s hard to talk about these things, but this is what needs to happen. When something happens to you that makes you feel sick to your stomach, your concerns should be vocalized. Being brave and telling someone not only helps you, it also helps others that might be too scared to talk about their past. When people know that similar things have happened to someone they respect and trust, they gain the courage to share their own hurts. Talking about these things is the only way to heal, and it’s the only way that people like the men in my stories can be stopped.

Niederrad, Germany- October 2014
Niederrad, Germany- October 2014

listening to: Ani DiFranco