Self Destruction, We're Heading For Self Destruction

I have what you call an self destructive personality. I’m also a risk taker, which coupled with having an addictive personality doesn’t always end up being the best thing.


Over the course of my 25 years, I have dabbled in a lot of stuff. Things that when I do tell, people are often shocked because, “I don’t look like that type of girl”.


Well, guess what? I am that girl and yes, we don’t all look like rebels from the dark side, we come in all shades and colors.


I remember in high school wearing that badge proudly the “Oh, I did this last night or, I don’t remember what I did but it was good and of course, the where am I?” I’ve said those lines one too many times and it's quite sad now that look back on it.


If it wasn’t stealing money from my mother’s money drawer to buy diet pills when I was 9, it was dealing with bulimia during high school or starting to smoke when I was in the 7th grade on the first day I played hooky. Yes, I remember all these things and the list still goes on.


The list I felt for sometime far outshined the good I used to do in my day to day life and in order to cope, the “bad things” that I used to do became my crutch. It was what I ran to when I was in conflict or crisis because I knew the outcome and I was controlling it.


I have lived my life like this for years. As soon as something was going great, I would “freak out” and rush back to something destructive or familiar because even if it caused me severe pain, at least I knew what the end result would be. There would be no hope, no longing just destructive pain.


No person could cause me the amount of damage that I have given myself, so why should I fear anything?


Truth be known, I was afraid of everything. I was scared of being the failure, the black daughter in a line of strong (sometimes, too strong); resilient women and I would never measure up. Or that I wouldn’t be as smart as my mother or as funny as my brother or, skinny or, or, or…
The thoughts ate out my insides day in and day out and the only thing would quiet them would be my vice for that time period. Whether it was abusing my body, being abused by someone, endangering my health by smoking, drugs or anything I could get my hands on. I was afraid to feel and I was afraid to think for myself and I wasted precious time that I will never get back doing it.


Some might find it strange and I am not trying to sound repetitive but part of me died when my mother passed away. The part that held onto a huge chunk of my self destructive ways, somehow it stopped wanting to tick, maybe because it was only then that I realized how life can quickly be so taken away. How precious life really is, how powerless we truly are in some aspects and how much MORE it harms us by not confronting the issue that is holding us back.

Losing my mother was painful but I’m thankful I didn’t fall so hard into my old ways. Sure, I stumbled but I remembered how proud my mother was of me and how she smiled down at me from her hospital bed and it felt like a part of me healed or at least, it didn't hurt nowhere near as bad as before.


So I did the unthinkable, I stopped letting self destruction rule my life. I began making conscious choices, and I owned them all, completely. Both the good and the bad, I was taking action with no type of vice and I was opening myself to all that entailed.


Whatever that was or whatever that may be. I'm living, breathing proof that it can be both scary and hard but worth it in the long run. That it won't happen overnight and you will stumble but you will be quick to brush yourself off and move on. It can and will be done, you just have to want to stop it. You just have to love your life more than your vice!


Lesson: Things may be hard and difficult and some days it’s quicker to hide from it all but if you can advance forward, even if it’s just a smidge. You would have done a heck of a lot more than that cigarette would do for you, or that feeling of binging or those new shoes. They may cure all momentarily but making conscious, proactive decisions not only protect your present but secure your future as well in this life!

Finding Comfort In Being

One of my longest setbacks had to do with my starting to write again. After my mother passed away, all creative sources in me welled up and died along with her. I did the same routine day in and day out (hating it all the while), but that’s all I could do because I felt so lost. In time, I became used to this, hating my life but to comfortable in it to stop it. I figured I would wake up one day and my life would be in alignment and things would be okay all I had to do was sit there and wait.

So, I did. I gained weight, became more angry and miserable in my day to day living. I decided that I need to take my life back but how? How do I reclaim something that has evaded me for so long, what if I couldn't, what if I was too old (I'm 25)? 

Yea, right. Excuses, excuses...I really should make that my middle name.

That's when I decided to take my life back and soon, I could feel my creativity energy soaring back. I could write again not at the valor that I used too but I’m working on it. Dancing felt seamless, my body connecting more to the movement and the music and less self conscious, everything seemed new and fresh again. I realized then how not having creativity in my life changed me, I was stunting my growth and slowly draining all the color from my life. When I forgave myself and allowed myself to be happy, I felt free and open to all my blocks and they finally began to crumble and I could breathe again.

Which is when I entered my catch 22. 

With the walls coming down, though came all the pent up emotions surrounding my mother’s death. Stuff that I didn’t even know existed; my mind was cluttered with thoughts of her, of guilt and anger. I felt them so strongly and at first it was disarming because I thought I handled so much of this. 

Yesterday, I was triggered at work. My bosses' wife is battling cancer and she is being taken off a brand of chemotherapy because she isn't responding the way they all hoped. She is also a second mother to me. So, she came downstairs to work on something and I asked her how she was doing and she turned to me and started to cry. "I'm just sick of tired of being sick and tired," she said.

She reminded me so much of my mother then. I could feel it all rushing back, that helpless feeling. Of wanting to help but knowing that I can't, not the way that I want too. So I end up crying because all these feelings well up inside me and I can't bottle them up, anymore.

Yet, initially, I wanted to stuff all those feelings back down and go back to what was comfortable and familiar but I knew better. Hiding from it won't help matters any.

I have to handle this now or else I’ll keep drowning from the inside out. I have to learn to sit in my pain long enough to handle it and not be ashamed of my vulnerability. That being vulnerable isn't a sign of weakness but the opposite. That, just being is really okay, being present in this feeling and not feeling that I have to hide it anymore.

That I can find comfort in being still.

In being myself, finally.

And that I feel strong enough to share it all with you.

Thank You.

Coming In Second To Yourself

I have to be truthfully honest. I have issues with being changed. I
resisted it for awhile because all of my life, I've had people who
wanted to change me, mold me into what they deemed as "perfect" (i.e.
the perfect, daughter, sister, niece, girlfriend, etc). The real me
(the person I was at the time) was never good enough, I came SECOND to the vision people had of me in their head.

Irealize now that I had no true sense of self and I was scared to figure itout because it was foreign to me. I wasn't raised around women that were strong in who they were and unapologetic about it. Nobody wanted to push the envelope, go against the grain
willingly. Instead they looked towards other people to fill that void.

I think people tend to live their life through other people, putting these unrealistic expectations on people who are too uncertain to act and live life on their own terms and convictions. Fear being the main culprit, why risk it all when you can go through life existing. Your life might not be bad necessarily but at the same token, it's not WHO you are either. My mother and I had a difficult relationship at times. I know she loved me and I'm thankful that I got to see her before they took her off the ventilator as she was dying from cancer. We cleared up so much and I'm happy for those moments because it gave me closure to a lot of what I was feeling. Since I can remember, I was always plagued with the idea that the person that I am would never be good enough, smart enough, skinny enough, funny, popular and nearly any other positive adjective that can be attributed to ones self.

So in order for me to gain others' love and acceptance (as I thought), I began to become who they wanted me to be and yes, it would work for awhile. Then gradually, I would become resentful and hurt and angry because what made me (the person I was inside), what made that person so bad? What did I do to them? Therein lies my problem, I put the issue on myself and absorbed it, I began to believe all the negatives about myself because these people who were far older, wiser and “settled” in their daily lives than me knew what they were talking about. So, who was I to question that? I relinquished part of my power over to them and lost a part of myself.

I quickly felt I didn't have control over my own life and how I was living. I resorted to destructive behavior (pills, drinking, smoking, eating) because that was the only way I could exercise control over myself in that situation. All the destruction was mine and even though, I was hurting myself in the long run I felt vindicated by doing it because I was getting back at every single person who made me feel lesser than. Anger caused me to lose myself in the hurt and frustration, which in turn gave them even more power over me.

And I'll be perfectly honest with you; I still struggle with those exact same feelings and frustrations. Even though, I have removed myself from most of the situations and came to peace with some (i.e. my mother), the ramifications of how I felt still resonate me so deeply. I am still not as strong in myself as I should be and when someone challenges how I see or do things, the pain that I feel hits me so hard because it sends me right back to that place. And my response is to run right back to my old vices, so I can feel in control again.

The only thing I realize now is that no one has power over me, if I don't let them. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” quoted Eleanor Roosevelt and now I understand fully what she meant.You choose to give someone power over you, you choose to let them keep it and you choose to reclaim it and make it yours again. You are your own unique being and no one has the right to tell you otherwise. Be strong in who you are as a person, and own that because it is the one thing that will comfort and keep you strong in this life.