Everything Makes Sense Now

I woke up this morning with a burning desire to spit out my inner most thoughts onto this blog, but for some reason as soon as I sat down, my rationality kicked in. So often I am met with the need to just blurt out the truths that swirl in my gut. However, I recognize the need to be logical and quiet my mind and fingers.

Yet...

I just can't help but wonder the reaction from being completely raw. Just throw it out there.

"Oh hey! I just want to let you know that _____"

What an easy task it would be to simply type out those words, but adversely a difficult set of consequences. While I know what I want to say would be met with overwhelming support, I have some steps I have to take before I get to that point.

For a long time, I was afraid of facing certain hurdles I know I have to jump, but recently that fear has subsided to practically a grain of nothingness. Part of that is my ability to be open with more people in my life. I have reached out to those I know I will need, and the fact that they listened without batting their eyes and just loved me is more than I could ever ask for.

When you learn to fully accept yourself and decide to live according to that, there becomes a moment of unbelievable clarity. Everything that you have fought against, that weighs on your mental stability, seems to float away. 

The moment I knew in my heart what I needed to do to be the real "Dana", all desire to hurt myself or even kill myself slipped away. There is no longer that burden weighing on my mind making it unbearable to deal with the real world. I can face the day knowing in the end there is joy and I will no longer be living in the mindset that I have to fit a certain mold to be loved.

Do you know what is like to go through life never knowing how something was supposed to feel?

Thinking you were broken, meant to forever live in stagnancy, surviving by knowledge rather than instinct. 

That is how I lived my life. I always thought, "I can't possibly feel these things because I was damaged." I basically just lived based on a set of black and white rules placed in front of me. "This is how it is supposed to be." Granted I was okay, because I was convinced there was nothing left to do but accept it.

It is amazing how everything can change in one solitary day. Suddenly, my heart is on fire and there are moments I have to catch my breath. 

I asked my friends, "What is happening to me?"

They just giggle and tell me, "That is how it is supposed to be!"

Ah...

Everything makes sense now. 

Just Go For It

There are times my proactive mentality overrides my sense of reality, and becomes closer to willfulness than anything. I grew up surrounded by people who taught me what it meant to be selfless. One of these people was my Abuelo (grandpa) Armando. He was the MOST selfless person I know. He literally would give you the shirt off his back or anything he could if he had the capacity to do so.

Recently the five-year anniversary of the day he went home to God passed us and I was a tad more emotional than maybe the past couple years. Part of it may have been the five-year mark, realizing it had been half a decade since he took his last breath, or perhaps it was something else. You see, I recently made some choices that bettered me as a person, and for the longest time I didn't think I'd be able to do that because it may have been viewed as selfish.

However, as I look back on this past year, specifically what led me to planning my suicide and ultimately the continuation of suicidal thoughts and self-harm, it dawned on me that had I not made the necessary changes in my life, I perhaps would not be on this earth. Although I don't see suicidal tendencies stemming from any type of mental illness as necessarily selfish, had I not been willing to fight, THAT would have been selfish.

So I did fight. I fought for everyone surrounding me and typically, that might make sense. I focused on serving those around me without really thinking about what I needed to change in order to start living a life worth living. I figured deep down there is no way I could restructure myself because it might affect too many people in the outcome. I chose to continue to bury seeds of truth deeper within my being and fight for survival.

Do you know how exhausting just surviving is?

It is not only exhausting, it is miserable. 

After half a year of tearing through these deep roots, and prayers filled with tears of anguish, I finally was met with clarity. Clarity that not only provided me with a sense of hope, but also removed any desire to escape this life. Regardless of my progress, and it had been a ton of progress at that, it doesn't mean I still didn't have massive breakdowns I had to work through with a superfluous amount of skills. Somewhere in the back of my head I still held suicide as an ultimate option and before you judge that statement, remember that having Borderline Personality Disorder can sometimes be a daily effort to survive.

I got to a point where surviving wasn't enough. I needed to be able to live...and thrive.

I had to throw the "black and white" mentality out the window and just go with it. One of my favorite quotes is:

There will be a few times in your life when all your instincts will tell you to do something, something that defies logic, upsets your plans, and may seem crazy to others. When that happens, you do it. Listen to your instincts and ignore everything else. Ignore logic, ignore the odds, ignore the complications, and just go for it. - Judith McNaught

Oh but where does God come into this for those of you who might be shaking their heads. Well, God created every intricacy of our minds and that includes that "gut feeling" you have when you know you have to do something.

I have for TOO long concerned myself with pleasing everyone in my life. Guess what? 

Not going to happen.

If we were all on the same page, well then politics wouldn't exist. It is that simple.

This doesn't mean I care only about myself; however, what it means is that I'm not going to let the opinions of others or the dialectics of others be my foundation. I need to stand for myself. Another quote from the famous character Rock Balboa:

It doesn't matter how this looks to other people. If this is something you gotta do, then you do it. Fighters fight.

What Are You Afraid Of?

What are you afraid of?

I have asked myself this very question numerous times the past couple of weeks. So many times in life we shy away from those things that frighten us because we don't want to risk stability. However, how often does stability bring true joy?

For me I played it safe for years, staying within a "black and white" mentality only to fall within the cracks of society. I'm not talking about going unnoticed, I'm simply talking about flowing right along with the people that surrounded me. I was too afraid to speak my mind when tough questions were presented. 

I always thought "this can't be right, that isn't what I was taught," and for the most part I just shrugged off anything that was pointing me in the other direction. We strive so hard in society to please the mass majority, but in the end is that what we truly deserve as an individual?

We are each crafted in such a unique way, that no one should be able to mimic every iota of our being. So why do we struggle so hard to be someone else? For me, I had a lot of factors that dictated why I was afraid to be myself. Religion, culture, the school I went to, general demographics in the town I grew up in, parenting style....and much more. I thought I had to be this cookie-cutter Baptist conservative who lived the American dream. 

In the past year, through therapy and digging through the sludge of my past along with pushing away the denial of who I was fighting for so long, I have started to confront my fears, specifically in the past couple of weeks.

Do you know that my biggest fear is finding true joy? All growing up I was told to be thankful for what I was blessed with, and that couldn't be further from the truth. However, true joy doesn't always stem from blessings. To me, in order to find happiness you have to go through a bit of muck. 

"Dana, hasn't your life been a bit mucky already?"

Yea sure, but whose hasn't? We have all had trials of some shape or form. Trials that were thrown on us without asking for it. Trials that may have helped developed how we act as human beings today. But tell me, have you ever specifically decided to go through the worst in order to get the best?

Many people may disagree with me over this, specifically those close to me, however opinions are opinions. We all have them.

This past week, on February 26th, I decided to confront those fears because I was given a reason to do so. A reason that practically fell in my lap. Ever since that day, the sun has literally been shining and I can't stop but thank God for that, and the joy he has instilled in my heart. 

So tell me, are you afraid of joy?