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I was always interested in the way my mind worked, and I was always introspective, mostly because I didn’t have a choice and nobody was interested but, all in all, it is a particularly good skill to have. The same pursuit got me interested in doing all sorts of tests and at some point, I found this website that allowed me to do endless psychological tests on multiple topics. One essentially said that I had sorted all of my issues up to the age of sixteen… not sure about that one. Another one said that I chose partners that I could help and that I saw them as a project on which I could work. Working on them and helping them with their issues gives me purpose. I have always wanted to help everybody I could in every way that I could. I never really had that idea of competition where you have to measure yourself up to everybody. My happiness has always come from being useful. I loved training people, I loved to see their confidence grow, and I loved to see them achieve and get recognized for their talents. They get themselves there, of course, but I always feel proud that I could be part of their journey and that they were able to become all that they can be. When I did my therapy, I would talk about how I tried to help this person and how I felt concerned about this other and I would get the comment:” Of course, you are. You are a saviour.” This was not sinking in quite right so it had to be repeated a few times before I could take a hint. First of all, I thought it was a compliment. I genuinely thought that the spandex suit with heels would look amazing on me, and the cape would be useful when I was cold and also on my bloated days. After having heard it a few times, I was ready to admit that it might be a hint, I took to the internet to see what it was all about. Being a saviour or white knighting involves trying to save people from distress and I might be drawn to people that have had a tough life. I then found an article that said that the only person that the saviour needs to help is themselves and that brought it home. I could see how every time someone would talk to me about a problem, I would automatically start to think of ways to troubleshoot., ways to improve and things I could do to support them in that. It is fine to want to help but it is not a good thing when you try to run away from your problems because you busy yourself with solving everyone else’s. When you offer to help but grudge them for needing help in the first place. When you use help as a way of getting people to like you by making yourself useful and getting them reliant on you. I have taken a personality test on 16personalities.com and it turns out that I am an INFJ, the Advocate, and one of the statements on the website was “Nothing lights up Advocates like changing someone’s life for the better.” It’s part of my personality so, how can I change that or why would I even want to change it? The goal would be to have it not be toxic. I gathered all the information, and I sat with that idea. The conclusion was that I need to focus on my issues, that it is not my responsibility to help everybody, and it is fine to say to people that I am not able to help them at a particular time. The fact that I started to learn how to build stronger boundaries helped in that because some individuals were using that to manipulate me. As I was oh so ready to be the knight in shining armour, there have been situations where people were more than ready to turn themselves into damsels in distress to get me to do things for them, things that they didn’t want to do or things that they felt entitled to have other people sort for them. When I was processing all this, I saw the title of Amy Tan’s book “Saving Fish from Drowning” and while I haven’t had time to read it yet, the title stuck in my head as the perfect way to describe this situation that I keep finding myself in. Putting time, effort, and resources towards saving people who have not asked to be saved or people who would pull me close when they needed my help and would drop me as soon as they were in a better position. My therapist went even further and suggested I read up on what the drama triangle was. This is a concept that was introduced by Stephen Karpman, and it looks at roles taken during stressful, emotional or conflict situations. The triangle has the “Victim” as the main role. That is the person who feels powerless over what is happening, and they are either complaining and going into a “poor me” state of being or completely falling to pieces. This role and perspective are activated by the “Persecutor.” This second role can be either a person, an event or a condition that is perceived to be the source of all the problems for the Victim. The third role is that of the Rescuer and it steps in to save the Victim. Now, the fun part is that the roles are not fixed, and a rescuer can become a persecutor. How could that be? Well, imagine you are with a couple, and you see that the man is not treating the lady right so, you decide to step in and advocate for her. That seems to make her feel a bit more empowered, you feel good about herself, everything seems to be going well but, he is not getting what he wants so, he starts pouting. She sees that he is upset and feels responsible for his well-being. From being the persecutor in the situation, he is now the victim, she used to be the victim, but she is now his saviour, and you used to be the saviour, but you are now the persecutor. What an opportunity lost to drink water and mind my business. I started reading “The Power of Ted” by David Emerald. This book gives an easy explanation of the concept itself and also the strategy to get out of this mindset. It described the victim’s perspective as an automatic reaction to just escape the current situation one is in. It sees it as a way to keep one feeling powerless and helpless, avoiding responsibility, and giving away control. I sat in this knowledge, and I looked at my life and what I saw broke my heart. I had always lived this way. In the beginning, as a child, I had no real power and no agency, no authority to make decisions for myself. My dad and my mom have moved between the persecutor role, dominating through blame, criticism and imposing their authority, and the rescuer, where they would step in to fix an issue. They have gone in even further and made sure that we were ashamed for needing their help and created the idea we couldn’t do anything right unless they helped us. It is something that they still try to do today. They still have a lot of ideas of what I should do, and they seem to ignore the fact that I am perfectly capable of solving my problems and I have done so, for quite some time now. I was pushed into the rescuer role and told that it was our duty as a child to pay back what we were given. That showing love meant putting the other person first and giving up my desires and priorities. My dad demanded it, my mom demonstrated it as she does this all the time. Moving forward on the timeline, I looked at all my romantic relationships and I saw them through the filter of the triangle and that put things in a different light. How I would ignore the red flags, and I would put myself as a saviour and then when they felt better and they had taken what they needed, they would leave, and I would be left behind. I always thought they were horrible people, and this happened to me every single time because that was all that I deserved. Allowed me to do things for them, and surrender leadership despite me saying that I would become a dictator if they didn’t do their part and keep things equal and then I got accused I held them back and I mothered them. When I started to take responsibility for my actions, I could see that they were treating me the way that I was allowing them to treat me. More so, it does take two to tango and I was part of that relationship, and I made my decisions. Did I not start this by saying that I ignored red flags? I ignored things, I lashed out, I was petty instead of discussing things, I manipulated, and I stayed quiet when I should have talked. I didn’t ask for what I needed and then I pretended they should have guessed all of my desires. It is an absolute stab in the heart when you find out that the reason for your happiness is you. The truth is though that it also brings a lot of hope. You can’t change people that don’t see a problem with the way they are but, you can change yourself. You can’t control everything, but you can control yourself, how you react to things, how you adjust your standards to achieve the result you want, what you accept and what you opt out of. The Empowerment Dynamic that David Emerald sees the opposite of the Victim's perspective as the Creator's perspective. You don’t react to just stop a bad situation, but you choose the life that you want, and you go towards it with intention. Accept that you may have a timeline in your mind but even if you can only take baby steps, progress is progress. You have to be flexible and accept that sometimes you will have setbacks. That it is fine for the plan to change, and it is ok for the goals to change if it doesn’t align anymore. It is all about consciously making decisions and taking responsibility for all of them. The way that I look at failure changed, as well. Things might go wrong but even if I don’t make it happen on the first try, at least I have tried my best. Every failure is a run-through, a dress rehearsal for trying again. A chance to introspect and check my processes, patterns, and reactions. The Persecutor has now become a Challenger and it’s not here to punish and oppress me but to motivate me to grow and learn new skills, an invitation to advocate for myself and show up in ways that I have never done before, that I expected other people to. The role of the Rescuer is then taken over by the role of the Coach. In this role, one just supports people in fixing their issues. It is intrusive to help someone who has not asked for help or advice, to just tell them to stand aside and do everything for them. Offering opinions and advice that nobody asked for does the same thing. Helping people in a way that makes you feel better is not helpful if it doesn’t match what the person thought they were lacking. I will allow space for people to speak about their issues, and while I will offer my help to the extent that I can offer it, it will be up to the other person to decide if they want to take it or not. I will not take it personally if they find more comfortable accepting help from somebody else or if they want to do it by themselves. I do not owe anybody happiness, but I am happy to offer support and encouragement. Now, I can look at situations and see how people are trying to position me in a rescuer position, and I can tell myself “It is not my responsibility to save them.” More so, when I get into a relationship, I know for a fact that I don’t want to save anybody, I want people who have already done the work on themselves and take responsibility for their actions. I refuse to fix men; I refuse to mother them. I refuse to put my wishes aside for anybody else. I won’t let people push me into taking options that are not working for me and my timeline. I see that I thought that by fixing other people I might find a way to fix myself. I am not saying that this is a perfect system, and I get it right every single time or that I don’t get caught up in my old ways without realizing it. I just don’t commit to it the way that I did before. I become aware that I am doing it, and I refocus my intentions and my attention to where I want to go. I am the maker of my reality; I am responsible for my perception I have the power to make all my dreams come true.

What a strange thing trust is. Strong enough to move mountains when it’s there, powerful enough to crumble them when it’s gone. Gain with so much effort and slowly over time but lost in a second and so hard to win back since now doubt lurks around every corner dripping “what if” in the mind and poisoning it. I went from one extreme to another with it. From trusting blindly in everyone that I met to looking at everybody with suspicion. Both of those are problematic in themselves but I keep on turning the issue in my head and I can’t seem to decide about where the happy medium is. What is the appropriate stance to take on the issue? I read the Attributes by Rich Diviney, and after a bit more research I ended up on his website which listed four elements to trust. Competency, consistency, integrity, and compassion. These apply to my issue as I need to see that you have what it takes to get the job done and that you will match what you say you are going to do with your actions if anything changes and you are unable to, I want to see that you are going, to be honest, and open about it. I also must see that you have a good moral compass and backbone so that you will do the right thing because it is the right thing to do not just switch up when you think no one is watching or when the wrong thing brings you more entertainment or popularity. The last element of compassion is the sympathy and empathy side, how you talk about others in front of me matters because you will talk about me in the same way when I am not there. We say that we FEEL that we can trust somebody but is trust an emotion? To me, it seems like one collects data and makes an informed decision if a risk is worth taking or not. If one does not have the necessary information, one trusts a gut feeling or intuition. What is intuition? While it manifests as the little rumble in the stomach telling me that something is up, I consider it to be your subconscious mind telling me that in my experience this looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and historically, it has turned out to be a duck but, there was that one time when it turned out to be a goose and there were… consequences so, an evaluation is needed to see if the right state of mind is present at this time to take the risk. If all conditions are met, then it is very much the dealer’s choice. Spin the wheel and see if we get the prize. Past experiences such as betrayal, inconsistency, and broken promises, all my past experiences scream out if I should trust someone or not. I suppose like everything, it starts in the family. My parents always had a strong view of lying. Even now if you ask them, they will tell you it is the only reason they have ever spanked us. Spoiler alert, that’s a lie. They had this standard set up for us that we should tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth but when we would then watch them not doing so or making us accomplices to it. “Don’t tell your grandma how much we spent on X thing,” “Don’t tell you’re your mom that we stopped for a beer on the way.” I child watches everything and emulates everything so, there is no conversation needed for me to see that you said one thing and you are lying through your teeth. At a young age, I wouldn’t understand why you are doing this; I wouldn’t understand there are levels to it, but you have just shown me that we can opt out from telling the truth. When and for what reasons, not sure because there was no discussion to explain the situation. Also, similar to this situation is when promises are made and then when you ask your parents, they say that they haven’t made the promise, or they said it, and they now say they are unable with no explanation sometimes even getting me in trouble for asking for reasons why. My favourite one is making a promise based on me fulfilling a commitment and when I fulfil that commitment, they moved the goalpost to make it seem that I was lacking instead of just admitting they couldn’t meet their end of the bargain. Trust comes from consistency. Doing what you said because you said it, acting and reacting predictably. It is the sequence of patterns that lets me know that you will be who I need you to be in that moment and you will react in the way that I need you to react. If you say that you are going to help me and when I come to collect on that promise, you act like the conversation never happened and even more so, you have a go at me and try to make me feel bad for being upset, that creates an environment where I can’t express my feelings, I can’t ask for clarification to soothe myself. If sometimes my input is received with kindness and sometimes it is received with anger, I get destabilized because I don’t know what I am walking into when I have a conversation with you. You are now making me feel like you are not a safe person, you are unreliable. You are teaching me that I need to be hypervigilant because I am always at risk due to your unpredictability. My dad was quite explosive in his reactions so, I had become quite attuned to his reactions to manage my reactions and avoid starting a conflict. This is something that I take with me in every room I go into. If I stay in the same room with a person and they seem upset, I will ask them several times if they are all right. If they decide to not share and just say they are all right, I will continue to monitor the energy and look for clues. It might seem annoying and paranoid, but the reality is that I feel unsafe. Somewhere in my subconscious, I am afraid. Nothing to do with you, I suppose but, I just need a few more data points than the regular person to conclude that everything is fine. Growing up I felt I couldn’t talk to my mom and dad about my issues and my sister was older and interested in talking to her friends and not me, but I did have a few friends I chose to trust along the way. One knew that I liked a boy, and she made a point of dating him, despite claiming that she was trying to help me talk to him. Another shared the notebook we would write all our secrets with other people to read showing that there is no privacy. The desire for popularity made loyalties shift with the frequency with which one hangs out with people. I would get pulled in close because they didn’t have anybody at that time or they needed my help but as soon as they could spend time with other people and they could get something off them, they would talk behind my back to them. I had a friend call me and instigated me to talk about other people in the group while they were listening in on the conversation. This pattern repeated itself and I believed that I was overreacting in the early stages, that I was imagining things, and I thought that I was a bad friend for even considering anything wrong. Life showed me that if anything, I was too trusting. Worst of all, I ignored the evidence to avoid being alone. With my first boyfriend, I found out that he was cheating on me with someone from his class. He was in the high school football team, and they were participating in a tournament, and he told me that I needn’t come. I found out after we broke up that all my friends had seen him at that tournament and not even one of them told me about it. They thought that I would have a go at them if they said anything. I don’t learn though and after a while he comes back and wants to get back together. Turns out he was now cheating with me on the girl that he had left me for. This was the start and there were some manipulators, users, and liars on the way. There have been other scenarios, like being upset with me because I was upset with him, which made no sense but meant that no responsibility was taken, and I was made responsible for ruining the mood. Another one of my favourites was discussing something and agreeing on a plan and when it was time to follow through, I got told “I didn’t say I promised.” Are we adults here or are we playing Simon says? I am sure that if I made a promise and I didn’t keep it, I would never hear the end of it and I would get told that I am not a team player, but Peter Pan over here is telling me that rules don’t apply to him because he had his fingers crossed behind his back? If you ask me how I am doing, really doing and I tell you about my feelings and you try to shut me down, I will not trust you with my feelings again. You can’t hold space for me and that is fine, it is not your responsibility, and we just discovered the boundary of our relationship. Not all conversations are for all people. What I would ask though is that you don’t feel surprised you have been taken out of the loop and I don’t lean on you. I tried to give you access to my inner life and you couldn’t handle it. Sometimes, I even get avoided afterwards or promises are made to meet up that never materialize. I won’t call you up on it, but I know that I can only trust you up to a point. There are levels of friendship and there are levels of intimacy. When you have been lied to so often, it is hard to know who to trust. Of course, I would like to have good, deep connections with everybody, but I have let people in before and they chose to let me down. I kind of started to think somewhere along the way that there must be something wrong with me because it seemed that I was the easiest one to discount. I am the easiest one to leave behind and sacrifice. Without wanting it, I start isolating myself and it gets better in terms of having time to think about everything, but it is not real healing, it just keeps me from being triggered. I started trying to open up more and letting people in, but I remember that being vulnerable and sharing things about myself, didn’t really make people want to be vulnerable back but instead gave them ammunition to manipulate me. I started letting people approach but keeping them at a distance because if they can’t come close they can’t hurt me. I can’t allow myself to get attached fully to anybody because they are going to leave anyway so, just see them as passers-by. Trust issues are viewed as being a red flag and people tell you to stay away from folks who have them. I feel alone, I want to connect to people but I am afraid that they will leave me so I approach them with care, and they leave because I am afraid which then in turn makes stronger the idea that I should be afraid of people. The truth is that while you might scare me, the person that I am doubting is me. I made so many wrong decisions in the past and I stayed in that place of pain regardless of how bad it was sometimes. It was like getting electrocuted and continuing to hold on to the wire. Even when other people tried to break the circuit and save me, I told them not to worry about it because they didn’t know this wire as I did. I have had good experiences too. People that I have shared parts of myself, slowly and awkwardly and they accept them and take care of them. They said they were going to show up for me and they did. They said I can lean on them, and I can tell them my troubles and they have created space for me to feel safe and be able to share and they were able to hold that space for me. When they couldn’t, they were open and honest about it, and they allowed me to return the favour and be there for them in need. It takes two to tango and I must be accepted in just as much as I allow other people in. I am trying my best to fight against everything that my experience has taught me. I suppose the biggest fear is that if someone hurts me, I don’t believe that I can recover from it. I have worked on making my sense of self stronger, raising my self-esteem, and my self-compassion. It’s a mixture of believing in myself more and allowing myself to get it wrong sometimes. I suppose the only way of not making mistakes is not even trying in the first place and staying a hermit. I have also learned to listen to my body and listen to my anxiety. If it keeps getting triggered every time around a person I just listen to it and let that person go. I am trying very hard to get in the habit of saying what I need and asking people for clarification. Accepting that some friendships have expiration dates, it is best to be grateful for having had those people for a while and letting them go to the next chapter of their lives. I can understand that people can make mistakes and people can change but I now know that people only change if they want to so if they want us to get back to a place of trust, we can rebuild as long as the change is real and goes beyond the speech level. Even this is an exercise in trust. I have told you things about me and I have let you into my reality. What you do with this information is up to you. You can use it to hurt me, or you can use it as an opportunity to share something back and show that faith in humanity can be restored one act of kindness at a time.

It is amazing how well we can see other people’s lives. How clearly we can identify their issues and their blind spots? We can see the patterns and if we know them well enough, we can recount instances in their lives where they were in the same situation and had similar decisions to make. We have the perfect advice for them and the perfect strategy that they can take if they only dare to do it. It is easy to advise as we don’t have to suffer the consequences. Then we go back to our own lives, and we blind ourselves to the reality of it. We lie to ourselves that everything is fine, and we hide our heads in the sand. We tell people our stories and hope that if they believe them, we will too. Things change and then reality comes in and shows us that all of those perfect pieces of advice we were dishing out were the same ones that we should have been following all along. After hearing story after story about friends, relationships and so on, the question came to my therapist: “Why do you think you struggle so much with letting go of toxic relationships?” A very good question but one that I, unfortunately, did not have an answer to. I was aware that it was happening, I had been in plenty of relationships that ran past their expiration date and still, I hung on to them. I knew I did it but why was a complete mystery. One thing about me though, I love a puzzle, and I love a good mystery so, I have started to think about it and tried to figure out where this problem started. The easiest place to start was my relationship with men. I have started to think of all my past boyfriends and think about how they treated me. I thought that they were horrible people and then the reality hit that they treated me this way because I allowed them to. There is nothing worse than realising that you are the cause of all of your issues. Every friend group has that one friend who has the funniest stories about the men she has been on dates with. That is me. I am that friend. If I had a pound for every time my friends have asked me where I managed to find this guy or the other… My answer was always that I didn’t find them, they found me but now in hindsight, clearly something in me attracts them. Like the time I went to an office Christmas party, and I had the choice between the two bartenders. The one I picked and went on a date with had told me on sight that I should stop wearing heels because he doesn’t like to be shorter than the girls he is out with. He then proceeded to scoff and look down on me during our entire conversation. At the end, we were walking, and he hugged me all of a sudden in the middle of the mall, and I asked him what we were doing to which we replied, we were looking for each other. I thought I was going to sprain an eyeball rolling my eyes at that one and that was my cue to go home. He was shocked when I didn’t agree to a second date. I have always wondered what would have happened if I picked the other one. Another time, I agreed to a date with the guy that sold me my laptop. We went for a walk in the park and as we walked, I was trying to explain to him what I do for work. He did not get it and kept on insisting that I was a secretary. I get that I had a corporate job where roles and responsibilities are specific but the way he insisted I was a secretary was just unreal. He then decided out of nowhere that he was going to buy me a gift, earrings, opal earrings. I was baffled at this and asked him why he thought that he should get me anything as he had just met me, but he said that it would be his pleasure, and it was his wish. By this time, I already regretted my athletic ways as there was no other way to end this date but to complete the tour of the park and I was stuck. The final nail in the coffin came when I said that I was moving house, and he offered to help me carry furniture and build everything for me and then proceeded to explain the roadmap to us moving in together. No, thank you. Taxi! One of the recent ones was when an acquaintance wanted to get to know each other better and hang out. I told him that I was chatty and friendly but I was not looking for anything so they should be aware of what was happening, and friendship is all that I was offering. I always worry when it comes to being friends with men that the boundaries are going to be blurred so, I wanted to make sure he was aware of what this was. He said that was fine but as the conversation went it was clear that he was trying to stay in the friend zone to get more. I tried to restate my boundaries, and I almost got “yelled” at via text that he was a good guy and that he was going to show me. If you have to say it like that, you are not a good guy. I was so scared by it that I was happy that he didn’t have my address, and I locked my door that night regardless. These are ones that I dodged but there were so many others that I entertained despite the signs. It starts well and it seems all so exciting. They are doing all the right things and saying all the right things and I start to imagine how amazing everything will be, and I start building that pedestal. Time passes and it seems that this might work out, but things change, and they start to say hurtful things. I start thinking that I am imagining things. I started to find excuses that maybe they had loads going on, a tough day at the office. Maybe they didn’t quite say what I heard and that I am looking into things, and I am imagining them. They start breaking promises and say they forgot or don’t even admit to making those promises. More and more hurtful things get said and done like they are trying their best to hurt me and see how much they get away with and because I let things slide or seem to forgive them, the more spiteful they seem to get. And yet I stay and think that I am the problem. That they are right, and I should change things about myself. Everybody leaves and I don’t want to be alone again, so I stay. Better the devil you know. They hurt me and I think why would they do that to me? It is so far from anything that I would do that my mind can’t wrap itself around why somebody would lie and hurt somebody just because they can. I have wanted the best for them. I would have given them everything that they could have wanted or needed and instead, they decided to hurt me. Even worse, they knew that they were doing it, and they didn’t care. I think that they must take pride in it and how they pulled the wool over my eyes. Why do they just want to hurt me? And at this moment, you no longer hear the strong, independent woman who can give herself everything she needs, but a scared little girl, desperate to be seen, understood, loved, and cared for. She is always put to the side and forgotten. The perfect example of seen and not heard. She is quiet because when she talks, she is not listened to, she is mocked, or spoken over so she has convinced herself that she must not have that much to say. She escapes by fantasizing that one day someone will save her. That she too will be like one of those people in the movies and she would just be living her life and boom… fairy godmother comes along and changes everything and makes my dreams come true. It is very tough when you have hopes that everything will change but life keeps going and it stays the same. Everybody that is lost just wants to be found. What happens when you feel like no one is looking? And here comes someone who says they love me. They say that I am special. They say that they have never seen anyone like me. They said they never want to hurt me and in the embers of that promise, it feels so warm and inviting and I am so tired and weary. What would be the harm of one moment of rest? Of course, I can hear the wolves howling outside and the wind blowing a gale but what if I could just pretend that they are not there for a while? Pretend that I too can be at peace and have happiness. I have had my guard up for so long and I am so tired that just this once I will allow myself to be seduced and give into the fantasy that this can indeed work. But instead of seeing it for what it is, I remain trapped and say that I can turn it around. I can make it better. As I slumber, the spider’s web grows tighter around me. More time invested, more feelings added, and a stronger bond created, making it harder to cut the ties. Once I am out of it and I can fully see what happened, I can’t imagine how I ever allowed myself to be treated that way. I think to myself that people told me but no, I had to do my own thing because I knew best. So much time invested and hoped that if I could only show them how special I am, they would love me. All the hatred that I should maybe have for them, turns on me for letting my guard down and allowing this to happen. I thought long and hard as to why I got stuck and the best response that I could come up with was that the models of women that I had in my family taught me that I shouldn’t have boundaries, that I should accept what I am getting, that I should do anything I can to stay in a relationship so if this is what I saw how could I act any different? Toxic relationships though don’t only extend to romantic relationships. For work, it has been the same. Working with people who push my boundaries, tell me that they appreciate me, that we are a team and then they pile on more and more work and when I am exhausted and make mistakes, they are the first ones to treat me poorly. And again, I start believing that I should work harder and that I should not be making any mistakes. That their poor treatment of me is a result of me making their life more difficult and that I should work on improving myself. Once I saw things for what they were, I tried to put up boundaries again and that did not go well. They have actively tried to stop me from progressing and developing, despite years of telling me how they were supporting me and that they are putting my name up for awards. This was an important lesson. I learned that sometimes, the people who seem to be rooting for you and see you as their go-to person might also be the ones trying to hold you back and use you to achieve their purposes. You are there to serve and you should not follow any other goal than working hard to help them achieve theirs. Advocating for myself was a hard-earned lesson. It hurts when this treatment comes from friends. From people that you thought you could trust, people that you have entrusted secrets to and opened your heart and they seemed to have done the same. One friend shared my secrets with other people to make herself more popular despite me knowing hers and keeping them, as a friend should. Worse still is when you are at your lowest and you think that you found someone to support you, and you support them and then you start to realise that they try to stab you in the back at every turn. They are petty and jealous and try to take the little that you have to prove their worth. I saw the signs, but I thought that surely, I was imagining it, that I was being a bad friend for even thinking bad things about her. That she helped me, and I was being ungrateful. I never said anything to anybody about it because I thought that it would mean that I was disloyal. Until it got blatantly obvious what they were doing. Even more so when they were trying to start fights in private and then when we were in groups, they would push my buttons so I would react and then they could make themselves a victim in front of people. I could see the change in her, and I could see the change in other people as they were siding with her and rolling their eyes at what I would say. When I accepted that this is happening, that I am not imagining it and even if somebody helps you at some point, it doesn’t mean that they are entitled to treat you poorly, I decided to break all ties. Finally, I was starting to learn to let go of toxic relationships. It is complicated to be selective when you come from a place of wanting but holding on to things hurts more in the long run. Learning to set boundaries, learning to say no, knowing my worth, and being able to admit that I misjudged people and that letting go of people who are not good for me is the best form of self-care, were all important lessons and they were hard-earned. I can’t change people, I can’t change who they are and how they react, but I can change how I react and for sure, I can fight to see people the way they are and let their actions do the talking no matter how alluring their words are. In the end, I have to be thankful to those people. They hurt me and pushed me so far into a corner that they left me no other option but to come up swinging and give myself the love that they wouldn’t or couldn’t give me. They served a purpose; they are forgiven and their access to me is forever denied.

I had been fine for months and then the storm started to brew. I could feel it gathering in my chest, and I could feel the pressure trapped in my throat. I could feel myself off balance and off-centre. I had been on antidepressants, and after a period of peace, I started to feel like my thoughts were gloopy. Formulating an idea was like walking through molasses. I kept trying to tell myself that I had to remember things, that they were important, and then I could not remember them. I couldn’t count on my mind anymore. There was something that I needed to see, and it kept escaping me. This was when I decided to stop taking the pills. This was not what anybody suggested. This was very much against what I had discussed with my GP; it was against what my therapist had recommended when we initially discussed it, but I felt that this was what I had to do. As the medication left my system, all of my friends were back. This was the reunion that nobody wanted or needed, but I felt in control of my mind again. I could think straight and apply myself to assess the situation. More importantly, I listened, watched, and looked at what was around me, and the more I watched, the more I disliked what I saw. I kept on thinking about it, and I decided that I needed help again, so I texted my therapist and we set the time for a session. I had so many things to get off my chest, and I had thought about this for so long that I didn’t allow for a break or any feedback for fear that I might run out of time and not get to say everything. On the dot, my therapist finally got a chance to say: “Do you know you barely took a breath this entire time?” She suggested I take the standard tests like before, but I didn’t want to because this was not anxiety or depression. This was anger. My relationship with anger has always been quite troublesome. As a girl, the message from the women in my family was that it is not ladylike to be angry or have conflicts and that I should always avoid, mediate, or look to extinguish a fight at all costs. My mom didn’t fight with us; she would give us a look of disgust as if we weren’t worth her time and effort, and she would leave the room. One would try to engage further, and she would say that that was it, and she had had enough. I was left alone with all my thoughts and no way to release emotions, nobody to debate. On my dad’s side, things have always been more turbulent. While my mom was quiet and dismissive, my dad would fully engage. He would be going from shouting matches, to leaving his room when it wasn’t convenient for him anymore and going to his room and closing his door, to being hit by him. When we would complain to my mom about how he flew off the handle and how volatile he was, my mom would say, “What can you do? That is how he is, choleric.” Which didn’t help at all, nor did it offer any solace. It just said that this is how things are, and they will not change any time soon, so it is best to get with the program. There is a traditional position that a child has to earn respect, but the parent is automatically owed respect regardless of what they do. There was a false sense that there had to be fear established to assert authority. How did that affect me, you ask? On the one hand, it taught me to continuously monitor the room, expect a fight and know that one will be coming, so I needed to pay attention and see where it would be coming from. Nobody is safe. If a topic is being debated even though I am not comfortable or interested, earlier attempts to raise these frustrations resulted in a fight starting, so now I stay quiet and allow it to take place, as it is easier to swallow my frustration and allow my boundaries to be crossed. Better still, I learned that whoever yells the loudest wins the fight, and if you bark loud enough, you will not have to bite, so I yell. I yelled, and I allowed the anger to consume me because I was scared. I didn’t get to walk away; I didn’t get to have distance like they did. If I left the room, I was told that I was playing the wounded princess and that would not be acceptable, so I had to get back in the room and discuss. They said discuss; they didn’t mean discuss. They meant to sit and listen to all the reasons they were right, and I was wrong and how I should change. None of them would sit down and discuss what happened. Mom would allow me to apologise, and then she would decide if she forgave me or not. After a big fight when they came to visit me in the UK, I decided to reconcile with her and my sister. After I made that step, my mom never apologised but even suggested that the youth would need to maybe seek some help with calming those tempers. That was after she had pouted, made faces, made hurtful comments, and made sure she dredged up every single bit of painful past that she could think of and started daily fights. She took zero responsibility, even went the extra mile, and blamed it all on us. I was too stunned to speak. My dad will glide back into the room like nothing happened and be all smiles and jokes, or offer you a sandwich in terms of reparation. In my entire life, I can never remember my dad apologising to me for anything. We have fought multiple times and sometimes every single day, and there was always this sense that we are fine, and we should get over it. Nothing in this family is explained or discussed; everything is just a big smile and wave exercise. Ignore the elephant in the room and just go on like nothing happened. Armed with no skills at all, I have been walking in society, engaging in people-pleasing to avoid a conflict, allowing my boundaries to be crossed, staying silent when I was wronged, allowing resentment and hate to build up, crying and losing sleep thinking about it again and again, reacting to make everything stop in outbursts but mostly turning all the anger on myself. I wasn’t good enough. The best I could do is to learn to control myself long enough that I don’t have to answer at the moment, just control things enough and calm the situation enough so that it gives me time to think. I would leave the fight, and while people may think that is dismissive, they really must consider the alternative. I was born in chaos, and I lived in chaos. I did not choose violence; violence chose me. Whenever I go into crisis mode, I am like a trapped, wounded animal, and I will do whatever it takes to get out of this situation. Also, what people don’t understand is that a big part of people pleasing is understanding the person and how they operate. While I might not have been self-aware, I was fully aware of the likes and dislikes of other people. To people please, you have to avoid upsetting the other person. I know and understand the weaknesses and things that hurt and might make a person lose control. I can manipulate one and cut extremely deep, but I choose not to. I choose empathy, I choose to see that I am in no position to think straight at the moment, that instead of resolving an issue, understanding the other person, and growing from it, I will dig a deeper hole. I understand that I need to regroup and reconsider, so I initially self-isolate. I am also afraid that if I hurt them, I will lose them. In the initial stages, I will start feeling myself getting annoyed, and more things will start to bother me as the storm is brewing. I will start breathing shallower, I might start tapping my foot, pace, feel pressure building in my head, and I will feel the need to rub my temples or my forehead, rub my eyes. As my heart starts beating faster, my voice is starting to get higher in pitch and volume. I will isolate, and I might shout, I might hit something, I might throw something. The physical distance from the issue will give me a chance to calm down and repair. That is, if I don’t start putting myself down and add fuel to the fire and keep on adding my own self-loathing and feeling like I deserve everything that I am getting to it and then get stuck in this circle and add the shame of having reacted in front of somebody and letting them know that I am bothered. When I can’t take any more, the pressure gets too much, the only way to cope with it is crying, crying until I exhaust myself, and I am too tired to be angry anymore. I will start to think logically, then, try to analyse what part of it was my fault and if I am right in what I assigned as blame to the other person. Next, I will check my reasoning with someone else. I tend to take on blame that isn’t mine, so I need to check that I am not taking on too much, nor do I give myself too much credit, and I find excuses for myself. I am a verbal processor, so whenever I am angry, I need to say it all so, the poison of the anger escapes me. I hate it when people try to tell me to just get over it or when they try to stop the cycle. Someone tried to hug me to calm me down, and regardless of how many times I have said that I am not ready for a hug, they tried to push it. That made me even angrier because it made me feel patronised and handled, it made me feel like they just didn’t want to deal with me, and all the negative energy got turned on them. They became the target where my anger was trying to find release. When I started doing therapy, I came to understand that not all anger is the same and that not all of it is bad. Initially, the reason I was so depressed was exactly because I could not muster and maintain anger, and therefore, I could not move forward, I could not act towards healing because I was stuck in denial. Once I could accept the facts, once I knew that I was not to blame for everything that happened, but that I needed to change myself to protect myself from this happening again or me being in the same low state, anger was a good motivator. Sometimes you are more than right to be angry. When people have taken advantage of me when the treatment I am subjected to was unjust when they are trying to push my boundaries. I am fully entitled to feel angry, but the matter is how I express that anger, how I use it to get my point across and in that I need help. Fast forward to discussing it with my therapist, and she suggested hitting a pillow or yelling into a pillow, trying something like boxing or running to try to channel and release the anger. So, there I was in my house, trying to yell and seeking the right place to do it. I tiptoed in my own empty house from room to room and felt like there was nowhere to yell or hit because I would disturb the neighbours. I settled for a soundless scream. It might sound weird, but it engaged the same muscles in the body as an actual scream, and it provided tension relief. In exorcisms, they ask the demon to reveal itself because knowing the name of something gives one power over it. A demon that says its name is weakened. In that aspect, I could see my anger, I could see how it affected me, how it hurt me and how if I didn’t find an outlet for it, it would morph into anxiety. The brain tries to seek out and focus on threats in an attempt to eliminate them and to be safe again. When I don’t deal with things, my mind keeps raising the alarm until I act. I started by observing myself, taking walks and trying to do as much exercise to eliminate the energy from it. I have journaled and I have written my problems down so I can analyse them and see what upsets me. I have started to catch myself and take deep breaths and visualise the bad energy gathering in my body being replaced by liquid calm, and just pushing the darkness out of me. I will also visualise that I am punching somebody in the face when I am in a fight, and mentally, it is very soothing and satisfying. I am never violent, but the idea still brings a smile to my face. I said I am healing, not that I am healed. I have changed my work conditions and my life conditions to give myself more mind space to manoeuvre. I have focused on improving my self-esteem, and my boundary setting and reinforcing them, I have tried to be kind to myself and allow for setbacks and mistakes to be made and so, I am trying to slowly create this space where instead of just acting on the first impulse, I can take the time to think things through and be more aligned with my values and my goals in my reactions. I am working towards being present in my own body and staying unbothered. Anger is also a smoke screen and a thief; it clouds the judgment and robs one of clarity. It hides the true feeling under a cloud of righteous indignation or violence. People shy away because violence is uncomfortable, but sometimes, under shouting hide “I am scared,” “I am hurt,” “I am vulnerable,” “I am in pain,” “I am tired to keep trying and getting nowhere.” People shout and direct anger towards whatever. Bark loud enough and keep people away from what is behind it. Anger is a prison, and it makes people turn their backs. Imagine being starved for connection and being too afraid to let people in. It took time, but as I recognised the issue, accepted that it is all right to have the feeling and took everything as an opportunity to know myself better, to just observe myself with curiosity, I can now stop myself most times from going into this vicious cycle. I can ask myself what is going on here, and if it is the issue at hand that is upsetting me or if I am in a bad mood and the current person that I am focusing my anger on is just a target for something they didn’t do. Rather than taking things personally and patting myself on the back for being so righteous or feeling like I have a target on my back, and everybody is after me, I can say, Is it them or is it you being irritable because you haven’t slept last night or because something else is not working in your life? It is not a perfect system, and I am sure that there will still be plenty of situations where I will lose control, I will end up fighting, saying things I don’t mean and then I will feel the shame of it in the morning but, I am trying my best to understand, heal and be better than I was yesterday. The true goal is peace and balance, and I can only do that by accepting all the darkness that lies in me, naming it and releasing it, one demon at a time.

I was talking to my dad about his victory over cancer. He often expresses fear about it returning. I told him that everyone owes a death, and when it comes is not up to us. What matters is how we make the most of our time. I reminded him to think of those who didn’t get a second chance like he did. He changed the subject, likely thinking I wasn’t listening because I didn’t join him in his worries. I tried to validate his concerns but didn’t want him to use self-pity to pull me into a role of mothering him through potential sickness. I read a book called “The Thanatonauts” by Bernard Werber. It explores the afterlife. People put themselves into a coma using drips to explore beyond death. One image stuck with me: a cord that pulls you back to life. If it snaps, you can’t return. This feeling resonates when I think about suicide. The thought creeps in, pushing the boundaries of what seems possible. The first time I encountered this thought, I was 8 or 9. I looked into the abyss, contemplating how quickly everything could end. Everything hurt, and I felt trapped. I felt powerless. I allowed that thought to pass, shuddering at its presence. I couldn’t believe I had even considered it. I pushed it to the back of my mind and tried to move on. I later watched a documentary about people who attempted suicide and failed. They all said that as it happened, they regretted it. Their survival instincts kicked in, and they reached out for help. They realised they didn’t want their lives to end; they just wanted the pain to stop. This realization made me feel good about my decision to hold on. Time passes. Good times come, and bad times come. Nothing lasts forever. The idea of suicide lingered in my mind, but I managed to push it away. I made friends and could talk to them about my feelings. However, I still had dark periods when I wished to sleep for days, hoping I wouldn’t wake up. I could distract myself by listening to their stories, allowing me to escape my thoughts, if only temporarily. I tried to push everything down, hoping it would go away. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. The next time these thoughts emerged, I was living alone. I stayed up at night, watching TV and crying. I missed sleep, feeling like my life wasn’t what I wanted. I thought I had tried everything, but it seemed everyone else knew the rules while I was left outside looking in. The pain weighed me down like lead. I felt perpetually lonely and stuck. One night, I watched a documentary about cancer patients discussing their declining health. They wished for more time. As I listened, I cried harder. I wasn’t crying out of empathy; I cried because they were losing their lives while mine felt painful and unending. How was that fair? I went to bed wishing to disappear, waking up disappointed that I was still here, while they would have given anything to be in my shoes. Just thinking that this too shall pass wasn’t enough this time. I clung to God, believing my grandad in Heaven was watching over me. I thought the Lord had a plan, and everything would have purpose and meaning. I began to believe happiness is a choice. I tried to smile, even when there was nothing to smile about. At work, I would smile, and while my brain didn’t understand why, it accepted it as a sign of happiness. This allowed me to feel okay for a while. I told someone this story, and when I mentioned my suicidal thoughts, they tried to convince me there was no God. I wondered why someone would try to take away my belief that kept me alive. It dawned on me that the topic of suicide is so overwhelming that people often change the subject instead of confronting it. Sometimes, things seem to go well, as if everything is falling into place. This was how I felt when I moved to the UK in July 2013. I thought I was getting everything I wanted. I was a happy, independent woman making a difference. But then I moved, leaving my friends and family behind. The media portrayed me as unwelcome, and every time I went out, I felt judged for not being British enough. I got a job, but while people talked about me, few engaged with me. I struggled to make friends and felt lost and alone. I started each day asking the Lord if I could get hit by a bus—not to be killed or maimed, but just enough to avoid going to work. I fought with my boyfriend, seeking solitude to sleep. I had no energy for anything. I had been a happy girl, but I turned into a depressed wreck. My boyfriend felt guilty for bringing me to this place. I could sense his guilt and pity. I tried to escape this mindset but found myself in the shower one evening, staring at my wrists. I thought about how easy it would be to end everything. But then I thought of him. I knew it would devastate him. Life sometimes throws you a bone, and mine came in the form of a job change. I met new people who valued me, and things improved. I found joy in simple moments, like standing in the sunshine and watching bunnies hop on the lawn. I realized happiness could be found in small things. I once attended a musical about suicide, sitting in the front row. I felt exposed, as if the performers were looking directly at me. Listening to their stories, I felt my own emotions trapped in my throat. I enjoyed the show immensely, as it resonated deeply with my experiences. Sometimes, I felt down but didn’t have the luxury to fall apart. I buried my feelings deep inside, fighting harder to keep myself together. I had days when I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow, not caring about food or changing clothes. I was just surviving. Intrusive thoughts began to plague me, images of how I could end it all. Initially, they were easy to dismiss, but they grew stronger until I found myself saying, “I could just die.” It was a simple statement, but it hid my struggles. I faced many challenges: a breakup, feeling alone, and uncertainty about my future. One night during lockdown, I walked past houses where people were having dinner. I felt invisible, thinking nobody would notice if I disappeared. In therapy, I began to talk about my feelings. It was difficult, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how my actions would affect my family and friends. I knew I couldn’t act on my thoughts. As I spiraled down, the people I cared about felt like burdens, holding me back. I couldn’t share my feelings with friends. When I mentioned it once, I saw panic in their eyes, realizing they had to choose their words carefully. I felt guilty for burdening them. I felt shameful, lonely, and scared. I wondered why this was happening to me. I thought about karma and how I must have done something terrible to deserve this. I believed I was hurting others and that they would be better off without me. This led me to seek help. During a therapy session, I cried the entire time, something I rarely did. I told my therapist I couldn’t do it alone anymore. She asked if I intended to hurt myself, and while I was still in control, I knew I needed help. We discussed antidepressants, agreeing they were a temporary crutch. I visited my GP and began treatment. The first step was a sudden calmness; my anxiety vanished. But the depression remained, dragging me down. I never thought I would miss anxiety, but I did. I knew the depression would come, and I had to hang on for about eight weeks for the medication to take full effect. I discovered I could multitask, crying for hours while still doing my job. I continued therapy, tracking my state of mind to identify triggers. People often suggested thinking positive thoughts to escape my state. As I walked, my mind would whisper, “You could just step in front of that car.” I felt sad waking up each morning, struggling to remember to drink water and eat. Telling someone in that state to think positively is like putting a smiley sticker on a car crash victim. In that moment, I felt shame and hyper-aware that others weren’t responsible for my feelings. What I needed was acceptance and connection. Talking to my friend Diana and my therapist allowed me to process my feelings. Having my dog, Bruno, and his friends helped immensely. Their joy in seeing me, regardless of my mood, brought happiness. Playing with them released oxytocin, reducing stress and lowering blood pressure. Walking with Bruno increased my physical activity and taught me to stay present. Getting better also meant letting go of the image of what my life should be. I often repeated, “This is not how things are meant to be.” Once I embraced that I couldn’t control everything, I started to relax. I focused on the present instead of what I thought my life should look like. I’m not saying these thoughts disappear completely; they return. When I reach a place of acceptance, it becomes automatic. It’s like being in an elevator with broken cables, plummeting down. Therapy helps me recognize this and fight back by reminding myself that my brain lies. I breathe deeply, calming my body, and then troubleshoot my thoughts. I focus on what outcome I want rather than the quickest escape. There is one truth in life: death comes for us all. We know where we start, but we never know when or how it will end. Some live in fear of this inevitable end, but that will not be me. When death arrives, it will feel like a friend finally coming for me. Until then, I hope to use my experiences to do something worthwhile. I want to enjoy the ride and create moments that light up my life, looking back with peace, joy, and pride. For now, I cherish happiness when it comes. I find joy in seeing Bruno do something funny, witnessing my friends marry, and being there for them in their happy and sad times. I will hold on because I am curious about how things will unfold. I will take control and be the maker of my destiny.

And so, the story begins. After years of numbness and uncertainty, I found myself in the middle of the desert. Alone, starved, hurt. With no sense of where I am and where I should be going. My body felt full of lead except my chest that was burning hot with agony. I was alive but it felt very much like I was dead and vultures were clawing and tearing at my flesh. A big part of me just wanted to give up. Let it all fall apart, let it all burn but laying down as it all crumbles down around me is a luxury that I could not afford. If I did that, what if I couldn’t get up anymore? There was nobody else that could come and help get things moving again. “All of the king’s horses and all the king’s men/ Couldn’t put Humpty together again.” Bruno was there and he was licking my face. He kept on checking up on me and making sure I was well. He kept on trying to find ways to make me feel better as he could sense how badly I was doing. Even more, he could sense a darkness inside me that was too scary even for him. He would run and then come back. I started to fear that he didn’t love me anymore and that at some point, he wouldn’t come back. I felt that I didn’t have a home anymore, that no matter where I went, there was nowhere to rest. He was my home, and it seemed that even he was slipping away from me. I shouted into the void, I released all of my thoughts and ideas, I trusted to send all of my deepest secrets and from beyond, words form on the screen. “Everything will be fine”,” It will take time,” “Poco a poco.” While there were fifteen hundred miles between us, I never felt closer to anybody else. Nobody else had my back and understood the same way, without any judgment. As I lay down in the dirt, taking stock of what was going on, too exhausted to think, I felt the helping hand pulling me up, helping me to dig myself from the black hole within which I lay. Always just a message away and letting me know that I might feel lonely, but I was not alone. This idea was so comforting, and I was so grateful to have this because I had always been alone. I had always had people leave and in this connection, I could fully relax. I had my two companions but still, I was wandering aimlessly. I was just entirely exhausted, and I had no sense of direction. I was fragile, just like a crab that sheds its shell and remains vulnerable to all elements, so I was walking in the desert, under the scorching sun, praying to the elements, fighting the storm inside. And one day a silhouette approached. I didn’t know what to expect at first but as it took shape, I saw a blonde woman with glasses, slightly resembling my mom, but as different from her as she could be, carrying an umbrella and a journal. She offered me a cup of tea and a tissue and invited me to tell her my story. She said she was a guide and that would help me get to where I needed to go. I didn’t quite know how that would happen, but I was happy for the company. Thus, we started to travel. The first stage of denial was short-lived. This was without a doubt happening. I needed time, but time was speeding up and no matter where I went, there was no chance for respite. Always feeling chased, always feeling out of place, always feeling vulnerable and exposed. One tries to hold onto the past as it is familiar and comforting but it all turned to sand slipping through my fingers, stolen by the wind. While still lost and still in pain, I now had three companions, and I was no longer alone. This was the first of my blessings. Maybe the most important one at all. While people did lend a hand from time to time, these three have been my companions throughout. The nights were filled with gazing at the stars and the wind howling “You are not enough,” “You will never be enough,” “You don’t deserve more,” and “You can’t do anything right.” Ripping bits of my flesh and keeping the pain alive. The moon was witness to my struggles, as I was looking back still wondering, looking for meaning. The days were full of mirages of things that could have been but never were, of fears that might come to pass. My guide had listened to my stories and as we were trying to decide on a direction, we also knew that I needed armour against the evils of the world. I went on quest after quest, gathered the pieces of armour and as I was more protected against the world and my wounds began to heal, I could see more and more blessings as they were coming in. I thought that I could not support myself, manage my life or make decisions and it turned out that I was beautifully wrong. Sure, my life was still an absolute ruin but, the days didn’t have the same intensity, and the bad times were slightly further apart each time. Best of all, I now had a direction and with a direction, I could get a strategy, and my guide could provide a map. With this in hand, I had a new sense of determination. This showed without a shadow of a doubt that I no longer inhabited the place where I started in my mind. Following the map, I got to this fortress. Behind big, creaky doors stood a palace full of empty, dusty halls covered in cobwebs. The chambers contained chests hiding secrets under heavy locks. As I went from room to room towards the heart of the palace, in the innermost chamber I found a mirror. In this mirror, I saw a woman. She seemed oddly familiar somehow but a stranger, nonetheless. Her features were undefined and ever-changing. I tried to look at her from different angles and catch a feature that can tell me who she is but the more I looked, the less I could see. I could sense the answer to this mystery will be the key to unlocking the next stage. I gathered clues, I tried to follow my guide, read all I could to get to the bottom of who this woman was. I have struggled immensely, and I have been troubled by the image of this woman taking shape. Slowly but surely, she did take shape, and I found that this woman that I seemed to know was me. The hard road that I travelled was always to find myself. I had given myself up in the hope that I would make my dreams come true and now I had found my way back. At first, I didn’t want to accept it, and I hated the woman in the mirror. I thought she was weak but no matter how much I would scream and insult her she just looked at me hurt and waited. My anger slowly began to fade, and I looked at her and recognised her for what she was; someone at her limits but, still trying her best. She had done what was needed and she had brought me so far. I began to feel sorry for her in the beginning and then I began to feel love and gratitude for her. I embraced her and I thanked her for being who she needed to be to keep us safe and, in that embrace, the mirror became a doorway. On through the looking glass, Alice went. Down the chessboard she will go to become a queen but, for the moment, I found myself in an oasis and this oasis, I found peace. My guide had given me the greatest gift of all. Finding myself was such a big piece of the puzzle I was trying to solve without even knowing what the final image was meant to look like. In this newfound peace, I could stop looking at what was not working and be grateful for what it was. I could be grateful for the road I have travelled. I could be grateful for the lessons I have learned. I could be grateful for the sun shining on my face, for the smell of the flowers as I walked by, the sounds of birds singing and even rain falling on my skin to wash away all the hurt. I could be grateful for the people in my life, and I wanted them to know that they are seen, valued, and loved. That their gestures, kind words, and good intentions made a huge difference and that I appreciated having them around me. That they are my angels on earth and that I see them for who they are. In giving them thanks, I could feel myself filling up with love and joy, calm and happiness. I knew that this was most likely not the end, but for the time being, I could rest. I could allow myself to let go and enjoy the life that I have created for myself.

I sometimes ask myself when it will end. When will I be fine? The more I work through the more I uncover. I understand that these patterns have taken years to create and cement, and I have run them time and time again. I get that these take a while to recognize as a pattern, to recognize how they integrate and what got me here. I understand that my mind will not want to leave my comfort zone, and my ego will try to scare me away from trying something new. I understand that once I become aware of this, it must be a conscious decision to move away from that pattern and that takes building my self-confidence more and understanding that while it is hard now, I am working for an end goal, and it will get better. I get all of that but when will it be done? It pretty much feels like running through a cornfield and as soon as you think you have reached the edge of it… surprise, there is more corn. So, no sense of where you are, how far you have come and how long there is to go but, now you are exhausted and probably all cut up from the corn leaves. Even further than that, one starts to question if this is real or not. Am I addicted to drama? Am I doing this as a way of attracting attention or are these real attempts to break the patterns? Is this guilt and me feeling like a burden again? I have watched my grandmother manipulate my dad by trying to say that she was feeling sick whenever she didn’t get what she wanted, asking for her pills because she either had heart palpitations or a splitting headache that he had caused. Even as a child, I could recognize the patterns she was following to the point where I would offer to bring her pills for her while the conversation was still running its course. I then watched my dad get sick and even though he is out of immediate danger, his entire personality is now revolving around the fact that he had been sick. Every time there is a chance, he will take you through the history of check-ups. He will bring it up in every conversation. He is opting out of what he doesn’t want to do because of it. He has added to the pressure of me getting married and having children, and told me that he wanted to see my children before he died. Again, he is out of danger and perfectly fine at present. This is what I have seen in my family, and then you add to the mix the fact that, as a child, I would get the most attention and exclusive attention from my mom when I was sick, while otherwise, I would have been cut off or emotionally rejected. So, am I using feeling depressed and anxious to get attention? Am I being manipulative and attention-seeking to draw people’s attention, so I perpetuate this state? I know that the brain is a liar, and emotions are not all to be believed, but out of them, which one is the true one? On the one side is shame for needing help, guilt for needing it in the first place, a firm belief that nobody owes me anything and I should be able to self-soothe but, the knowledge that it is toxic to self-isolate and cut people off to deal with emotions. In a state of crisis, all these opposing concepts come out and they take centre stage. When it comes to my issues and demons… “My name is Legion for we are many.” The strongest feeling of them is that I cannot fall apart, that whatever is going on, I must deal with it and keep going. I wish I could say that my overthinking, my ruminating, my back and forth is limited to certain topics but unfortunately, it extends to most areas of my life. Everything analysed, everything weighed and measured, everything dissected, and the motivations questioned. I am getting better with it as time passes. I have learned to calm down and just allow my emotions to surface in the way that they are formed. Catalogue them as I go along. I go walking for my anxiety and I have a good cry for my depression. Things will be tested again and again. The universe will send lessons and repeatedly check if the lesson has been learnt and if the pattern has been broken. Troubleshooting endlessly until the best solution is found. Sometimes I ask myself why me. Why do I have to learn all these things? How come people get to not work on themselves and still get what they want? All I ever wanted was to be seen. All I ever needed was a connection but the more I try the further it draws. Trying to escape the feeling of loneliness, reaching out only to project neediness and make people move away then feeling so exhausted that one does not have the strength to connect to the people that are trying to reach out to us. The irony of it all. I lucked out. I have beacons on my path. It is very Dante’s Inferno of me. I have my own Virgil guiding me on the path. I know that I am a little dramatic and I feel everything very intense, that is my sparkle so, one must look behind the words and find the meaning. All I need is someone to listen without judgment, give me perspective, and help me understand when I am being too hard on myself. The one thing I hate the most in this life is people who try to tell you what you want to hear. I find it such a futile exercise and I find it counterproductive. When someone just tells me what I want to hear I start thinking if they lied about this what else are they lying about? Here is where my Virgil, Diana, comes in. She calls me on my bullshit, and she tells me what I need to hear not what I want to hear. She keeps me accountable and on the right path. When there is a trigger event, it feels like everything crumbles, anxiety sets in, and the state of panic is up to the point where paranoia gets induced. Everything is bleak, something bad is going to happen and worse of all I feel like I am unable to handle or face what is about to come and it feels unsafe. It goes from “I got this” to “I am about to lose everything” in a flash. Before, I would just spiral endlessly, but now, I start by telling myself that it is fine, I am fine, and everything will be fine. I remind myself that I have handled things in the past and I will handle this again. I break things down into what I can control and what is out of my control, this helps me put a plan in place. I consider the event, and I break it down to see why it has affected me like this because it is something that will need to be handled once the immediate issue is resolved. I accept that this is a process, and I don’t have to get everything perfect from the first step. Small steps in the right direction are just as valuable as solving something in one go and setbacks are to be expected and they are fine, they are lessons. What Diana does in all of this is priceless to me. I can go to her, and I can tell her that I am scared, terrified even and not be judged. I can admit that I don’t know what I am doing. I can say that I feel like a failure. I can admit that I feel lonely and that I feel endlessly alone. I can admit that I know the right path, but I don’t want to take it just yet. I can be authentically me and be accepted. I am being seen for who I am and instead of shrinking away from it, she leans in. At times I don’t believe in myself, but she does, and that is enough to take me through most days. I cannot self-soothe by myself still so; I just need somebody to hold my hand through all of this. I am endlessly grateful that she is my friend. After each of these falls, I take a deep breath and look at where I am. I try to take responsibility for everything that I do and everything that I say. I take responsibility for my hand in getting me in that situation. And sometimes, I manage to surprise myself. I am at times too close to every situation, to every detail to see how I change, how I transform and then these things happen, and I take a step back and glance at the big picture. Then I can see it. I can see the change that I brought into my own life, that I am stronger, that I am further than I have been before. Do I have it all figured out? Far from it. Will I have it soon? Probably not. What I do come to realise though is that the cycles that I go through are not as lengthy as they used to be. The recovery times get shorter and shorter each time. The emotions are more in control. I can turn the situations around more efficiently and effectively. The hole that I have to dig myself out of is not as deep as it was the last time. I suppose I always thought that there be this “A-ha” moment, this silver bullet, this one piece of advice that would just make everything fall into place and I would just have this big revelation, and I would be cured. I come to understand now that it will always be with me, that it can never really be cured but it can be managed a lot better. I have come so far, I have achieved so much, I have come closer to the me that I was meant to be, and I have started to show up for myself in so many significant ways that I would have been scared to show up before. I don’t know where my destination lies but I know I will get there one day. I know that I will stumble, and I know that I will fall. I know that at times I will despair but, I know that I will weather the storm, and I will rise.

Some of the skills that I pride myself in my work are my problem-solving and decision-making skills, knowing all the facts and being able to act when needed quickly and efficiently and the fact that I can quickly problem-solve if things are not going as they should. I am particularly good at it, and I have always been perceived as a top achiever which served my need for validation and showed that my people-pleasing is on point. Made for customer service, I was. It helps that tools and processes are cause and effect. Easy, predictable outcome, tick the right boxes and this is what should happen. One would think that a person who can make a career out of planning and decision-making can easily navigate the issues of their own life and while some of them may very well be, those skills are not transferable for me. In real life, if something comes up, my mind starts reeling and thinking of all the scenarios that could happen and then I start trying to see what I don’t know and what is in the realm of the possible so, I go to Google. Three hours later down that rabbit hole, I am so hyper-stimulated that my thoughts are like runaway trains. All of my fears take hold, and I feel like I am collapsing on the inside. I start talking to myself, I do it aloud sometimes and in public. It might be a sign of mental illness but, sometimes saying things aloud gives them power and it helps me concentrate on one thing at a time rather than having five competing thoughts coming at me at the same time. I just start thinking about the facts and analysing, playing devil’s advocate with everything. I then started to consider that I have analysed things before, and I was wrong so how do I know I will be right this time? Even more so, I have a history of ignoring things just to get what I wanted in the moment and hurt my chances in the long run. I have blown things out of proportion before, and I have trusted people I should not have trusted so; can I know I am being right now? I know myself the best so, I hurt myself the most and I start thinking of all the times things have gone wrong. After this, I come to the conclusion that I may be …possibly… potentially… I don’t know…overthinking this? I try to focus on something else, trying to change the subject of myself. After some failed attempts at that, I realise that I am no closer to a decision but one person I can’t trust is myself and I have the overwhelming feeling that I need someone else to deal with it because everybody else seems to be better at it then me and no matter how much I split hairs, I cannot figure out the answers and protect myself from any bad thing happening. “Just stop worrying about it!” Aww, that’s cute! Why didn’t I think of that? Just stop worrying. Seems legit! I find it so amazing that you think that is an option that is available to me. I have three days of internet research deep, two anxiety attacks, one night waking up from my sleep when the thought occurred, and one important training that I was looking forward to but couldn’t concentrate on deeply. Your “when you think of doing it, don’t!” is a water pistol versus a rainforest fire scenario and it just says that you don’t want to talk about it, which is fine. Say you don’t care, say you can’t take it, say you don’t know how to help. I can respect all of that rather than slogans. I know I am unhinged and paranoid what helps is talking through things and being supported in figuring out what is a genuine problem and what is not. My brain flooded with every worry I ever had so I needed help in regulating, and I needed someone that would openly disagree with me. I am not interested in hearing what I want to hear, if you want to be a cheerleader for me, tell me what I need to hear and will me get genuine results. Sometimes, when one is drowning, and can’t be part of their rescue, the saviour renders the victim unconscious to save them. That is the moral punch in the face that is required. Be mean to be kind! I clearly can’t control my thoughts. Have you ever thought of something and then felt instant shame about the thought, looked left and right as if somebody was watching you and they could hear your thoughts so, you started to flood your own mind with white noise thoughts to confuse this imaginary mind reader? Do you ever think that something happened because you thought certain things and if you had thought something different, the outcome would have been different? Well, imagine saying that when your gran dies, certain situations will resolve themselves and then the next you get a text that your gran is dead. Can you imagine? I can cause that is what happened. #therapycontinues Trying to make it stop and just ignoring the situation just makes it worse. Even more when I then worry about how much time I spent worrying and I feel guilty for it. Everything in my body is telling me this cannot be ignored. The only way to make this go away is to address it and address it fully. All questions answered, all details figured out and every issue closed fully so this needs to come back on the table again. “You worry too much!” Look at that. Another piece of valuable feedback. Do you think that I don’t know that if worrying and jumping to conclusions would be a sporting event, I would win medals and awards at a global level? The problem is that this is what I have always done and while I am aware of it, it is not an easy nut to crack. There is a need to become aware of what overwhelms me and accept it. There will be negative emotions, and it will be hard but trying to pretend that ignoring them will help, is the worst thing that I can do. I need to sit with it and realise what my brain is trying to tell me. Why is this so uncomfortable? Why is it coming up again and again in my head? It is hard to decide what to do when you cannot accurately interpret facts. I used to go round and round in my head and punish myself for every single mistake and use it against myself which paralyzed me even more. One day when I kept on going on and on about what if this happened or what if that goes wrong, my therapist said “Stop! You know you get paranoid when you’re anxious.” At first, I was shocked I felt like “Really?!? Is that what we are doing today? Calling me out on my bullshit like that?” but it stopped me in my tracks. She then gave me the most important mantra “You took the best decision, at the time, with the information you had!” That is one that I repeat now over and over again so I can remind myself to be kind and forgiving to myself. Any decision has to be looked at as “Why is this important to me?” “Realistically, how long will this take to solve?” Making a list of everything involved in it, project managing it by breaking down all the steps which helps my need for control. Some tasks have to be completed before others can begin so, I cannot pressure myself for not starting early because not all conditions are met. Also, this brings to mind that some things I have power over, and some things are just out of my control. Deadlines, people’s emotions, someone’s opinion… all things that I can show up for and try to do my best to influence but I cannot control them in any way. All I can do in these situations is accept them as they come, see if I can understand and clarify but some things I just can’t change. Another problem with overthinking is that I start creating full scenarios in my head and I start to become convinced they are true, highly likely and I hurt my feelings with them and get myself in a worse state. I have been in that state before and I have been asked if anybody had told me specifically what the outcome would be. I am used to worrying about all outcomes preparing for bad news and making decisions on what I need to do. That is just it. When nobody tells me anything or I feel like I am missing facts, my mind tries to take back control and it is heavily filling in the blanks. I have no chill. I need people to be specific with their information. I can’t hope for the best. I can’t go with the flow. I need a bit more information to make sure that I work with facts, and that I have all the details I need to make the best decision at this time. The people who say, “Just trust me!”… I am sorry but I will need to assess our track record and see if that is based on a proven, consistent string of instances where you were reliable. Short of that, I will need people to meet me at my anxiety level. I will need to see some sort of detailed plan, Gantt chart, workflow, or anything to see what this relaxed attitude is based on before I decide if I want to be affiliated. It’s not you, it’s me. I have had situations in the past where I did trust, and the person procrastinating made me the villain for checking in and then came teary-eyed to tell me that they couldn’t keep their promise. From that point on, the only thing that helped was that I would be overthinking, and I would have several contingency plans prepared for these disappointments. Not everything is me being extra or me needing to chill. I do admit that I have issues so, please try not to be one of them. I think that at the end of the day, if everything fails, it is a matter of choice how one sees the experience. For example, after crying for ages and being completely freaked out about the entire experience of finding a flat, I managed to find one that looked like a princess’ room in a beautiful tower-shaped building. That would have been my castle so, I arranged a viewing. I got stressed out about being alone but confident that if this works out, everything else will work out. Well, it was a rainy day, a guy was peeing on the side of the building, the lock on the front entrance was broken so it was not a secure entrance, the building itself on the inside looked derelict, and when I got in the flat, my first thought was that that I had seen pictures of a different place on the website. I got catfished by an apartment. I left crying and disheartened, and I kept on crying back to my house. I cried for this being a disaster and then I realised that I should be proud of myself. The experience was an absolute dumpster fire, but I had never done that before and I managed to take myself through the entire process. While this has not gone well, I can build on the experience and refine the method for optimal results. The biggest lesson is to stay in the moment and not allow my imagination to romanticize a place, or a person for that matter until that bridge has been crossed and I have clear evidence of things being as promised. I wish I could say that there is an easy fix for overthinking, ruminating and my difficulty in making decisions but, it’s not that simple. If I just meditate, walk, or visualize, I am only dealing with the symptoms and putting a plaster on them, making my anxiety a little better but the real solution is in the awareness, knowing where all of this is coming from. The more I unravel all of the threads of my worrying, the more I get to a place where I can handle things easily and, in the end, I will manage to rest assured that whatever comes my way, I can handle it, I can fix it, and everything will be all right.

“Do what you want and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter won’t mind.” I have always loved Dr. Seuss's quote. It spoke to me about the freedom of absolutely being yourself and having the right people around you who love and accept you for who you are. That was not the situation for me growing up. If I said the wrong thing, my mom would stop talking to me, my dad would either start yelling or I would get spanked for it, my grans would have a go at my parents, and I would have their additional anger and shame from being told off by their parents. Another alternative would either be to be ridiculed or dismissed. Even in recent years, I have given my honest opinion, and I got told I am mean, although I have not been insulting, and I have paid attention to stick to the facts. I wanted to be accepted, so if the things one says get them punished or rejected, one starts to filter them. Don’t say what you think, and then things will be just fine. Just play along and fit in. I remember saying no to doing things as a child because I didn’t like the activity, or I was uncomfortable, and I remember that I would be in my room and my dad would sit me down and explain to me that mom had asked me to do something, and she was upset because I said no. He would say that she took care of us, loved us, and did everything to make us happy, and we shouldn’t upset her by disobeying her. He would ask me if I loved my mom and told me that I should just do what she wanted and make her happy. I remember having this conversation again and again when I was young. It was never a matter of things being explained to me or me having the option to opt out, it was always a matter of “if you say no, you are selfish” or “you will do this because we are your parents, and we say so.” I had thus been made responsible for my mother’s feelings, and I have been taught that her needs are more important than mine. The message boils down to people pleasing is a way to show love, and you will receive love in return. My dad was always confrontational. I would talk to him, and if we disagreed, we could have a full-on fight about it, shouting included. He would not be very shy about showing that he was displeased that I didn’t agree with him. His view was always that he knew best, and he would never apologise after a fight because, from where he stood, he was never wrong; I just needed time to see that he was right. Whatever interest I had that he did not approve of was looked at with contempt, and he would make comments to put me down. All of this I can dismiss though; this I can look back on, see where the issues were and let it go. Growing up, I could see that it was an attempt at control, and as I matured, I could rationalise that his opinion was not required to decide, especially when I became financially independent. My mom is not like that. For her, if I say no or reject something that she says, she just looks down, hurt. Her view is that she is big-hearted and always wants the best, and I am not being appreciative of that. She does not fight or argue about it; she just refuses to talk. She is the victim, and you are the aggressor. There are a lot of feelings of shame about engaging with her that still get triggered when she acts like this. If you don’t do what I say, I will reject you and more than that, it will be your fault for doing it. She never says “NO” herself; she just creates an environment where the conditions aren’t conducive for a “YES” to be possible. If we don’t discuss it, then I can’t disprove it and have my way. Something that both my parents share is that they will leave the room, if I am at their house, or they will leave my house if they are upset if they do not like the topic of conversation so, nothing can really be discussed or debated, and it just feels that everything gets pushed under the rug and it just breeds a lot of tension as nothing gets resolved. As I grew up, of course, I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be a part of the group, and that comes with going along with what other people want, especially since I was introverted, and my self-esteem was so low. I was the little girl who would start crying when she was upset, children would bully me because of it, and they would try to make me cry even harder, so, the desire to be accepted was so strong. Funny enough, I have never been one to give in to peer pressure, though. If it is not coming from my internal processes, I will not do it. I have no fear of missing out. It seems like it is still very much grounded in me that having an emotional attachment to a person drives the need to make them happy or feel ashamed if I were to disappoint them. I have found it completely amazing how many of these traits and self-destructive behaviours tend to be highly rewarded when I started working and went into the corporate world. I worked in an operational support function. My people-pleasing behaviour guided me to figure out what a person would like and adjust the output to match the person's requirements. I fulfilled the person’s wishes before they asked for it. Together with getting attached to people quickly, projecting my feelings onto other people, the constant need to achieve and prioritizing other people’s needs over mine, I got into a place where I have taken on more and more work and I felt that I had to make sure everything is taken care of immediately or otherwise it would be a personal failure. I have prioritised to the point where I had days extending to 12+ hours, and I would forget to drink, eat, and even move. I would be completely engrossed in what I was doing and lose track of time, I would be exhausted and emotionally drained, and then I would wake up the next day and do it all over again. As my self-esteem started to improve and I started to pay more attention to my self-care and well-being, I started to become more aware of how I was being treated and how my actions weren’t appreciated. My dedication, my effectiveness, and my going above and beyond were just seen as the norm, and people thought they were very much entitled to my time. I started to wonder what in the world could have made them behave like that. Why would they think that I am some sort of genie who is there to just fulfil their wishes? To the point where I was assigned tasks that were urgent and had to be completed that day, and then they would log off with the expectation for me to work overtime. The more and more I thought about it, I realised that the problem was me. I had allowed people to treat me poorly because I had convinced myself that we were a team and they cared for me as a person, cared about my wellbeing and had my best interests in mind just like I had theirs. I felt that if I wasn’t busy and achieving all the time, I was being lazy. I was pushing my physical boundaries and making myself sick. Even more, I was saying yes to things that I knew I shouldn’t take on; I would solve it, but the entire time I would be completely resentful for having to do it, swallowing my anger over it. I have spoken in therapy about it, and we explored how I needed to become more assertive and learn to set boundaries. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Once you become aware of the behaviour, you become aware of where it is going to take you emotionally, then the motivation to change it becomes a lot stronger than the desire to continue the pattern. For me, it became painfully obvious when I took on projects that would help my development and the person I was working with expressed concerns that they would interfere with me accomplishing their tasks and went as far as asking me to drop my projects despite them being great opportunities for my career. I had done what they had asked, and they had seemed kind and grateful, and now that I was adding my interests to the equation, not only were they unhappy, but they were actively trying to get their way and remove me from those projects. I thought about this at length, as this was so far from anything that I would ever do that I couldn’t understand how people could be so selfish and self-involved. To be honest, the more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and it was a lot easier to set boundaries, to say what my needs were and to be reasonable about my capabilities. Once I stopped looking at them as friends who had my best interests in mind and looked at them as individuals who had their own agenda and would scrupulously pursue it, it became easier to stop seeing everything that went wrong in our interactions as a personal failure, something that I caused, and I was responsible for. One needed a place to start, and this was the easiest place to start. I have started to practice saying what is on my mind. Not everybody liked it, and some people were lost in the process, but, to be honest, I don’t need everybody on this life journey. In the beginning, it was hard, I would say no to something and when people started to try to convince me, I would start to feel uncomfortable; my first instinct would be to give in. I would feel my inside world crumbling, and I would feel a shudder. I would feel selfish if I were not doing what they asked of me. I found that whenever I said no, I would feel the need to give extensive explanations, and people would use this to try to convince me to do what they wanted so, this is when I decided that saying “No, I don’t want to” is explanation enough and my no is non-negotiable. This ensures that my relationships are more honest. Whenever I am doing something, I am enjoying myself more because there are things that I really want to do. I join in when I want, and I opt out when I am not feeling all right or when I don’t feel comfortable. I am doing a lot better with people who try to push their will on me. I can see the attempts and resist because I know that this resistance that I put up now will save me a lot of hurt in the long run. I also pay more careful attention to what I accept in the beginning, as the decisions I take at the start will affect the rest of the relationship. The problems continue when the person is nice and tries to be friendly, and then they come to me, and they act as if I am the only one that can help them. I then see how they come to me more and more, and they make conversation less and less each time, and then they push their needs on me, demanding my help. I took a step back in one of these instances and I saw that the person was insisting that I solve their problems and no matter how much I tried to stay neutral and explain to them that it was not something that I knew, or I could help with, they kept insisting and acting as if it was my responsibility. This still works as it is guilt-based but at the same time, it is still an attack on my boundaries, it still says that their needs are more important than mine and that I should be responsible for their happiness. I keep with it, and whenever this person comes to me, I make sure that I ask if this is something relating to what I do and if it isn’t, I do not give in. It is not easy saying no, it is not easy setting boundaries, it is not easy to say what I need, but I do find that it is getting easier. I take it one instance at a time, and when I fail to do it correctly or I find that I give in, I try to be kind to myself and learn from what went wrong. I realise now that saying no is also a form of self-care. Seeing value in my time and happiness, making sure that people know what I can do and creating the right expectations helps me go more comfortable through my day. Not only do I feel proud every time I show up for myself but, I know that it allows me to show up properly for other people too because I protect my calm and my peace, and I keep myself in a balanced state of mind. I can accept who I am, and I can understand my weaknesses but, the more I work on them the stronger I get, and I am on my way to making myself happy every day.

I must have been told this story a thousand times. My dad and my sister Ana came to see my mom and me after my mom gave birth. My sister saw how small I was, and she was quite disappointed as she was expecting to get a playmate, and I certainly didn’t fit the bill. When she passed through the maternity, she had seen a little boy who had been abandoned in the hospital. He was crying and alone, so he had drawn her attention. She noticed that he was older and bigger so, she wondered if they couldn’t swap me for the little boy. I think one can agree this was not the best start. I grew up with stories being told about how my sister was born. She was the golden nugget, and everybody was so happy and proud when she came. My mom and dad were both their parents’ only child so, it meant so much more to everybody when the first grandchild came into the family. My sister was the sort of child who cried all night and because my mom and dad lived with my grandparents on my mom’s side, they had to walk with her during the night and try their best not to disturb them. My mom claims that if my sister had been easier to deal with as a baby, they would have had me sooner. Over the years, I heard the stories again and again and then I noticed that there were so many pictures of her and barely any of me. One hears the “your sister can, and you can’t,” the “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” the “your sister is that and you are that” and that is where the rivalry starts to come on. We had our share of fighting, we chucked insults at each other, we threw hands, and I have to admit that while I was smaller in age and size, I did not plan to give up without a fight. Despite all of this though, I have always looked up to my sister. I enjoyed spending time with her. I enjoyed watching horror movies with her. I enjoyed the fact that she would make up stories for me about our hamsters. One of my favourite memories actually, is when I had fallen and I hurt both knees, both elbows and my pelvis bone on my left side. All those bits were bloody and bandaged up. I couldn’t really turn from side to side, and I was in pain so, I couldn’t fall asleep because I was so uncomfortable. My sister started to make up stories and she got me giggling until I fell asleep. There were these subtle ways in which I felt cared for, I felt loved by my sister, and I loved her for being the way that she was. My sister and I also went to the same school so, it was a matter of her taking me to school or picking me up from school if our schedules matched. She would feed me my lunch. Helped me with my homework until our parents came back from work. We would share the same room; we would sleep in the same bed. We would spend summers at our grandparents together so, we only had each other then. We were in each other’s faces all the time so when she got married and all of a sudden, she wasn’t there then I felt a little abandoned. Whenever our parents would fight with us, we would have each other and all of a sudden it was just me. I could talk to her all the time and now not only was she in another house but, she was in another country, and I could talk to her once a week as this was the pre-smartphone era. I understood that she had her own life to live, and that was never an issue but, I also felt sad for losing her as support. Her married life changed her. I would sometimes look at her and wonder who this person was. She looked like my sister, she spoke like my sister but, she was not the same person. She was living her own life, and I lived mine. We would talk from time to time, but it was not the same. She would mostly talk to my mom and then my mom would give me an update. There would be situations where my mom would confide in me about her worries and concerns and I got so upset at my sister that at some point, I didn’t even want to talk to her. My mom told me that my sister was all that I would have when they died and that I should make more of an effort. I did but, we were not that close. There was always this feeling that regardless of what I did, my parents' attention was always geared toward my sister. At first, because she was the only one, then because she was better and then, because she needed more help. As I went through everything and I started therapy, I started to think about my family, I started to consider the things that we were told growing up and I kept on remembering how they had said that my relatives are who they are, and you can’t pick them, and you have to make the most of them. It got stuck in my head and then this idea came to be: “I spend so much time and energy connecting with strangers and making friends. If I were to meet my sister in the street today, would I choose her as a friend?” I started to pay more attention to her as an individual. I tried to see the parts of her that I could relate to and the parts with which I didn’t agree. I tried to find common interests. The most important part though was to make a deliberate decision to let her in, for me to be vulnerable and share enough of myself to make a connection possible. Isn’t the universe a funny thing? How does it arrange things so that the opportunity arises just when you need it? I was talking to my dad, and I was talking to him about how we shouldn’t judge children by the sins of their parents, and I mentioned his own past and family history. I say talk, I mean fight. My dad changed the subject abruptly and started talking to me about something completely different. I was so surprised by it that I thought I had missed something. I asked what the link to anything and my mom spoke up that this is Dad’s new thing and that whenever he doesn’t like the conversation, he just changes the topic. Later on, he concluded that my sister and I were too weak and ill-adjusted to deal with things to the point that I needed therapy because he and my mom had protected us from even the slightest gust of wind. This was him taking responsibility and giving us words of encouragement. My sister and I had a call later on. I was so shocked that he would believe that. There was so much wrong with that statement that it felt like a hallucination that the entire thing even happened. I asked my sister if they really imagined themselves the perfect parents. Growing up, one of the questions that I would ask my dad again and again was if they didn’t want me, why they had me. My dad had replied that my mom couldn’t have had an abortion if she wanted to, even in communist times when they were banned, because she had medical conditions so, my actual existence was proof of them wanting me. Hallmark eat your heart out at this heart-felt, touching speech. As I was recounting this to my sister and telling her about that I felt hurt and discarded, the most surprising confession was made. My sister told me that when she was young, she thought that she might have been adopted and that is why they couldn’t love her. This woman that I thought had been stealing our parent’s attention and love from me, the person that I had been jealous of for so many years, was just as lonely and hurt as I had been. When I told my therapist about it, she asked if I didn’t feel better for letting this jealousy go and it was, but it was more than that. It was a shared experience rather than just empathy. It was confirmation that I didn’t exaggerate it in my mind, or I am not being dramatic, I am not making this up. From here on out, we had long conversations, 7-8 hours on the phone talking about our parents’ marriage, our childhoods, the things that we were told, the things that we had been taught, the things that they never gave us. A lifetime of things that I had said to myself, a lifetime that I built on these assumptions that were either wrong or partially wrong. Things that I have told myself to ensure that I can keep on living happily. Things like: “We discuss things in our family,” “My parents have the perfect marriage that I hope to have at some point,” and “We are a close family.” Pretty little lies that I kept telling myself to keep on thinking that I have a great life. I built my hopes and dreams on them. I just lied to myself.   Amongst all of those things, an even more hurtful thing came to light. That we have been lied to. We have compared notes on different things and some of those “Don’t tell your sister” stories had been recounted differently to each of us. Not secrets but manipulation. Some slightly changed versions, some outright lies. The wedge that has been driven between us was my mother’s doing, she had created the perfect environment where each of us was on her side and we were talking to her and supporting her but, my sister and I were becoming strangers. Even the bleeding-heart request for me to try harder to be friendly with my sister came after my gran told my mom that she should do something about it. My mom had said that it was not her responsibility what her daughters do, and my gran reminded her that once they were all gone, my sister and I would only have each other. What shambles. The image of the perfect family is now in tatters. So many hurtful things and our biggest problem was that we didn’t hear I love you from our mom. We are not an I love you family it seems. I say I love more to my dog in a week than I have said to all of them in my entire life. So, when my mother’s birthday came around, I thought I would try it out. I would say it to my mom and maybe she will say it back. We were on a video chat, and I was wishing her happy birthday, and we were closing the call I kept thinking that I should just say it, but the words would not escape my lips so, I never did. I then called my sister and told her all about it. She had said that she had had the same impulse and that she had written it in a text. My mom had addressed all the topics and never replied to the thing that mattered the most, never said I love you back. My sister sounded sad on the phone and a bit defeated and hurt. I could hear it in her voice that she was looking down. In the face of all of this, I have done whatever a sibling would do… I laughed in her face, said better you than me, laughed some more and then I told her that I loved her. If we can’t laugh about shared trauma what can we laugh about? It has been such a long road up to here but, I now have my sister travelling this road with me. We can parent ourselves and each other. We can now teach ourselves the skills that we have not been taught. Our friendship will change over time with life but, I think that this is a friend that is worth investing my time in. The two of us can start discussing everything and being completely honest. We can start one text at a time and one phone call at a time and turn this into an I choose to be your friend family. The two of us can make this an “I love you” family.

I find it so easy to take care of someone else. All my thoughts going in their direction, my mind preoccupied with what they need. I have a to-do list, and it keeps me entertained to think about how I can schedule my day to go to the shops and buy shirts once I know that they are needed. Know the size, know the cut, know the patterns, know what is already owned and buy something that will suit you. I bring them home and I display them, and it is a point of great satisfaction when most or all are kept. It means I have guessed it right and it gives me a sense of achievement. I approach each person with curiosity and fascination. I gather information about what they like, how they like things, what they dislike, what upsets them, and what motivates them. I observe the way they think, and I try to fulfil their needs and give them all they want before they even know they need it. I am very good at staying on track when it comes to living with someone and making sure that the laundry is done on time, that dinner is planned, ingredients are bought, the dishes are done, that dinner is cooked, that clothes are mended, the house is clean, gifts and cards are bought and made available, reminders are set for everything because he kept forgetting and double book things for himself. It’s called invisible work, I am a silent performer and although one might think that it will be appreciated, once you do things and tell no one, it just gets expected as normal and there would be no thanks, no real gratitude, just disdain if there is a disruption in the routine. I am good at catering to someone else’s needs as it was what I observed in my family. I have been told that you say I love with your actions, not your words so, serving others and making them happy should be the goal. People pleasing gave me a goal and it was somewhat comforting as I could look at it as a puzzle, a process that can be optimized to perfection. The sad part is that when I am single, I seem to find myself lost, confused and without a purpose. When I must wash someone else’s clothes, I will wash mine as well. I will have to cook for them, and I will try to make sure that the meals are diverse and pleasing at the same time, I will join them so, I will have set meals, at set times and I will have diversity. I still have my hobbies, and I enjoy them regardless. I enjoy my sense of self and having the solitude of my thoughts, I enjoy the freedom of being all that I can be, and I appreciate a person who allows me to be as peculiar as I am in their presence without trying to change them. The sad little truth is that I am not able to stay on track with taking care of my needs.   When I thought of the list of things I had to do, feed myself, drink water, exercise, go to work, keep the house clean, keep myself clean and looking well, make myself happy, make every single decision fast and move to make changes with confidence and determination, the task just seemed impossible. There was evidence there that I could do it. I had surely done it in the past. I had gotten up from the hole I had found myself in, put myself together and managed to evolve and grow stronger, a little trick called post-traumatic growth. I started with a good old spring clean. I looked through my entire life as it had been, and I consider what is still worth keeping and what it is to be let go. I finally packed all the clothes that I kept just in case I lost those extra pounds. I went through all the memories and keepsakes that I have amassed and decided which ones I am still holding on to. I had been nesting for years and I had bought things in preparation for living that life. I had furnished the house that I will inhabit. I had made traditions that my potential children could look back on and possibly model. All over now and I was moving on a different path now and all the things would not fit in it. I cleaned and not only did I organize my space, but I also organized my mind. The need for a clean house, office, and environment, speaks to my need for control. I could not control what was happening in my life, what other people were going to do and what outcome would follow. I couldn’t even control my thoughts and feelings, but I could control the space. At the same time, getting rid of things in the physical world mirrors me in organizing things in my mind. I found that I do a spring clean every time I end a stage of my journey and let go of everything that doesn’t serve me anymore. I never realised how much comfort I get when I take out the trash after I had a few days of depression. I chuck the bag in the dumpster, and I let all the bad thoughts that go with it, and I come back in the house a bit lighter. Garbage… baggage… the same thing at the end of the day. I thought that I would have the opportunity to lose some weight and start over. I looked online and I thought about healthy eating, stopping eating sugar, and drinking more water. I was going to be so good and stay on top of things, start cooking healthy things after eating takeaway for so long. It was a good plan except I wasn’t interested in food, not at all. I didn’t think of it and when I could stomach some, I would feel nauseous. Not eating unhealthy food was no longer an issue because I wasn’t eating any food. I used the My Fitness Pal app for a while to remind me to eat and for quite some time, I have lived on Greek yoghurt, bread and tomatoes or peppers on the side, eating cereal for breakfast, lunch or/ and dinner, eating crisps. The self-care in this might not be obvious but it is the compassion that while they might not be the best meals, they are meals, nonetheless. People kept on trying to tell me how I should do better, but they clearly didn’t understand where I was mentally at the time. They take the information, apply it to their lives and then add their desire to lose weight and give it to me as judgment. I don’t do well with eating alone, I am very poor at cooking for just myself, I have gone the entire day without eating or even realising that it was happening, while fully prioritizing Bruno, worrying if he has had enough to eat, if he has been walked enough and then coming to the conclusion that I haven’t drank or eaten anything. I don’t have the luxury of being picky so if I want cake for breakfast, I will have it I will enjoy it and I will not feel guilty for it. It’s cake or nothing. I will mostly eat things that I can make in 5 minutes because, on a depression day, I will not want to stand by a stove and cook. I always have fruit in the house, I mostly tend to eat salads, and I will have frozen pizzas as they are low effort. I will have cookies, crisps, wafers, something that I can have with me on the go so that if I forget to eat and I feel faint, I can just grab something. This is still living in fight or flight so, I am not going to feel bad about eating the chocolate cake, with cream on top. I am not going to feel bad about having juice with it because otherwise, I might not have anything to drink at all. I was trying to figure out if I would ever be loved again and trying to figure out how to feel connected to people again when I started to read Sarah Millican’s book “How to Be Champion”. In it, she speaks about how after her divorce she got an “I love you friend”. Since one would say I love you to animals, but they won’t say it back, she got a friend to do that for her and fill that void. We were never big on saying I love you in my family and I quite liked this concept, and my friends were happy to help. Saying it and hearing it back, made me feel more connected but I also missed the connection that is brought on by getting a hug. Being in pandemic times didn’t help the situation since we were not allowed to meet, let alone touch. That is when I happened upon a weighted blanket ad. Now, I watched a movie about Temple Grandin when I was younger. She is an inventor and expert in animal husbandry. She was autistic, I think she had had Asperger’s syndrome. After observing the cattle chute and seeing how it calms down the cows, she came up with a design for humans called the hug box. The machine allows the user to give themselves a hug with the pressure that is right for them. It is meant to calm anxiety and reduce stress by activating the parasympathetic system. That is what came to mind when I first saw the ad and I got one. It is without a doubt the best investment I have made. While it doesn’t magically solve my issues, it does alleviate my anxiety, and it helps shorten my depression episodes. There have been so many times when I wasn’t feeling confident, when I was anxious, and I had to push myself to do things. My version of fake it ‘till you make it is to put make-up on, dress in whatever makes me feel good and put perfume on. That is even if I go to take Bruno out or go to the supermarket. Just put on the armour to protect the tender interior. I can’t have a skincare routine because having a routine in the first place bores me and puts a lot of pressure on me instead of promoting relaxation. I will do face masks, I will do my manicure, I will do massages, I will buy myself perfumes, I will buy myself all the clothes that I had convinced myself in the past were not for me. I will wear a short skirt, and I will feel beautiful in it because I want to wear that skirt, and I will refuse to care about people’s opinions. Being me, being free, gives me confidence and makes me feel strong. Finally, self-care is everything that brings joy in one’s life and contributes to one’s well-being. I love music but I didn’t feel I could listen to my old playlist because too many had meaning and memories so, I have started a new one to be the soundtrack to the next stage of my life. I have started to dance in the house like nobody is watching for stress relief and I think all my neighbours have had a chance to see me. I have bought all the books that I wanted to read, and I just need time for all of them. I bought colouring books. I bought puzzles. I bought plants and learned how to keep them alive. I surrounded myself with things that I liked. I started making pillows for Bruno on a whim with no pattern or real plan and they turned out quite well, to be honest. I watched all sorts of movies and series, and they have helped me in some ways to gain insight and wisdom. I have accepted that meditation is not for me, but I do love a bit of journaling. I have taken so many wonderful naps. I have cut toxic people out of my life. I stopped going to things that I didn’t care for, and I made more time for things that I did. I try my best, but I must confess that I don’t always get it right. There are days when all of this goes out the window and my old patterns re-emerge but then I do the most important act of all, I treat myself with kindness, I forgive myself, I remind myself that I am doing my best and every setback is a learning experience. I am grateful for what goes well, and I gave myself little parades to celebrate it. There is no perfect formula for self-care, but I hope that at some point, I will get the balance right and I can commit to taking care of myself like I have committed to taking care of others.

Years ago, I was told by a friend that when she first met me, she thought I was so stuck up. That I was flicking my hair back so full of myself and then, I stood in a meeting and when asked to say something about myself I said I do not like talking about myself. It seemed hilarious to me that this was the way that I was perceived. The reality is that I was terrified. I was trying to hide the panic, and I was trying to straighten myself up. I was thinking that I should be looking put together and make a good impression. My hair kept falling out of place. No matter how hard I tried, it was out of place. I was crumbling on the inside thinking all these things and thinking how everybody else could have it together, but I didn’t. I had to get up and say things myself in front of 20 people I had barely met, and I sat up and spoke the biggest truth “I don’t like talking about myself”. The more I talked about myself, the more I would expose myself I thought, and this was not an environment I felt comfortable in. The outside image of overconfidence and self-importance and my inner world are polar opposites. As a child, I always got reminded that I was smaller and that I should let someone else do it for me since I couldn’t do it well. I tried to wash dishes, and I tried to polish shoes and all I got was a roll of the eyes and getting told that I should not have bothered. There was always this idea that I should be supervised, or I should let someone else do it for me. I got the sense that I couldn’t do things well enough on my own, even more so, that my efforts were not wanted. This creates a lot of self-doubt and shame because I thought I had done well, I thought I could be proud of the work, and it was clearly not the case. I was raised with the constant reminder that my parents have done as much as they could, and it is my obligation to improve, to do better, and to go further. Live the life that they couldn’t live. Everything was under scrutiny. All my report cards were looked at and top grades were expected while lower ones were questioned. If I got anything less than top marks, I would be told that I was being lazy and I was wasting my potential. It creates this belief that I should be great at everything and that I should constantly strive to be better. Achieving is expected and anything less is being looked down upon. Nothing impresses because one just meets the ever-increasing expectations. No academic achievement. No award that my work can give me, later in life. No personal show of strength. I try but there is always a never-ending list that needs to be completed. The problem with not being celebrated when I have a win, or the win being disregarded when it is not the right one is that I don’t really know how to win. It is not that I am being full of myself and putting other people down, it is that I get imposter syndrome immediately. I start thinking that I was lucky, and I got away with it this time but, soon enough they will know that I cannot do any of it. That I will be found out and exposed. It spirals even to the point where I start to think that I will get fired because of it. This is especially when I am on a downward spiral, and I am highly anxious or depressed. There is nothing more uncomfortable in this world than somebody raving about me or how good I am at something. I can take a “thank you”, I can take an “I appreciate your help”, I can take an “I couldn’t have done it without you” but not if somebody keeps going on because regardless of how hard I tried and how much effort I put in, it always feels like the praise is undeserved. On the other side, every single time I fail, I am ready to take that criticism, recognize blame and take responsibility. A loss comes as a confirmation that I was never good enough so, of course, something like this happened to me. I am my most vicious critic and I am on my case all the time. There is nothing anybody can say that can hurt me just as much as I can hurt myself. Even when I started to get myself together and I started to work out the solutions to my problems, I kept on saying how I had so much to do, and that I was so far from my goals. My friends keep on saying that I should look at how far I am from where I have started and how much I have achieved. I wish I could, but I still feel that no matter how much I try, if I stop everything will just fall apart, and I am going to lose everything in a second. I have this feeling that while I have achieved, I have not achieved enough, I have not achieved things fast enough, and I have not been efficient enough. I have this feeling that if somebody had helped me, and supervised me, I would have been able to do more and better. I read at some point this short story about a man who dies and goes to the great beyond and finds himself in hell. He is very surprised about this as he has always tried to choose the right thing to do and always tried to avoid harming others. In the process of having his life judged though, he is shown has he has avoided making decisions so many times. He wasn’t being judged for the decisions that he made alone, but he was also judged for the opportunities he left to pass him by, for the life that he could have lived if he only took a stand. I could find myself in that story. I have had so many dreams and hopes, and I had let them die because I was too scared to try, or I had convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough to get them anyway. After reading the story, I decided to keep on striving to be braver, to set goals and shoot for the stars. This is my biggest challenge. Allowing myself to be all I can be. Being kind and forgiving with myself. Being grateful for the success I get and seeing that I have earned it, and I deserve it. Being patient with the small steps I make towards my goals and accepting that it is taking time for some things to come to pass. I will allow myself to rest and understand that I still have worth even if I don’t achieve all the time. Even me writing this is a step towards me coming clean about my weaknesses and trying to become comfortable with the idea that all of them will be exposed. If I can recognize that I struggle, if I can recognize that things can take time and setbacks are a part of the learning process, If I can accept that failing is a part of the learning process and come to terms with them, I can reduce my anxiety around them and I can allow myself to perform at my true potential. I get a form of it whenever I start any new activity so, I have started to accept that as it is a new activity technically, I am an imposter but what I am investing in is time and energy to achieve my full potential by the end of it. After a few run-throughs, I can get better at it, and I will learn how to handle things. It will not be perfect, but it will be done.  Releasing my fears is a step around accepting all the parts of myself as they are without judgment and being proud of myself. Everybody talks about greatness and having main character energy but, the world is made up of regular people going about their lives and doing their best. My life is still unfolding, and I still have to learn and grow but, if I manage to help people in their time of need then that will light up my life and if I string enough of those moments along the way then that will still make life worth living. I don’t worry about how people remember me either because I don’t really think that people think about me that much but, I want to be brave, strong, and honest. I want to be unapologetically me and more than that, be proud of it.