*Insert cool 90s music and record scratch*
I guess you’re wondering how I got here.. Well, it all started back in my college days. I wasn’t where I wanted to be. I wasn’t who I wanted to be.
Without getting into a super long-winded timeline of my not so high-vibing past, I basically had to deal with a significant loss all while working full-time and going to school full-time. My outer appearance showed that I was great! I was a top performer at work, I aced all of my classes freshman year, and I just completed my final steps to continue my education at my dream college in Chicago. I was doing my best to juggle life while also trying to find ways to numb my pain and manage my battle with constant illnesses and infections caused by stress. On the outside, I looked fine to everyone around me, but on the inside, I felt like my world was collapsing. I guess I thought I was a pro at covering it up, because I wasn’t okay for what felt like forever, and nobody seemed to notice.
Maybe you’ve experienced this too? This is what they call “functional depression”. Yep, there’s a name for everything darling!
I had this thing for nearly ten years. But here’s why I didn’t think anything was “wrong”… I had experienced it for so long, even before starting college, that I just thought it was a part of who I was. I thought sadness was a part of my personality. Can you imagine? So I accepted this way of life… which also came with physical conditions and an extremely unhealthy relationship with food.
It took me a while to start taking the steps I needed to in order to heal. After my last breakdown, I made my next big life decision to get over my fears and embarrassment and seek help. I was afraid to open up about my deepest thoughts because I didn’t want to be judged (nor did I want anyone to know there was anything going on with me behind my fake smile that I believed I mastered), but I was even more afraid of what would happen if I didn’t do it.
Growing up in a black Christian household, discussing mental health just isn’t a thing that happens. This can be said about any minority group actually. Well in my house, to admit that you needed help for your mental well-being was to admit that there was something wrong with you or that you were being attacked by the devil, demons, everything else was at fault and you didn’t need help. All you needed to do was go to church, read the bible, and pray it away. While I still have a prayer practice and spend time in daily devotion, this way of thinking has been proven to be so dangerous to our community. I knew this couldn’t be all that I needed to do. It felt like I was ignoring the root issues of why I felt the way that I did. And I was. It felt wrong.
This is why I devoted myself to learning more about my own emotions and got the help I needed through therapy and finding a spiritual life coach. From there, I stumbled across the Institute For Integrative Nutrition, and my mind was opened to living holistically and managing my health & wellness by looking at many different parts of my life. I also moved on to learning about how the brain and the body and how emotions are stored. Anddd the rest is history!
It was quite a journey to get to a place of genuine happiness, health, and abundant appreciation for who I am. I have honored my pain because without it, I would not be the person I am today with many important lessons to teach my child throughout her own journey. Asking for help is hard (I know better than anyone), but a life of unhappiness and thinking you can never have the life you want is even harder. You can come back from anything and I am a living witness to that. Everything I wanted was on the other side of my fear of asking for help, and as I look back at the woman I used to be versus the woman I am as I write this, I could never thank her enough for her bravery and her confidence to say enough is enough. I am far from perfect, and we grow and learn every day, but the first step to a better life is recognizing that a change has to happen, and mustering up the courage to say “I can’t do this alone, I need to ask for help”. That is both the hardest and most rewarding step.
