She lost HERself...

Do you ever sit and wonder “how did I get here”? Are you living the life you envisioned? Are you functioning the way you feel you should be? Are you satisfied with who you are? And that’s a big question, “Am I satisfied with me?”. Yet one of the most important questions is “Am I happy with me?”. You do know that being satisfied with who you are and being happy with who are you are definitely two entirely different questions though sometimes people think they are one in the same. They are NOT! Right?!

So really quick, let me share a short story with you guys. So, boom about four years ago my best friend was up here (in the west suburbs of Chicago) for reserve duty. You know I’m former military as I mentioned before and so is one of my bestest friends. But when she left active duty she did reserve duty. She doesn’t live here (insert so many sad face emojis), her husband is in the Air Force so she was in New Mexico at that time. I do wish I can hit the lottery and move all my best friends to one spot though. But you know. Okay so anyway, I’m always excited to freaking see her. I drove my ass there to her hotel room to spend some time with her. We went to Coldstone (which was my first time and they are freaking awesome. I won’t say the best because I’m now totally obsessed with Oberweis Ice Cream but they are definitely in second place.) and we went and got food and just kicked it. We were in her hotel room just talking.

I will not lie, during our conversation I was uncomfortable, I felt naked, I felt exposed. And I felt this way because she could see me talk to her not just hear me or only see my words through a text spread. And we talked about everything and just caught up on what’s going on in each other’s lives. Do you have that one person in your life that no matter what you can’t hide anything from them? That you are naked no matter how many clothes or walls you try to hide behind? And nothing you cover yourself with can protect you from being seen by that person? Well Meek is one of those people, I have a few. She didn’t confront me that day. I want to say about a week after she got back home we were talking through text and she basically told me that she didn’t say anything then but she can see that I’m not happy, that something is wrong, she doesn’t like it and I have to fix it. The conversation was a little bit more in depth. But that was the first time anyway has ever pointed out the unhappiness I was wearing that I didn’t even know I was wearing. And not only that, but the fact that I didn’t even know I was unhappy with who I was. She provided that moment of clarity for me that what I was feeling, what I couldn’t describe and that why I was stuck was because I was unhappy with me.

So there were some tough questions I had to ask myself, the first being how did I get here, the second being where do I want to go/what do I want for myself and the third being where do I start/how do I fix me to get there. You guys these are hard questions to ask yourself when you are in the middle of a storm along with now having to deal with the feelings of anxiety, heaviness and drowning because you’ve come to the realization that you are even in a freaking storm to begin with. Those feelings were so overwhelming. I had a total break down of what felt like forever of non-stop tears. Which turned into disappointment, blame and anger. And I had to pinpoint for myself how I got there. And I was able to answer the question, I got here by not making myself a priority.

No one told me or showed me that balance was so important when it came to balancing the roles you have in your personal life. Yes, I heard about balance between work and your personal life and the burn out you can experience from not having it because my professors drilled that into us in grad school. But not as it related to the different roles you maintain in your personal life. I did not have balance between being a mother, a wife, and a woman. I didn’t identify my own personal needs or self-care separately from those of my family. I didn’t identify them, hell I didn’t even acknowledge them. I put my kids and my husband first, their needs and wants mattered most to me. What does not putting yourself first look like? My kids would see me buy them and my husband the things they needed and wanted but they rarely saw me do that for myself. And they even asked me about that before when they would hear me say I want this or that but I wouldn’t get it. I would just tell them oh I don’t need it right now. They saw me do that all the time. And I often worry about them repeating my actions in their lives. Ya’ll I also remember after I had my first son nothing mattered to me. Every time he cried I dropped everything and I mean everything including my need, my necessity to take a damn dump. I remember this day so clearly my husband Tawon was in the living room with the baby and I had to use the bathroom so bad. Him and I had talked about this. But I would not poop because I would not stay in the bathroom long enough. So I finally went to the bathroom because I felt like I had to go bad. The baby started crying and he heard me getting up and he yelled so loudly and aggressive “Yenna use the damn bathroom he’s okay”. And thinking back on these examples in my life, like really Yenna you but the baby over your need to simply use the bathroom.

Not making yourself a priority can set the blueprint on how others in your life treat you and view you as well. I felt my husband was selfish. I set him up to think that what he wanted was more important than what I wanted or needed. Even when it came down to watching movies, if he didn’t want to go see a certain movie at the theater no matter how bad I wanted to see it I would say okay it’s fine lets see what you want. Sometimes he would see my choice, but it was mostly about him. And I did this in many different areas in our relationship. I made him feel it was okay for me to be last or not at all. And I would get angry and feel neglected, but I was definitely part to blame because I didn’t voice my needs or wants (something I’ve done since childhood). Whew chile understand what you experience in childhood definitely follows your ass in adulthood. So because I wasn’t caring for me, because I wasn’t meeting my own needs, because I didn’t even know what my needs were I became exhausted. I was tired all of the time. I would look in the mirror and see fatigue all over my face. I was draining myself dry and I didn’t know it. I was missing something that I could not grasp. I became easily irritated and angered, frustrated, felt on edge, anxious often, and I only had a pinch of patience. My unhappiness was there but I didn’t know that’s what these “symptoms” meant. And my coping mechanism became food. That’s a whole other blog we’ll get into at a later date.

The first question was very hard to answer because it was admitting the role I played in my own unhappiness, that basically it’s my fault. And it was really my fault because I made a choice, an active choice to put everyone before me. I didn’t know of the consequences that choice would carry but all in all it was a choice I made. I had also realized that because I wasn’t ensuring my own happiness, I had put the responsibility of making me happy onto my husband and guess what he wasn’t successful at it at all. And that brought on even more tears and anger. I was angry with myself because I didn’t matter to myself like I should have, that I didn’t make myself a priority. And I was the only person to blame for that unhappiness. My very first step at this point was to forgive myself. Do you know the hardest person in the entire world to forgive is yourself? We are quicker to forgive someone else for wronging us before we forgive ourselves. And it is hard because you feel like you should have known better and because you expected more from yourself.

Should I have known better though? I had no examples growing up of women in my life putting themselves first. My mother put everyone before her as well so that was the road to go in my book. From the beginning of time, in the bible because I believe in God, women were taught to put men and children first. They were taught to cater to everyone else but themselves. That’s the message that stood out to me the most in those books/chapters when it came to the women. They had to do certain things and accept certain things. So then how do you forgive yourself and mean it? Like really mean it? First, I had to realize and truly understand I didn’t know any better and accept that not knowing wasn’t necessarily my fault. And then forgiveness for me, it was a repetitive action. Every time I would think about why I was in that situation at that time I would get sad and angered and then I would have to say to myself “it’s okay, you have to know it’s okay, I’m sorry and I forgive me. This isn’t where you want to be so let go and MOVE forward”. These are literally the things I would say to myself over and over again. But it was still hard. My theme song had become Lose Myself by Marsha Ambrosius. The song is about relationships but to me that song spoke directly to me losing myself and having to learn who I was and how to love myself all over again. This song also helped me to forgive myself and understand that it happened, I can’t change the past, and that “I had to lose myself so I can love you (me) better”. I will get into the process of “fixing me” in another blog post. But some of the most important things I want you to take away from this post today is

1. No one has the responsibility of making you happy but you.

2. You must take responsibility for your choices, for the role you’ve played in your unhappiness, in losing yourself regardless if you knew better or not. Even though it’s easy, blaming others for something that is your fault will not help you and will interfere with your healing.

3. Forgiveness is not just granted onto others but is just as important if not more and needed in the relationship you have with yourself.

4. And having a friend that can truly see you, call you out, hold you up, and pour into you.

Just remember, no matter what you have to grow from that shit!