#selfidentity #worth #personalgrowth #reflections #depression #anxiety #trauma #healing

2012 wore a face like hell.

A face of a girl whose boyfriend had secret texts from his exs.

A face of a girl who cried between classes, alone in a cafeteria in college.

A face of a girl who mourned a loss she could not tell anyone about that ached her heart and soul.

A face of a girl who felt lost in her purpose + mission in life.

She was struck with depression often but did not know its name yet. So she just thought she had shitty outlooks on life.

This girl was riding on the aftermath of abuse and picking out people in her life that presented the treatment she had grown up with, but she called it all love.

She did not know what love actually looked like or sounded like.

Especially when all she heard constantly were the utterances from chronically negative people who thought future planning was pointless because the world was full of disappointments and did not provide joy without a cost.

A cost not worth paying.

This girl did not think her peaks of happiness and creativity were an answer to any questions she was begging between panic attacks as she planned her next schedule and semester.

She did not know creativity was worth something.

That people would pay in appreciation and validation, much less money to hear her thoughts.

She did not know that calling out an abuser or setting a boundary was a normal behavior.

Boundaries were just complaints told on deaf ears. And only b*tches complained.

I wish I could have met this girl in 2012.

I wish I could have told her that her spirit was actually empowerment and that her urge to read inspiring books would lead to a complete breakdown and reassessment of the things she had ever known.

That everything she knew was toxic and her intuitive urges to check those texts came from being around the wrong people, not being the wrong person.

I really want to tell her that she was worthy.

She was worthy of being someone's first choice.
Only choice.

She was worthy of that internship she self sabotaged.

She was worthy of the twirls and spins she did in dance class, wearing converse in a sea of heels because she could not afford dance shoes.

She was worthy of feeling like a good, no a great mom. Because at 21 she was holding keys to her own place and paying all her bills.

At 21, while peers complained about their moms calling too often and the toilet paper being crappy at their jobs, this girl was hustling to feed a toddler and taking public bus 6 times a day total to get the little one to and from daycare in between classes and work.

This girl had a home she attained on her own and a job she found on her first day of College.

This girl was ACTUALLY a go getter who just had anxiety and PTSD.

So the tears and overwhelm were totally acceptable.

The broken friendships and the takers who she surrounded herself with sometimes were ALSO products of abuse.

Because she attracted people who also dealt with hardships in life.

And that was not a burden AT ALL.

It was actually the start of her future career. An inkling that Social Work and Social Justice might actually be good fits.

Or at least her placement between healing and empowerment would be set, with the title "Jaded Savior" on the header of her future plans.

J.S. JADED SAVIOR
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