Month of May

              For mental health awareness month, I said I wanted to step out and do things that scared me. Well, that didn’t happen. I never went and sat at a coffee shop. I never did something alone besides maybe going to the beach to watch the sunrise one morning. I have learned though that that’s okay. I have spent more days this past month crying and screaming into a pillow. I spent more days last month questioning my reason for still being alive. More suicidal thoughts have soared through my mind, and the feeling of having no purpose in life sat heavily on my heart. I think the biggest struggle I am facing currently is trying to find a job. Nobody, including yourself, ever prepares you for being laid off. Nothing prepares you for unemployment, one day you wake up and it just bitch slaps you in the face. I am now 3 months in still trying to find a job, but all those rejections and tears will one day make sense.

              I have also been struggling with loving where I currently live. This has been a huge conversation with my Fiancé. I support him and his choices to advance his career, but I have also been very real and raw with him about not liking where we live anymore. I moved to this place back in 2021, and the high was amazing when I moved. I loved it, but now I hate it. I try finding that same “high” I had when I first moved here, but it is nonexistent. I’ve been told that it’s just an emotional decision I am making, but I am not happy here. I told my therapist the same thing and she told me that I have built trauma here. I left my hometown to move to a new state so I could live again, but the opposite happened, and TRAUMA followed. Since moving here I have encountered working under a TOXIC boss, literally so toxic I hate him. He truly would have been my 13th reason why. I left that very first job I got down here to pursue something geared towards my degree and well… Nothing different, the work environment at this other place was probably just as toxic if not WORSE. Will never forget that one employee who called me one morning and cussed me out for a mistake our new payroll system made and not me. Then I found my third job in my third year of living where I am at and well…. I got laid off. I think it is safe to say there has been some trauma built here and the only great thing that came out of living here was meeting my fiancé!

              Last month was also different in many ways as well. I came off all my psychiatric medications. I was taking Zoloft and asked to come off it as I gained a lot of weight. Then recently I came off my Buspirone because it was making me dizzy and it began affecting my everyday life. So, here we are now. I am supposed to be taking Effexor, but now I have this fear and thought “Will I gain weight from this?” I also have no money to afford to see my psychiatrist, so I haven’t started it yet. I will say I thought I could do life without medication but since I haven’t been taking anything my anxiety on death has been high. I have also been trying to lose weight. I didn’t realize how out of shape I was until I began fighting for my life after a 1-minute run. I am amazed that losing 5 lbs. makes such a difference to your body. The joints, however, are screaming at me like snap, crackle, pop!

              I know we all go through seasons in life and continuously wonder what the purpose of this specific season is and right now, I am rowing that boat just wondering why. Why am I going through this season?  What is the purpose or lesson I am supposed to be learning? What good will come out of this? I know these are questions only God can answer for me, but I truly wish I had the answers. If there was ever a time, I felt like I failed in life; it was this season I am in right now.

My therapist wanted me to send her 10 photos of me doing self-care. I only sent her 1 photo and I have therapy tomorrow, so I can only imagine how that will go. So, while I start doing things for myself, I want to challenge you to do the same. What are you doing for self-care, or how are you taking care of yourself?

xoxo,

Mariah