Finding Strength

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It has been a while since I last wrote a blog here. I got an email this evening telling me I had recieved a comment on one of my blog posts. It was a comment saying that changing one thing at a time sounded like a good idea, but then asked how you choose what you need to change first.

So as an answer I decided to blog. This is a very good question and I am willing to do my best to give my help.

Exactly one year ago today, I had a nervous breakdown, you can read more about it in my earlier blogs. Today I can look up and be happy most of the time. Of course I have my days but who doesn't?  It seems like a year ago life was miserable and I hated even being alive. Now I see the sun and that the sky is mostly blue. Many have asked how I changed so quickly and it all comes down to making the decision to change. I had been suffering with depression my whole life and never even knew it! I decided after I had my breakdown that it was time to find out what was wrong. I did not like feeling the way I was and I wanted to be happy. I wanted to love raising my children and being with my husband. I wanted to do things with confidence and not get so nervous in front of people because of my anxieties. So I decided to get some help.

I started going to a counselor. I had to decide what the most pressing things were so that I could work on those first. My very first thing that I had to talk to my counselor about was dealing with my parents divorce. Why my parents divorce you may ask, why not my spirituality, or my home life? Well I will tell you. I had been spending a lot of time with my family both sides (mom and her fiance, and dad and his wife) well for a long time after the divorce, my parents put me in the middle of everything. If they wanted to talk to each other they would have me relay the message. I was stuck. I kept doing it because I felt like it was my duty to do so. After my dad remarried, I found that they would treat me and my family with much disrespect. It got to be so overbearing and things were not changing. Every time I would visit I would be so stressed out that it wasn't worth even going anymore. I did not want to lose my relationship with my dad and that is where it was going. That is the reason I had to conquer that first. It was a matter of losing my father. The other reason was because that was the cause of my most recent anxiety and stress in my life and in order to get to the past, I had to work through the present first.

I am still working on that aspect but things have gotten a lot better between us. It is slowly progressing and it has gotten to the point that my family and I visit there more often than we used to.

After I started that process and things began to improve I had to chose what to work on next. Well there was a lot of things in my past and a lot of things that were not good. A choice which led to a near rape, an issue with childhood sexual "exploration" (that is what they call it when they are the same age as you are). Neglect by family members, being a latch key kid (it is a lot more difficult than it seems.) and many other choices I had made in my life that had caused stress and pain.  I had to weigh which ones were more important at the time and if I was ready to work on them.

I worked on each one a little at a time. I attended a group for the Rape and childhood abuse situation and I was able to let most of that go. I still struggle with a few things, but for the most part it no longer rules my life.

I hope that whatever you need to do to change will come to you. If it is causing a lot of pain and turmoil and it is going to affect the way you live your every day life, that I believe is the first thing you should focus on changing. Good luck with your lifes changes!

Finding Strength