Dance Through Trauma

September 2, 2021

On the 28th of August, Efrain's mother and the family members of the fishermen who are lost have tried to find their loved ones themselves as the Mexican authorities said that they would search for the six lost fishermen once the tropical storm is gone. However, the family members of the lost fishermen were not able to do the search as the weather was too bad. So, the family members had to wait in desperation to hear from the authorities. They wanted the authorities to conduct the search immediately even under bad weather due to their desperation, which is understandable. Some of the main roads in the city of Acapulco were blocked by all the family members of the lost fishermen as a way to make the authorities start their search. The mother of Efrain appeared on one of the news channels of the Mexican state Guerrero crying for my cousin.
Now, days have passed by without knowing what happened to my cousin out there. A Mexican identification card was found in a white box near the boat that my cousin was in. The card happened to be from my cousin. I'm still checking Facebook for the updates, but there has been no sign of my cousin nor of the other five fishermen. There have been bodies found by the ocean, but none of them have anything to do with the fishermen. I'll keep an eye out for any new information related to this. It doesn't feel right changing the subject to something else, but I thought that it was important to mention. So, around 6 PM I believe, I was in my room for about an hour with hatred in my heart. Why? I couldn't stop thinking about how evil my mother's "boyfriend" is, and how he can still enjoy life after everything he's done. I almost went out of my room to yell at him things about how I don't like him because of his wrongdoings, but I told myself that I can't say much as he pays the rent and bills of this house, and since I'm legally an adult, he can get me kicked out of the house legally because I'm no longer child that is obligated to be with an adult. I'm disabled, and I'm literally just 19 years old. Why do I have to rush into becoming an adult so fast because of my age? I want to take things slowly and I plan on working on that in 2022, and hopefully, I will be a responsible, independent adult by 2023. I have so many thoughts about what jobs I plan on getting. I talked about how I'm preparing myself for my future to my counselor the other day. I have an app that lets me see job openings that are listed online nearby, and I read them and check out the hour-pay, even if I'm not going to get any of the jobs soon. I've even practiced writing my resume already! There's the job interview thing that I'm a little nervous about, but it's pretty normal to be nervous about a job interview. I have trouble speaking clearly and stutter at times, which is mainly why I feel a little nervous for a job interview. However, the employer can't discriminate against me for my speech. Even if they do, I would just leave that place and find another job with a better employer. In counseling, my counselor and I worked out my fears of having a job like getting fired or having to do the job right. She wrote down on a piece of paper about what my options are if I get fired from a job, and I have plenty of options. There's my family, friends (when I get to have them nearby), unemployment benefits, other jobs, programs that hire people who need a job, and much more. That decreased my anxiety so much, so now I don't have to worry about having a job. Yeah, adult life may be scary once it starts, but I'll get used to it. I shouldn't fear so much of what I've never experienced before. So, I'm pretty sure that I will get a job sometime next year. I would actually love to start a job right now, but I don't plan on doing it until I no longer have chronic fatigue that is hard to deal with. I want to work and be able to do my job without fatigue that interferes with it. I'm afraid that my fatigue will make me unmotivated to go to work in the future, which I doubt will happen anyway. I still don't want to work with the amount of fatigue that I have as of now. I'm starting to taper off one of my medications, Gabapentin, slowly, so it feels great to know that this wait is going to end soon, and I can start my adult life by next year! I want to start it with full, normal energy and not physical fatigue and mental fatigue. If my fatigue does improve, and I feel that I have enough energy to hold a job, then I will definitely get a job even if I'm still on medication. It's mainly the fatigue that I'm worried about because I don't want to make my life miserable. I have so many plans for the future, and I can't wait to be an adult already!

- September 2, 2021