My Life, My Story, On My Terms

My Life, My Story, On My Terms By Brittany M Travasos

I've learned through my own experiences and also
through being there and watching my boyfriend
closely, a lot of techniques and coping mechanisms if
you are an emotional person like me. Do you tear up
at times in the midst of a conversation like I do? I get
emotionally involved with everything in my life. Without emotions and being able to "feel it," it
would be much harder to understand exactly in
what's needed to be understood about any
situation, concept, or aspect! I also love to add words and jot things down into words.

I've always loved to write since I was a kid. I take notes and love having my
own records, not just through pages or copies or
cloud storages or the various technologies that we
have today to make pretty much anything be "saved"
and "stored," but also through my own writing on
paper and through my own typing on my phone or laptop/computer. After being in and out of hospitals, various diagnoses that the Drs. always would claim by saying, "Well, it's the closest thing to some of your experiences and symptoms so I'm going to diagnosis you with this." But all the Drs. I've ever seen have never said they were for sure. Not one. While mostly every symptom of these diagnoses were in fact not even involving what I have or what actually happens to me, my own symptoms. I'm writing this book to share my story and for it to potentially guide, help, and/or inspire another. After many different episodes of the numbness and being out of touch with reality, I finally came to a conclusion, it all starts and begins with feelings or emotions that travels to and inside our brains and body's. The worse thing you can do in that situation is ignore it. Which is what I did for 8 (Eight) years straight. Which would then lead to racing thoughts, over-thinking. Me creating things in my mind that feel that they are there and real because my mind sees what I've created and wants to make it exist, but it's only an illusion, a hallucination. And for a long time, I continued to let my mind control me without ever setting it straight that it was my own thoughts and creations and that it's not real. I did this to myself for a long time. When I have forceful or intentional thoughts, it's like my mind craves to feel it and doesn't want to ignore it, it wants to Ignite it. I've made up my own worlds in my head, have literally believed that something was there just because my mind said so, even though it wasn't, and it not "setting in" at the time, the actual reality of it not being there.

I use to believe that angels are around watching us, and that it's ok to believe that. Or that the dead and passed on are still lurking around in someway. Whoa, that's when times were tough and I was having more episodes then usual where I would call my mom and tell her that I spoke to her passed away sister that died from cancer years ago. When in reality, nothing and no one was there. Also, the imagination is very powerful and what you "believe" so make sure your considerably careful! I believe that it should be stopped where it's said "they are watching over us." I know it's also a religious thing. But that alone had made my mind so messed up for some time now. Because I always wondered how, and why? And had a lot of questions that I wanted answered. Growing up, thinking that the dead were still potentially lurking even as a teenager was super uncomfortable and it can make you feel paranoid and detached from reality when you do in fact try to find out and connect with it. I am not a spiritual or religious person. And at times, its still hard for me to believe that there is a God, someone with a higher power that has literally never been seen, yet Christians are supposed to pray and talk to this invisible, no where to be found, no body to show forth, just an illusion of what is explained in a book called the Bible about God and what God is. Just to give you an understanding of where I come from with it. Are you supposed to just take their word for it? Definitely not saying it's not a possibility that you can't or shouldn't. Me, I like the proof.

The last hospital I went too was at a behavioral health hospital in Baton Rouge mid center. The nurses and staff there were absolutely amazing and I met a few friends in there. We exchanged numbers and have kept in contact. All 4 of us girls were all struggling with something different yet we all had an episode where we were not all there, like in another world not of our own, "the unknown," detached from reality, we weren't being our normal selves, something was off. I just call it an episode that happened that lead us to the hospital. Nobody in the hospital has ever made me feel like we were all really different in a "bad" way. And I don't mean that as a personality trait or how we are each individually as human beings, I mean that we have all gone through similar things. Some hide it well, some don't, some won't, and some can't. Me, I won't hide it. I have been completely open about every episode that I've had since 2015. The first episode I had when my over active thinking mind went against me while I was in a spiritual place. I wasn't in my own World's like I usually am, as I like to call it. Everyone has their own, where we do what WE like to do, whether it's playing video games all day, working, showing off our personalities, going on dates, writing, listening to music, the list goes on and on.  It's where, who we are and how we are is made known when we are in the comfort of our own World's, it's our own home, our safe place, it's where we can simply be US! So when there were religious people around me who talk about spirits and the devil and the dead, it can take me out of my comfort zone and out of my own world that I was thriving in and bring me to an unknown place where I don't even know where to begin. Take me to the Unknown. Which is one of the reasons why the very first episode happened, in 2015. I was still with my first husband at the time and everyone in town had started going to church more and I felt a sense of obligation to at least try it out. It took years for me to finally say, that's not a world for me. That's not for me, period. Even though in my own mind, my own feelings, emotions, and beliefs, I already knew that religions and church and being spiritual is not for me. I believe in the Old Gods and Goddesses. But, for the sake of trying to get more comfortable in case certain conversations were brought to the table, I stayed more outside my own world's to find out what it's like to be a Christian. I still tried for the sake that I never wanted to say that I never tried it. I am only able to say now that it's not for me, and also, have proof, only after I took about 7 years out of my life of trying everything first to make sure. In life, you have to try. Even if you don't want to. Never not try something just because you don't like it at first. I may have given myself the chance to like something if that's what suited me, anything I can do to benefit something for myself, or my kids, or my family, I do. Although, I found out other wise for that situation, I have also pushed through with other different hobbies and techniques that I found are yet for me. I keep the old me and the new me real close to each other. The new me wouldn't ever come about if the old me wasn't here to stick around and guide my every move to where I need to be. The old you is there for guidance, you then find out what you want to change, the new things you want in your life currently and are now ready for.