A Journey Through Time

Chapter 45 ~ God Was With Me

I feel a lot better since I let everything out. God kept telling me today, "You are safe." "Call on me." "Why aren't you calling on me?"

My body was in a state of fright. I needed a moment to just cry. To just be in the fear for a moment. I was frustrated with myself because I never understood why I was so scared to just be me. My fear never made any sense. But I don't think it even had to make sense. The fact that God was with me. He was patient with me. He let me be. He allowed me to be. That's all I needed in that moment. A shoulder to cry on. Arms to hug around. Words of safety. Because I felt like I was in danger. And that's what nobody talks about. We burry our emotions so deeply that we don't even know that our bodies are in that heightened state. If we don't pay attention to it, it may seem like a subtle fear. But in reality it feels like you're going to die. That's how it was for me. I was paralyzed. I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. I had to tell myself that if I saw my friend crying, I wouldn't want to hide my face from them. I would hug them. I wanted to approach myself the same way.

I'm doing this externship and a lot of the work has to do with helping a nonprofit that specializes in helping neurodiverse children. It made me question if I was neurodiverse, because the way I think and process things is just so different from what the norm seems to be. I'm always in my head, and everything always has to be super structured for me, otherwise it's hard for me to grasp it. I constantly need time alone to think and make sense of everything in my head, because I'm so sensitive. EVERYTHING affects me. So much so that I get headaches. I get overwhelmed. I get emotional. And for the longest I always thought that something was wrong with me. Because I was criticized all the time. I was bullied. I always felt excluded. I feel like I could relate to those who are neurodivergent because of those things.

It just made me more empathetic and understanding. This is just my thinking patterns. I'm logical. I'm a high achiever. I'm super aware of everything. Everything that I do wrong, I catch it. I catch my mistakes. I'm aware of all my sins. So when I'm not living up to what I want, I get mad because I logically know what it is I need to do. My mind gets swept by things. Fear, distractions. I get stagnant and still. And I don't move forward with my goals. I always work really hard to accomplish my goals so I get frustrated when I'm not moving forward. I hate taking steps back or not taking any steps at all. And the problem is that being a tough critic worked for most of my life. That's how I motivated myself to get things done. School was what distracted me from my negative feelings towards myself and my life. School was my coping mechanism because it was the only thing I had control over and it was the only way I was getting approval. But at the same time it seemed like my work in school didn't really matter. I would get all the As in the world but get punished for one C. So of course it's like, what's the point? You're just getting As out of fear. Doing everything out of fear. I constantly lived in fear for most of my life. I was bracing for disappointment. I had to bottle up my sadness and anger.

So I would hate myself and my life. I was always miserable. I can't even tell you what kept me going. Maybe it was the urge to save my family from financial hardship. Maybe I had a glimmer of hope that my life would be better, no matter how many times I was reminded of how terrible it was. Maybe I felt like I would have friends one day, even though I was lonely most of the time. I even believed in love multiple times, even though I was heartbroken.

Now, I know what I want to feel like. I want to feel free, which includes being myself, saying what I want, feeling how I feel, making choices for myself, and being successful. I have the discipline to settle down and get work done in order to be successful, but that's all I really know how to do is work. I'm still learning how to be a friend. I'm still learning how to even be myself. I was upset that I couldn't be myself, but I can't get mad at myself for that if I never really had experience being 100%. Maybe I'd be 60%, or even 95% but never 100% myself. I'm literally still figuring out how to be human. I don't know why I don't cut myself some slack. I don't know what I'm doing. I need help. God asked me, "Why don't you ask me for help?" And all I could say was I don't know. Because sometimes you don't even know what you need help with. How am I suppose to ask for help when I don't even know what to ask for? I'm just struggling.

A lot of the work seems easy. Too easy. Walk up to people and talk to them. Send a text. Pick up the phone and call a friend. Express how you really feel at work. Allow yourself to cry. Letting myself be me and also be a friend. I feel like I just make it harder for myself.