I am 38 years old and I have no children. I officially started my mental health journey in 2011. That was the kick off to how I had to start treating myself in order to have a healthy mind. I was hospitalized for a week in the mental health ward. I was thriving and working three jobs before I went into the mental health institution and was diagnosed with acute stress to start. Later I found out I had schizoaffective disorder, anxiety and depression. I was put on medication to deal with the stress of it all. This was a major signal to me I needed to take way better care of myself despite how I may have felt I was. My boss was majorly stressing me telling her boss I was losing children when she actually lost them. My boss was secretly documenting her mishaps while she asked my boss for everyone’s schedule to know who actually lost the children. I later found out years later my boss was hot lined and demoted. I was not surprised but relieved to know she was not getting away with her lies and deceit.

I had been supressing a lot of the trauma, drama, and stress placed on me by nearly everyone in my family as well as my job. My mother had been lying to me ever since I could remember. I asked her some questions about the man whom she had led me to believe was my father. I asked her if he was my biological father at the age of six. She then told me to shut up. I knew deep down in my six year old soul that something was a miss. From there, I began to notice I did not spend a lot of bonding time with my mother. She dropped me and my siblings off and my grandmothers house at 4 o’clock in the morning on school days. She was not to be seen again until it was dark outside. While she was absent for most of the day and the evening my twin sister and I were left to care for my 3 younger siblings. By the time my mother arrived to come and get us from my grandmothers house I was more than tired and ready to go to sleep. There was no way I could remember to address a fight my sister and I had earlier that morning or have the energy to formulate a feeling about the unknown stress I was under from raising a family at the age of 11. As time went on I began to see that my mother always wanted things to go her way regardless of the outcome or how others felt. I think with my mother being the baby of the her family, she had unrealistic expectations of people despite the stress level she placed me under.

As time went on, I began to see how the relationship I had with my mother affected me. I had to see that the way she was treating me was unacceptable and I had to slowly distance myself over a period of time. Over a span of a decade I have been told I am very guarded when it comes to people as I should be, with good reason. I do not trust my mother because she has told my secrets, as well as spent money I have saved not to mention, treated me like the outcast of the family. It is totally okay with me because at the end of the day it has taught me to be a better person. I have also learned what not to accept from people who claim they love me. I can instantly calculate how a person wants to feel and treat them accordingly if they are truly deserving of the feeling. Love is an action and also feeling I have come to find. I have never felt any of those things from the people in my family. I owe it to myself to love me unconditionally before I begin to be in a relationship with someone who knows me way better than I know myself and uses it to their advantage. Love thyself first.