self love – Turbulent Mind

August 26, 2020

Once Upon a Time…

There was a girl that didn’t really believe that love was a wonderful thing. She went through life thinking that she deserved lackluster relationships. She went through them, methodologically. One step at a time, she figured out what was acceptable and what was not acceptable. In the end, things numbed her out. She didn’t think she would find someone again.

Then, by chance, she met someone that actually took the time to ask her about her story. This person was curiously comforting to talk to, and she took to him immediately. It was so fast and so intense. It was so unintentional, and all the timing just felt so wrong, but all of the feelings felt so right.

The time she spent with him was wonderful, she learned so much about herself and love. She learned so much about how to accept the flawed parts of herself while learning about the flawed parts of her partner. She fell in a love that was so deep and so unfamiliar, something was triggered within her. For the first time, she feared the loss of this relationship more than anything. That heart wrenching feeling during conflict caused so much turbulence in her heart that she realized that she had no idea how to deal with a love like this.

The time she spent with him was also turbulent. Dealing with another person’s very different way of communicating their emotions was a challenge. Communicating clearly was the biggest one. The turbulence of her professional and personal life eventually drove her into one of the deepest slumps of depression and anxiety. Nothing could console her. Nothing.

How does one express their fear of the unknown to someone that just doesn’t fear the unknown? How does one express that sometimes when they argued it hit something so deep that it triggered a fear of being left alone? How does one express that fighting felt like the absolute destruction of the foundation she tried to build for herself and her self confidence? How does one express when throughout her life, she was taught to stay quiet, stay “good,” stay agreeable, and stay happy. How does one function in a relationship when you don’t really know how to function as a healthy expressing adult?

The answer is you don’t function unless you’re willing to learn. You make mistakes. You break down in communication. You stop sharing and you stop learning. You stop feeling connected despite constantly reaching out. In the end you’re left anxious, afraid, and slowly realizing that you’ve lost that person that you are so in love with. There was such a long list of things that needed to be done and needed to be addressed before any other love connection is made.

Despite this realization that things just weren’t right, this girl sometimes sits here, months later, realizing that she’s still in love with this boy. Even though she knows this boy has likely decided that there’s not possible way that he will ever give her the time of day again. And she… she won’t ever want to put that burden of her struggles and her pain on another man that she cares about again. Because baggage isn’t fair. It’s not fair to your new partner to have to deal with baggage that you haven’t figured out.

To my future lover, I hope I can continue on this journey to figure out how to be a good communicator, I hope that I can learn to love myself more than you can ever love me, because I don’t ever want to feel like I lost my world again. And I hope that I can give to you the real, loving, and authentic me that I’m not afraid to show you. I hope that we can learn to grow together rather than tolerate each other’s flaws. I want to embrace yours while you embrace mine. Maybe one day I’ll find you. But the goal of this is to be OK if I don’t.

April 2, 2020

Mental Health Challenge – Day 2

**Day 2 – Fill in your calendar and set aside time for self-care**

So far, so good, April. Day 2. I went to bed at around 2AM last night. This is a time that I like to call, “early.” It wasn’t. But I had a lot on my mind. Despite listing out positive things about myself and trying to get into a good headspace for everything, I ended up breaking my own promise of no contact with my former partner. They say week 2 is a hard week because it’s the week you realize that this is your new normal. I barely made it through week 2, and I felt like a failure. Banging my head on the wall, telling myself I was stupid. Stupid for not letting time do its time thing. Stupid for believing that maybe they still want me in their life. Stupid. It was a sick April Fools Day joke I played on myself. After a day like that, I told myself, “Yo girl, forget the rest of everything, go to bed. Sleep and nourish your body.” I popped my prescribed sleepy time anxiety and sedatives, apparently ordered myself a McDonald’s breakfast combo, and passed out. SELF CARE. I’m kidding. I should really eat healthier.

Which brings me to the challenging task for Day 2. Filling in my calendar and setting aside time for self-care. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak here, school has been cancelled for over a week, and our academy shut down for 2. It was a really difficult time, for the country, and we’re kind of scrambling to make schedules for make-up lessons and to keep our term schedules on track. I somehow managed to pop up at 7:30AM this morning fraught with anxiety… and created my calendar. Still not perfect. Still “penciled” in a lot of work things, but I managed to set goals for myself/challenges of self-care. I want this month, not to be too much of a challenge, but to be a bit of a step in the right direction. My physical health has deteriorated from mid-March until now, and I have not been the healthiest in terms of eating or exercise due to weakness from being sick. But I’m feeling stronger and stronger, and less and less fatigued every day. I’m ready to put myself back on the #1 spot on my list.

As you can see, my calendar is FILLED with obligations. Work obligations…. financial obligations… self-obligations. Fitting in self-care focused activities were hard. While I don’t put in every self-care activity that I do on my calendar, I did put in some goals and blocked out days to just let myself sleep, rest, and feel things. I want to cuddle with the dogs and just be with them. Days that used to be date days, I marked them as me days. Days for me to be me with no obligations whatsoever. I guess, it’s a day for me to go on a date with me.

As the month progresses, I’d like to start building strength in exercise and incorporating my older habits of meal prep and cooking. I want to alternate yoga with just spending extra time with the dogs every night. As the weather warms, my dogs deserve to be outside for longer as well.

Here are some other activities that I do regularly that are considered my self-care that I want to get back into doing more regularly. Having depression hit me like a truck and then being sick for two full weeks afterwards was not what I needed for the month of March, but it has definitely left me with a sense of needing to focus on my own things.

Doing my nails – I’m a lazy person, but I also have a nasty habit of picking at and chewing my actual nails. At least once a week I use a gel manicure set and do press-on gel nail tips. They cost under $10, a pack can last up to 2-3 weeks, and the shape of the nail tips fit onto my nails really well 🙂
Showers – I’m one of those people that love luxurious, long, hot showers. I have way too many shower products and hair products to use, and I also take probably 2 or 3 a day. I use this time to really pamper my skin, my face, my hair, and also to cry. Why cry? Because it’s healthy to cry and let it out. And I want to keep it hygienic and not constantly be crying on my pillow, you know?
Cleaning my apartment – I love a clean and organized apartment. It rejuvenates me to be in a space where I organized and rearranged everything by myself. I’ve really been letting this go to hell, recently, but, I want to make that my Saturday night activity. To just maintain cleanliness of my apartment.
Walking the dogs – as much as it is the responsible dog mom thing to do, it is also an act of self care. I walk with friends for socialization, but I also love walking alone. I like listening to the sounds of the night, and feeling the breeze as I listen to the pitter patter of the dog’s little feet. I’ve always loved walking the dogs, and I can’t wait for my strength to come back, so I can go outdoors more often.
Phone calls with friends – I never really realized how hard it is to fit in just casual communication with people. I also have made a big realization that I really would like to make friends that also will help me here, in Korea. I have friends, far and wide, but I stick close to my circle here.

Self-care is super important, and I want to build in more time and make more moments to communicate with my friends that all live in different places. I know that self-quarantine in the States are hitting my friends hard. My current break-up and emotional situation isn’t great, and I’ve been trying hard not to shut out other people. When I’m ready, after healing, I want to get out there, experience the world and meet people with similar hobbies and interests.

March 22, 2020March 24, 2020

“The Benefits of Heartbreak”

Now that I’ve started out the mood of the post with a song that puts together what the last few days have felt like to me in a nice and concise 3 minute and 30 second musical delight.

This week has felt like an entire month. It started out with a nervous Monday. My mind was all over the place and fearing all of the changes that are happening all over the world. I remember being told by friends and family back home that it’s ok, and I’ll be fine during this COVID-19 mess, but… I still didn’t feel fine. Now that it’s back home my brain went into overdrive. What if my parents get sick? My friends and loved ones? I couldn’t take care of myself. I couldn’t even feed myself. I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed. I just couldn’t do anything productive. At this time, I managed to reach my partner, and something compelled me to ask “Do you still have room for this relationship?” While he had been busier over the last few weeks, an effort was still made to keep me in his life. I felt so disconnected and so afraid, I asked this question, that I knew the answer to.

Sadly, I could feel my mental health and control over my reactions unraveling. At times like these, my mind can often wander into the, “It would be nice to disappear” area of my brain. Or even scarier, “Who would I have to write letters to? I want them all to know it’s not because of anything they did. I was selfish and incredibly cowardly and useless” territory. I know that when these thoughts begin to invade my thoughts whenever I’m alone, it is often an issue with the medication I’m taking.

By Wednesday, I knew I had to visit my doctor. But, of course, my doctor could not see me. The hospital I visit has become the spot where Daegu city (the Korean city with the most cases) sends patients to get treatment and to keep their hospitals in operation for other conditions. It was shut down for non-COVID19 cases. I could not see my doctor. This is where being a foreigner that has limited ability to speak Korean becomes hard. I panicked, “What do you mean I can’t get support until this thing blows over?” Luckily, I have amazing support that helped me locate a new clinic that specializes in psychiatry. I’m so grateful for my friends this week.

The psychiatrist was compassionate and patient. He listened carefully to my struggles. Took note of what worked and didn’t work before putting me on a new combination of pills. 8 hours after taking my first dose, a sobering and heartbreaking realization hit me. “It’s not that my boyfriend doesn’t have room for me, I am projecting the fact that I can’t keep my head above the water in the situation and I don’t have room to be an understanding and secure person in this relationship. I needed to get back to feeling like myself, and it was no longer sustainable to try to do that while dealing with the pandemic, changed schedules, and our relationship.

I have spent the last few days regretting and then reassuring myself over making this move. Right now, to this moment, I still love him very much. But I know that he is happier and freer without the stress of having to help me maintain a level head and feeling secure in our relationship.

Why is it that it feels harder to say good-bye when it’s not because all of my love for the person has run out, but because I love them and don’t want to burden them any longer? Why is it that this remains difficult for me to process and fully accept?

Why the hell did I rip my own heart out and ghetto stomp it to pieces on purpose?

While the thoughts at the moment circle around a lot of negativity and sadness, I do want to list a few things I’m grateful for.

I’m grateful for the memories that this relationship brought me. I have experienced, learned, and felt so much affection, love, and had so many adventures with a person that I truly enjoyed spending time with.
I’m grateful for the support for my decisions, the compassion and love he showed me despite how difficult this was for me and maybe even for him.
I’m grateful for my network of friends that are rooting for me, and consequently rooting for a small possibility that we may still have love in our future.
I’m grateful for how much change, growth, and love I’ve shown myself over the last year. It hasn’t been easy, but my support system has done their best to hold me accountable.

I felt very reluctant about posting this, but I imagine some readers may have similar experiences they would like to discuss or ponder about.

I will make it a goal to update this blog more often. This is a formative period in my development and I hope to be able to write and record this journey.