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Finding Emotional Stability In This Human Vessel

This past week or two have really been some emotional rollercoasters! I’m really trying my best to find some sort of mood stability without the use of anti-depressants or mood stabilizers. It’s been an experience, to say the least. I’m choosing to use all that I have learned in therapy at full capacity basically. I know there’s reason to stay on prescription pills but that was never my intention for the long haul. I simply wanted to have the pills help me reach a level that I am comfortable with where I now take the lead. I’m making it a top priority of mine to find emotional stability in my everyday life because well, it’s a personal goal of mine since it’s something I have struggled with my whole life. The type of therapy I have done is cognitive behavioral therapy which helps people understand that their thoughts and feelings influence their behavior. It focuses on changing your cognitive distortions into rational thoughts.

Most of my therapy sessions began with me venting to my therapist of whatever happened to be on my mind that week. And just as routinely as I went to therapy, it was just as routine that my therapist bring out this page of cognitive distortions for me to read off of. I had to understand that most of the things that I was worried about, all happened to be my mind playing a funny trick on me. My most used cognitive distortions would have to be all-or-nothing thinking, jumping to conclusions, “should” statements, and personalization and blame. Now it’s taken me a few years to really get the hang of changing my mindset. I’m still a work in progress but I suppose that’s the true beauty of it all, to always be a work in progress because what will you have after that goal is reached? You’re just going to have another goal and another, always looking for something to fulfill instead of finding that pure fulfillment in yourself through the good times as well as the difficult times.

I was not aware of how much vital energy had gone into this struggle until the struggle was removed.

— Tennessee Williams

Maybe I really should give myself more credit for taking the time to rewire my brain, to bring structure back into a brain that has never once had any sort of structure before. Epigenetics and childhood trauma are two topics that hold a lot of my interest. There’s beauty in being able to rediscover your inner power when having been disconnected from it for so long. It just hit me that just as trauma can restructure our genetics, so can healing! All this time I was making myself feel terrible because I wasn’t giving myself the props I deserve. Most people tend to push their trauma aside as if that helps bury something but little do they know, trauma always finds a way to creep back into our daily lives, one way or another. And I for one, refuse to let my trauma and pain control me.

I am doing everything in my power to achieve a state of flow. I am devoting time to the pursuit of intrinsically rewarding projects so that I can be on the path of making all my dreams a reality. It’s really all about finding internal success. And when I do come upon external success (which is bound to happen if you lead with your heart), I won’t allow the externalities of it all to divert me from my path.

Like I wrote in my journal, in order to gain true freedom, one has to face their deepest fear. And my greatest fear is falling into a depressive episode that I’m unable to pull myself out of. I have a fear of my emotions affecting my work. I try so hard to maintain this balance. I like to keep my level of productivity the same despite how my emotions tend to rollercoaster throughout the day. But I’ve been having some struggles with that recently. I tried that for so long, trying to make it work but I think the best thing is for me to accept that I do in fact, have some strong emotions that affect my behavior. I guess I wonder if finding this inner power over my emotions would be a little easier if I didn’t have a mental illness. Am I shooting for something that is unattainable? Who knows, but it’s worth a shot.

So my new thing moving forward will be to try and write even when I am not feeling so creative. Even if what I write doesn’t come out how I expect it to, I have to be kind to myself because different emotions produce different results and that is more than okay. It’s not the end of the world is what I have to remind myself.

Lol, I think this is me finding some kind of peace in my craziness, for once in my goddamn 22 years of life. I swear I’ve lived a thousand lives because this soul has been through it all, seeing the true depths of what this world has to offer. My life is like the ocean. You can explore some section of it thinking you’ve discovered all you had to know about the sea, yet there’s still that 80% that has yet to be opened and explored. I share so much of my life story yet most of it has still be untapped. But there’s only so much exploration that you can do on your own, you know? There’s a reason explorers have someone accompanying them on their expeditions, some things you just have to do as a unit. Some things can only be unlocked when the two people involved can only do the unlocking.

So here I am, doing all that is in my power to do so that I could find pure fulfillment in every single thing I do. Random but I woke up in the middle of the night last night and all I could think about were all the positive changes I have made in my life. Especially regarding meditation. I find myself meditating in all types of ways any chance I get which then further reminds me how beneficial it is to be present and how meditating helps just with that!

The highest form of wisdom is kindness.

— The Talmud

I’ve also been reminding myself that I can’t compare myself to who I used to be. Just because I messed up once or twice before doesn’t make me any less of a love deserving human. Plus, if you don’t mess up then you would have no idea if you were succeeding or not. You can’t appreciate the “good” without having had experienced the “bad.” All I know is, I’m just trying my freaking best and that really has to be enough. So I’m deciding that well, it for sure is more than enough. My enough is enough for me, for my future partner, for the world, and for the whole universe.

Ugh, life is strange, lol. I don’t even know how I feel about my last name anymore so there’s that internal struggle for you. Here’s to not holding any feelings back in fear of being annoying! Not bad for a girl who is made up of resiliency and dreams.

Oh yeah, I hit a new goal of mine which was to spend less time on my phone. I now spend on average around 3 hours on my phone but that is time I spend listening to music and googling the endless questions I have going on in my mind so I can’t fault myself for that. Or at least I’m trying to not fault myself for being a human raised in my time.

XoXo,

Alexis Mariah

P.s. My freaking one year anniversary of my whole mental breakdown that totally tore me apart happens to be next month! Holy damn. Maybe I have actually come really far in a year. Actually yeah, I’ve come a long-ass way what am I even talking about! I was so lost before. I had no idea who I was because I was listening to all outside voices, forgetting I have all the answers inside me. Let’s go down memory lane really quick:

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