30 Aug What 1 Year Looks Like

It’s been a year since I went public with my story on YouTube. Yo! It has been a journey. Mostly beautiful and impactful…but there has been a downside to it. All the inbox and text messages I received concerning women going through similar, some worse, and the ones who went through the same made me so sad. I have cheered on the ones who are now thriving and empathized with the ones still going through it. I understand both sets of women, I have been both. I prefer the current me, the one who drowned while studiously treading water now on dry land, crawling, but still on dry land. It has taken work and therapy. Everyone should get into therapy, it works wonders and makes you understand your inner turmoil more and how best to move forward healthily.

Talking about my trauma publicly also weighed on my soul. I may have seemed upbeat, happy, and removed from it all while narrating, but privately I was in anguish. I was suffering from all the relieving. Some memories I had filed away and not dealt with. Some hurtful words and actions had gone through the same filter. I realized just how much I had not intentionally dealt with and it ate away at me. It took huge chunks out of my psyche. My spirituality dived and I got into vices that were not new to me but I had quit years ago. I was in pain. I was hurting. With no one to turn to. The most noticeable vice was the day drinking. I quit alcohol back in 2016 while watching my then-alcoholic spouse at it. Yet here I was molding him. The irony.

I can be but I am not a social person, the more I retreated from the public the deeper I got into drinking. I did not think it was a problem because I was handling my business. I was paying my bills, I was showing up at work, and I was updated on all my children’s needs. I was on top of it all except for my mental health. When I decided to tone it down from the 40% alcohol level, things didn’t really change overnight. Because drinking 5 liters plus of 8% alcohol level wine in a single day does not truly count. I drank alone mostly, and that is apparently dangerous. I did not want to be around people. In so doing, my tolerance levels steadily grew over time until I got to a point where I would get to ¾ of a 750ml bottle and still not feel it…neat.

I cried to God and asked him to help me because I didn’t have the heart to stop. They say we are a reflection of our creator and I believe that. God must have a sense of humor because I do. Do you know what He did? He sent me ailments every single time I binged. For me to quit the hard stuff it’s because I got ulcers straight from hades. I was curled over in a fetal position because of the pain. I could not believe just how much pain I was in. That did not stop me though. The second occurrence did. And I quit, I have not touched the hard stuff since. I cannot even stand a whiff of it. The other ailment was something I had overcome as a child, allergic/near asthmatic attacks. I had not had an attack in over 20 years but it showed up after a binge.

My chest clogged up and I couldn’t breathe. I was in pain. It felt like someone was hacking away at my heart and that coupled with not being able to breathe properly prompted my mom to rush me to the hospital. God is good y’all, that was the day I had gone home to visit…I was not alone in my house. We got to the hospital and while explaining my symptoms I started crying because of the excruciating pain. The only other time I cried from physical pain was when I was wheeled out of the theater during my first C-Section surgery and the anesthesia had worn off. My pain threshold is high, but this was too much for me. The doctor gave me a pain jab first so she could attend to my labored breathing. When I got the first intravenous injection, I slumped over the seat and passed out. I have no recollection of what happened, I woke up in a hospital bed with wet pants…I had peed on myself.

I woke up dazed. I asked my mom what had happened and she said she was almost screaming because she thought I had died. I felt so bad for making her go through that. Anywhere I go, I go with my children, they were at the hospital parking lot in the car with the driver and had no idea what was going on. I asked the heavens for forgiveness and the help to get me on the straight and narrow because I was not ready to die and leave my children. They are still young, I am too. When I eventually got allowed to leave, I walked towards the car and my children were so happy to see me. I silently cried on the way home at what I had been doing to myself at their expense.

This journey has not been easy. On my soul, on my health, on my heart, on my mental health…on me overall. Yet, here I am…working towards helping women grow and thrive from situations meant to break us.

Image credits: https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/young-woman-dealing-with-anxiety_29310154.htm