My name is Kielyn. I am a 37 year old African American female. I am a wife and mother to 4 wonderful children and I was diagnosed with OCD, anxiety, eating disorder, and bipolar depression. Accepting my diagnoses has always been a challenge for me over the years but that has recently changed due to what I like to call my “final breakdown”!
After being in denial and suffering for so long dating back to my childhood, it was extremely tough. I couldn’t even stand for a piece of string to be in my presence! “Wow”, is what some people would say. It wasn’t until this year of April of 2020 that I would learn to fully accept my diagnoses and stop hiding from the world as well as hiding from myself. I told myself over and over again “this is who I am and now it’s time to face it”!
Because of my illness, I have had to deal with high levels of frustration, migraines, agitation, weight loss, short-term memory loss, panic attacks, sleepless nights and impulses to hurt others both mentally and physically by yelling, criticizing, hitting etc.; The list can go on. I have to admit, I was beginning to feel the affects of all my past and current years of anxiety weighing in on me and it felt like it was beginning to kill me slowly. I had become so overwhelmed that in my head my life started spiraling out of control and flashing before my eyes. I had become a different person. I was having dreams and visions of my very own funeral. This was something that the world could not know let alone see. If I let my secret out to the world, I would risk being labeled as weak and unstable and that could cause me to lose my reputation as strong and independent. That was something I did not want.
Dating back to April, I began to realize that this was not okay. My mind and body was changing. I had to make a change and I had to make the change soon for my health. I was mentally hurting my family and like they say, hurt people, hurt people. As of today, I am still a work in progress but most importantly I have accepted who I am and I am no longer ashamed of that. What I have come to realize is that all this time for so many years, I was trying to hide my true self from the world thinking I was standing strong but in reality I was actually showing weakness. What makes me strong is accepting and fighting my way through the darkness in order to start living my life! I told myself that it was ok and that I was not alone in this. There were others out there and most importantly I had a support team behind me.
My dream is to be able to share my story and journey with others who may be going through the same and are having difficulty coping especially in the African American community where it’s not talked about a lot and people don’t easily accept. They need to know that it is okay and they are not alone. We are still normal people with a little extra to deal with but hey, who doesn’t have a little extra to deal with?! How could anyone judge?! We are all human.
I hope to be a light for someone out there to shine upon. One thing I’ve learned is that after every storm there’s always rainbows!
Love, peace & happiness
Kielyn