Resilience Leads To Recovery ***trigger warning***
I won’t sugar coat it or go into details but this is pretty much how my life went. As soon as I was born my mom sent me to Mexico so she could start her life and have enough to provide for both of us because that was the kind of mother she was. At the age of three, I met my dad for the first time and it was not the quietest introduction. The night I met my father outside of a Kmart parking lot was the first time he laid my hands out flat on my thighs and whipped me with the leather around his waist, however that was only the start.
Being young, naive and coming from a Hispanic household, I was told this was normal and that what my father was doing was a form of discipline. But as I grew older, I looked back and realized that demonstrating discipline should not leave me in fear of my father. I learned that discipline should not be leaving scars of trauma and disgust.
Mind you at this same age, say between 5-10, my mother was working two jobs just to sustain a one-bedroom apartment, while my step-dad was out being a raging alcoholic.
In middle school I fell into a deep hole, however, I was told it was just a phase or that I was just sad at the moment and would get over it. Nevertheless, that same sadness lasted all three years, three years of self-hatred and darkness.
It wasn’t until freshman year at an annual check-up that I was so lost and so drained that I finally told my pediatrician I no longer wanted to feel this way, that I was simply tired. After hearing this I was sent to a therapist who by the second session had diagnosed me with anxiety and depression. The relief of finally being able to put a label to my feelings, made me feel sane.
Though, as I said before, coming from a Hispanic household the stigma around mental health was also an issue. I am a woman and in their eyes, I am just being sensitive and “sad”. And in the eyes of my father, that’s exactly what it was. Yet, my mother was supportive and loving and by the second year of therapy, she had come to understand what I was going through.
When I started my healing journey, I thought I would feel like this forever and that I would never get better. It’s now been four years and I have stopped therapy and live day by day with the feeling of contentedness. Getting to this place in my life was not easy. It took a lot of patience and strength and most importantly support. As lost I was that first year, I associated myself with a group of people that did not bring out the best in me. It was not until sophomore year that I found my core, my people and my best friends. With their support, my moms and my therapist, I am here today.
I also found support in group therapy, as scary as it was to share my fear with a group of strangers, it made me feel less alone and it taught me many coping mechanisms. After all these years I have developed a lot of skills; however, you have to find the ones that work for you.
Now, just because I have come this far doesn’t mean I any longer deal with mental health, I’ve simply learned to accept it. I deal with my anxiety every day and take it one day at a time. I share my story today in hopes that even one of you can relate. And if you can’t, that’s ok too. But I am also here to tell you that as scared, or ashamed you might be to get help, there is help and nothing will get better if you do not reach out to at least one person.
