Baggage of fears

I have always preferred to be alone when it comes to family. I was raised in church, my parents both worked full time, my brother and sister were 2-3 years older. I knew from a young age I was different. I saw things differently, I felt things deeply and yet I played my part. I was involved in church, I tried very hard to understand christianity, faith and God yet somehow I only ever had questions with no answers which left me feeling lost in my own head.

I have experienced the ugliest and darkest side of humanity. Usually people say that makes you stronger but however it made me weaker, only because I had no choice but to keep it to myself. Which led me to seek love and affection in all the wrong people, once again leading me down the rabbit hole of seeing an unloving side of life. All these sources caused me an unpleasant upbringing and I still punished myself for it as if it was really my fault.

If you were to check my baggage of fear you would see a lot of things that are associated with love and happiness; church, therapy, school, home, love life.

Part One : Church

I won't say what church I was raised in but it was very strict and wasn't always very kind. I had to wear long skirts and long sleeve shirts, couldn't cut my hair or wear makeup or participate in things that did not “glorify God” and that had an effect on me because I felt like I was robbed of my childhood to a point. Another really huge reason for church having such a dark effect on me was because I truly felt like I was being groomed to be a certain type of woman who would become a certain type of wife and mother. I didn't see myself ever at any point having a happy life within the church, but I did still desire a relationship with God as weird as that may be.

Preachers also had this way of “teaching” the word that made it so scary to me, I don't recall a time where a sermon didn't strike fear in my heart. At the same time of me feeling afraid my parents and other church goers were saying “ hallelujah” and “Yes, thank you Jesus” I also never felt like I had experienced God in the way they taught us to have.

Speaking in tongues or hearing god speak to me, never felt that and that made me feel broken or again made me feel lost.

Something about the need to teach and kinda stay within the lines of i guess standards just didn't feel right to me or didn't feel Godly like, so i always kind of wanted answers to questions no one was asking.

At some point in my young adult years I voiced to my parents how I felt groomed or just felt like church wasn't really for me and my parents reacted as I expected, I was wrong and they were right when it came to reasons for my decisions. They expressed their disappointment in me and we never really spoke about it again, it was kinda like a “Hi and bye” situation and that's because I asked them not to talk to me about scriptures or what's going to get me to heaven per say.

It was a weight off my shoulders finally having the courage to walk away from the only lifestyle I ever knew or was taught because I had to go into the world and discover new things and ultimately discover myself which was not easy. I really did start that journey by myself, I didn't find my life partner till 2 years later and a lot happened in those two years.

Church also impacted me even after i left i was very cautious with expressing myself in new ways while still letting my church friends or family have access to my life, constantly felt judged for any choices i was making or if i posted anything I had a fear it would get back to my parents and it would become something bigger than what it really was which did in fact happen a few times.

I did eventually find my own way to grow in my faith and have my own relationship with God that felt more natural than attending a service on the weekend.

Part Two : Therapy

I have always carried a lot of baggage with me through the years and finally I decided to seek help before it led me to a place that I knew was very hard to get out of.

The idea of telling a complete stranger your problems so they could “guide” you on a better path always amused me in a sense. In my opinion, I could literally got the same advice from fucking google. Therapy didn't give me the help I was looking for, it actually almost got me in a ward. I am not crazy, I am traumatized and the idea of strangers putting traumatized strangers in a ward for expressing their feelings is beyond me and honestly sick. I am not saying that therapy doesn't work, just in my case it didn't do anything.

That experience led me to writing my feelings down in a journal and I became my own therapist, but that also made the process of healing longer. I had to learn how to love and be a friend and how to see things in a different light which is challenging because you are kind of forcing yourself to grow or change whatever while not even being at that level of growth you know what i mean? It's hard to put into words how to do that. I was alone, I didn't have anyone to help me on the days where I felt like giving up, I had to be that person for myself and it was impossible at times to play both roles.

I started talking to myself in the mirror and I would ask questions in my head and answer them out loud to give myself a sense of conversation and it oddly helped me. I was asking questions that I had answers to which led to asking questions I wanted answers to and sometimes it took a week to get an answer because I would think about it the entire week.

I didn't bother anyone with these questions like I don't want anyone's input which now looking back I feel like that was a mistake on my part. It probably would've helped me.

I will say even with my trauma I was very ego driven so I had too much pride to let anyone know I was struggling to live, and looking back on that now I can see that it almost actually cost me my life to be like that.

I never let anyone read my journals but I did write to people in life in case I ever did reach the point where I took my own life, kind of just saying goodbye. Even in those letters I didn't want to explain how sad I was , which is kind of funny to me because clearly at that point they would know, duh.

Then I unexpectedly met my person. He also had his own baggage but he had a very different view on life that I had never seen. I would say he had a more natural view on things unlike me; everything was church motivated for me.

I could see in his eyes that he was carrying a lot inside and I'm sure he saw the same with me. It created this bond between us. I would let him read my journals and at first I wouldn't talk about it afterwards but eventually we did talk about what I wrote and then we talked about my past. High School was very cruel to me and even my childhood had really dark points that i never spoke about to anyone, he literally was the first to know about the things that took place when i was growing up.

We created this system of writing and talking that actually helped me and him grow. We cried, laughed and started to move on.

Part Three : School

I always struggled in school, I wasn't a fast learner and was afraid to ask for help.

I did make friends easily because I love to talk and I think I'm funny. I'm a good friend and overall I think I'm easy to be around. I did sports for a minute, I wasn't fully committed but I also didn't really have support and honestly I didn't have the grades to keep playing.

I said earlier that my parents worked full time and still do so it was hard to do anything after school regarding programs because I didn't have a ride. If I missed the bus I was walking to school or home and vice versa.

I also had zero motivation to do my homework, my parents didn't pressure us to really make time and i'm not blaming them either this was 100% my doing, but really i could care less whether or not homework was done. With that mindset I was obviously failing in school, more so for the work taken home. If I didn't do it in class it didn't get done but class work I was okay on, I worked fast because I knew it wouldn't make time for it after the bell rang. I was more focused on my friends and boyfriend at that time rather than making my education a priority.

My brother and sister both graduated early, which I hate to say had an effect on me. I knew my parents expected the same from me but I knew I couldn't do it. Which led me to not really care for school cause i had already labeled myself a failure and eventually i dropped out of highschool middle of my sophomore year with no intentions of ever completing school.

That mindset overall had the biggest impact on me because I didn't feel like I would ever become anything in life. I would just be a loser. It caused me to settle, whether it was work or friends or even boyfriend. I kept my standards low and only tried things I felt were meant for me. I worked retail because they don't require a degree or because I would work there from age 16 til I retire and I was okay with that. Which is very sad to reach the point in your life where you're okay with just the bare minimum. Eventually after seeing all my friends move on and go to college I just knew I was meant for more, so I got my GED and never told anyone because I was so embarrassed for having to do it that way rather than cap and gown with the kids I grew up with. I literally lied to my friends and said I had a diploma and I went to a private online school because letting people know that I caused what I went through was just too much, in other words I failed myself before life could and that's hard to accept. I don't however have any plans to attend college, I don't think it's meant for me. My dream is to be a mother but that doesn't mean I just wanna stay home with kids all the time, just means I wanna enjoy the very first years of my children's life with them like I wish my parents did with me. I also rather enjoy working and making my own money. I just wanna add that because I don't want anyone to think I'm lazy because I'm not.

Part Four : Home

I guess I should say I was raised by my mom and step father who I claim to be my real dad. However I did have a relationship with my real dad very late in life, it wasn't very long he got sick and sadly passed away but I was able to have that relationship with him when he was a better version of himself. Back to my upbringing, we moved a lot and i never knew why i still kinda don't but we got to see a lot of the west coast of the united states which im grateful for. Again, my parents worked full time for as long as I can remember, we also had family who lived with us at different times not because we needed help but more so because they did and my parents were always willing to lend a hand. We never really lived close to family, but that didn't really make my family close to each other. My brother was never home, always with his friends, my sister was always home. She definitely is a homebody but she also has hobbies, she loves to paint and draw and she's very good at it. My mom was more so the most involved in church, her and my father were raised in the branch of christinanity, actually his uncle was her pastor growing up but she was more committed. Growing up I only really remember my dad going to church a few Sundays or holidays. He wasn't consistent with it.

My family, like any family, had its issues. We didn't always get along, there were some really toxic moments where I didn't think we would all stay together. My parents kind of had a really toxic relationship when we were younger, they didn't really know if they wanted to be together and they projected that on us kind of making us pick sides in my opinion and mostly we picked my moms side because the step dad card would be played often.

There was also a life changing incident when I was 6, regarding me and a much older cousin. I never told my parents until I was 19 years old and I didn't get the reaction that I would give if it happened to my child. So that created distance in me with my parents, which I already had because I had my own very toxic relationship with a boyfriend which I will get to in a few. I eventually used facebook to out that person and it backfired because my mother told me to take it down, which i did not. However, I cut ties with almost all my family. My parents are still in contact with them, which I'm not bothered about because you sow what you reap but I'm learning to not hold onto things like that anymore.

I really only keep in touch with my parents and siblings, no other family.

Part Five : Love life

So the boyfriend, the first “real” relationship I was in, lasted on and off for 4-5 years. Took up a lot of my young years, he was very controlling and rude to me, would put his hands on me and made me feel absolutely awful about myself he also made my first time having sex traumatizing, it was very agressive and almost forceful. He was two years older, might I add , so I was 13 when I lost my virginity to a 15 year old. Looking back I know the whole relationship was very inappropriate. Back to the story, he could be nice when he wanted to but also very much cruel. Anytime we would have sex he would watch porn in front of me to “get hard” or whenver we broke up he would openly share about the girl who he was sleeping with during and after our relationship, it was very traumatizing as a 13-17 year old who thought she was in love to experience such an evil type of … I wont say love but something similar. Right off the bat from age 13-17 I had the wrong idea of love and I was just attracted to the meanest guys. Eventually I had moved on but sadly I found similar guys, who would hit me or put me in these situations where I couldn't give my consent for whatever they were trying to do. And that lasted about a year before I moved in with my cousins on my real dad's side, which was 3 hours from the only life I've known. I had no intentions of ever getting into a relationship until I felt I was more mature or healed from that trauma. Little did I know at 18 I would meet the love of my life who I spoke about earlier. I referred to him as my person. He is an absolute dream and honestly if I had never met him I would have 100% killed myself because I was in such a dark place in my life and I felt I had no purpose. He helped me start my journey to healing and finding myself. I am forever grateful to him for it.

Fast forward 2 years. I am living in California with my person and our 1 year old son and I couldn't be happier. I continue to grow everyday and get closer to the woman I know I am meant to be. I like to say that my person is my sun and our son is my rain, they help me grow everyday. We are planning on moving soon and so far since the day i met him life has been this crazy rollercoaster but i would relive my life 1000 times if it meant i got to love and be loved by him. He has truly impacted my life in the best way possible, we have a beautiful relationship and I wake up everyday thanking God for it.

Last Part.

Overall I had to grow up very fast but in the same sense it wasn't fast because I feel like what you are supposed to learn at a young age came later in life for me and vice versa. I don't regret burning bridges with people who just aren't contributing to my life and I do regret the time I spent staying stuck when all I had to do was let go of things or people.

I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason so I know it had to happen the way it did but it no longer keeps me up at night trying to figure out why.

Now I have a family of my own and my only goal is to make sure my children don't go through what I did, And that my person feels loved and wanted the way he makes me feel.

I had many storms but i can finally say i am enjoying my rainbows and sunshine.