Resilient Wildflower

My name is Andrea, I'm 28 years old. (Personal is @Punk-Berry) This blog is about improving my mental health and my physical health.

[resilient-wildflower]

Dealing with unwanted thoughts about the past.

I am a person that tends to live in the past. I think at one point it was a coping mechanism to escape to better times when my reality wasn't great. I've done a lot of work to start letting that go...but sometimes I get intrusive thoughts/dreams about it. Sometimes it feels overwhelming how much things have changed but it's all been for the better.

My life has improved so much. I have never been so happy in my life. More and more I've been replacing bad memories with new, positive experiences. I just really hate when I have a dream of something or someone from the past that shouldn't be holding space in my brain anymore. Sometimes it gets me down. I think about a friend or people I cared about that are no longer in my life. Sometimes I get sad about it. I don't want to feed the beast though. Rumination is something so easy for me to get trapped in. Next thing I know, I'm depressed and anxious.

I'm trying to remember what my therapist told me: treat thoughts, even negative ones as a leaf floating in the water. Acknowledge it and let it float away. It's hard when it's like a bright red blob in black and white setting. It's blaring and loud and my brain can't help but notice and want to focus on it. The best thing I can do is switch tasks that stimulate my brain enough to pull away its focus. I hope one day I won't be so tied down from the past. As I'm writing this, I realize it can be done. I've already done it significantly. I used to live in my past daily. All day. I'm not so haunted by it like I used to be. And that is something I need to remind myself in moments like this.

[axelnordmann]

[resilient-wildflower]

A trauma healing dream?

I took a nap today and I believe I had a dream that I feel like was a bit healing for some past trauma.

I'll just say in my dream a child family member (not an actual family member or even a real person) admitted that there was a grown man grooming them online and he was there to meet them. My family and I ended up catching this man and trapping him as someone called the police and while he wasn't the the culprit in my own similarly related trauma, I confronted him and told him how similar things that happened to me as a kid and it fucked me up. It fucked me up to where I still deal with some things at the age of 30. I told him "Fuck you and I hope you burn in hell." I felt really proud of myself in my dream and in real life. No I never got to confront those who hurt me in that way, but I had a dream that allowed me to confront a non-existent person who was doing similar harm and I got to address how it hurt me and it hurts others.

Despite the disturbing content of the dream, it felt like it was justice served because he went to prison for life in my dream.

[heartpeacenquiet]

It's okay if it takes a little longer than you thought.

[healingchildhoodtrauma]

The more time goes by away from them, the better I learn to treat myself.

[daughterofanarcissistwoman]

[chillizabeth777]

[leafinthebreeze-deactivated2026]

[safe-haven-safe-place]

[thepeacefulgarden]

[memeuplift]

[justanowhereman-deactivated2024]

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine-de]

Growth isn’t always constant. Relapses happen. It doesn’t erase all your success.

[resilient-wildflower]

I DID IT! I SET FIRM BOUNDARIES AND DEMANDED RESPECT.

For context: I'm a people pleaser. (like to the point where I lost all agency over myself and I fear rejection.) I have let people walk all over me and thanked them for it because I just wanted to feel accepted and loved. I'm at a point in my life where I have a wonderful and loving Fiance, I'm been doing so much self work, I'm going to therapy, I have made new friends that actually respect me as a fellow peer and person and I am learning how to cope with Depression/Anxiety/ADHD. I am having my glow up and discovering myself. I had an incident with a friend who is used to disrespecting me when she drinks and puts us in dangerous situations because she likes to take it too far. I've struggled with this a lot and I'm at a point where I need to establish and uphold necessary boundaries or we won't be able to continue in each other's lives. It's affected me a lot more than I had realized and it hurts other people that care about me that I have let people treat me like dirt. This time around, I'm officially at the end of my rope and I had to lay down the law. I did it respectfully while still being empathetic but assertive because I knew it was now or never. My friend took accountability for her actions that night and seems to have been receptive to my boundaries. I can only hope that those will be respected, because if not, we have to end our friendship and that's going to hurt really bad. I am so proud of myself throughout all of this. This latest incident really put me to the test and I'm amazed at how well I handled things, even when I was drunk and that I found my backbone. Before, I used the be apologetic for not being up to the other person's standards. Now, I have standards of how I want to be treated and I won't settle for devaluing myself to get acceptance for others.

(my guardian angel after giving them a lifetime of stress and anxiety)

[dreamdolldiary]

[rebel-spectrum-deactivated20231]

If you think that you may be neurodivergent or disabled and you self diagnose in order to access resources I have one thing to tell you.

Whether you turn out to be neurodivergent or not, you deserve whatever resources or accommodations that will make your life happier, safer, or easier.

Everyone deserves the help they need, whether they have a disability or not. Whether you are self diagnosed or professionally diagnosed. Everyone deserves accommodations, and if you think otherwise that is rooted in ableism. The idea that accommodations are scarce and should be reserved for only the people who need them most is rooted in capitalist systems that shame disabled people for being 'useless' and requiring resources.

[resilient-wildflower]

The more I learn about ADHD, the more I just want to shout about it from rooftops. All of the small, weird stuff that I've struggled with is suddenly validated and makes me feel less weird. I'm still waiting for a diagnosis that I will get next month, but man, does it feel good to finally be validated. I'm constantly wondering how people just "live" life. I study others a lot to get clues on how to solve a problem or how to get stuff done. Whenever I would ask someone about how they did this or that, they would look confused, or say "I just got over it", "I just did it.", Ect. Things that I've seen people just do with ease. I never understood why I struggled, why I felt...different. Why do things that seem like most other people can do so easily, felt so impossible to me? I now have answers, a whole community that has had similar experiences to me.

When I first realized that I could have ADHD, I felt like I wanted to cry. It was not good thoughts at first. I felt like it was like a lifelong "death sentence." To be fair, I only knew very little about it. The thought of actually being different, that some is, in fact, wrong with my brain, made me feel even more broken. It had never registered in my brain that I could have it because "I wasn't hyper" nor was I as a child. Sure, I had my hyper moments like every child does, but I was never bouncing off the walls.

Then I learned about mental restlessness, and the more I researched into Predominantly Inattentive ADHD, it clicked. It felt more like a tsunami of past experiences slammed me. All of my thought spirals, rumination, my brain feeling like it's going 100 miles an hour and thoughts just branching off like a tree, all of my hopes and dreams, fears, and when was macaroni and cheese first invented? Wait? Is someone calling my name? And then I realize someone has been trying to get my attention in the last 5 minutes and none of the work I needed to get done, got done. I'll hyper focus on things to the point of obsession sometimes. I'll lose sleep because despite my body wanting to collapse, my brain is on the treadmill again.

The more I learn, the more I want to tell everyone, every little detail of it. The more I learn, the more I shout "I DO THAT!!" It's like I unlocked some hidden knowledge and now the entire world NEEDS to know. It took me a minute to accept that these really are my realities, these are my struggles. I was stuck believing that something is wrong with me because I'm not neurotypical. I'm currently learning about neurodiversity and I'm learning not to be ashamed of it anymore. I'm learning that I am different and there is nothing wrong with that.