A Story Of Self Discovery ๐ฑ
So this is gonna be one long ass brick of text I'm about to write out so be prepared lmaoo
I just wanna start off with saying I'm sorry. For a lot of different reasons and not to just one person in particular. However if you think this apology is for you, it probably is. I made some shitty choices in the past, I was unaware of social-constructs, I wasn't as empathetic as I could have been, and I truly just wasn't my own person before. I was selfish on more than one account and it took the words of a dear friend to sorta.. Wake me up to it. I wasn't aware of the person I was becoming. But once it dawned on me, I ran. And I'm sorry for that too. But I'm not sorry for taking a step back, I look at it now as a subconscious, tactical retreat.
I went through a major life change and for awhile I felt absolutely lost. I felt guilty over many of my actions but for the most part I just felt this void of emptiness and depression. I felt alone but I wasn't able to reach out to anyone. I was going downhill fast and I started making a lot of poor choices. I started throwing myself at any substance I could find to try and fill the voids. Sex, drugs, and alcohol were the easiest.
It wasn't until I hung out with my sister again for the first time in years, that I started to try and pick up the pieces of my shattered reality. She showed me Grace by Florence and The Machine and the emotions I had been trying to bury for so long just flooded over me. I needed help but I didn't know where to turn or what to do. She helped guide me to the right path, and for that I will be eternally grateful. College had taught her more than just cooking skills, she now had life skills. Skills I thought I already had, but was very sorely mistaken.
She sent me to her therapist and at first I was terrified. Terrified to open up, terrified to relive my past and trauma, terrified to admit my mistakes aloud, terrified to be real and raw. But I was also determined. I needed to change and I finally understood that I had to stop, waiting. Waiting for the perfect moment, waiting for my life to change. I had to make the change. I had to be the change. "Revolution Starts Within"
Month after month, I devoted all of my free time and energy into fixing myself. Figuring out 'who' I was and how I could improve. I started to discover my own likes and dislikes, and I began to understand my own energy for literally the first time in my entire life. Many of you know me well, but very few truly know all that I have gone through in my life, or all that I was experiencing. But what matters is that I was finally truly *free*. I was finally able to start thinking for myself.
I began to gain confidence in myself for the first time as well. Not only in my looks but in my own abilities as well. I was finally becoming confident in my actions, my words, and as silly as it sounds, my own thoughts. It felt like my eyes were opened and like I was just starting to begin my life. I won't call it a rebirth, but I finally felt like I was actually living. I wasn't a ghost anymore, I was a person with a soul and thoughts and desires of my own. The world felt huge and full of opportunities for the taking. I felt like a small sprout, finally breaking out of the soil to see and feel the sun for the first time.
With the changes and progress I had made so far I already knew I wasn't the same person anymore, not by a long shot. So I did The Thing you do with a self transformation. I chopped off my hair and changed my name. I've now been going by Liza, Liz for short (a take on my middle name Elizabeth) even in my everyday life. My family has, reluctantly, begun to accept the change as well with a great deal of help from my sister. Now not only was I seeing the changes, but others were acknowledging it as well. And not everybody liked these changes. It's amazing how many people you lose in your life when you start setting boundaries, speaking your mind, and standing up for what you believe in.
Now don't get me wrong, I still have a very very very long way to go before I'm happy with who I am. I'm sill in my "morphing phase" I've been calling it. I had to fall apart as a person so I could rebuild myself into something better. Currently I'm like a blob, still trying to find the shape I'm meant to be. But for now I am happy and incredibly proud of the person I am becoming. And even more proud of myself for the work I have done so far, and continue to do everyday. As I type this, my healing has been interrupted thanks to my depression, but I know I will get back to it when I am meant to. I give my all every day, but sometimes my best is just getting out of bed, and that's ok too.
If you read through all of that I gotta believe that you cared enough about me to at very least be curious. And now I ask you to please get to know me again, for I'm an entirely new experience you have yet to encounter. Please don't judge me for who I was, because that's no longer who I am, or who I'm becoming.
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