After having a few rough happenings (not worth rehashing here suffice to say that even as ballsy as I am I would not want to go through them again nor wish them on my worst enemy - if I had one), I lost the ability to view life objectively, and had a skewed view of my place and perceived value in the world, and started to see things from a comparative perspective only, while neglecting to hold any intrinsic value in myself while doing so (thus making everything else better, and me pretty much worthless).
I soon realised I needed to put a boot in my own backside for being such a silly person towards myself - I’d never treat or devalue anyone else that way, so I shouldn’t do it to me.
At the time, I was homeless (the cause of the homelessness was a thousand times worse than actually being homeless) and sleeping on top of bus stop shelters - those little roofs where people sit under on a bench waiting for a bus - to keep myself safe at night (kinda cool compared to what I’d escaped). My meals came from trash cans - some of those were amazing, and I was truly thankful that someone could afford to throw away such nice food. I would wash in the school bathrooms, and would get to school a couple hours early to clean my uniform and smalls in the sink and dry it under the hand dryer before classes started. My satchel was a plastic bag, and I found pens on the ground or left on desks. At that time I didn’t have notebooks, just sheets of paper that I asked to have from other students, torn from their own notebooks. Then, I got one job, then another, then another (3, all part time). I bought shoes, then another uniform, then found a place to live that would let me rent a place as a minor (was a battle to get adults to come out of their biased attitudes and realise age doesn’t mean it’s ok to discriminate - being a minor did not have a bearing on my ability to work, pay rent, and uphold tenancy). I did have days early on when I felt like the entire world had crashed and I would never have any hope, worth, or ability again, however I think (in my case) having nobody to support me - only adversity from every angle (including systemically) - forced the sink or swim/live or die where you stand response, and I just had to think my way through, nurture myself through, acknowledge how bloody awful it all was (and scream and cry in fear and emotional pain and physical exhaustion), but then take a breath and look for the good things, like being so resourceful that I ended up finding food for other homeless people by scouting the restaurant and market bins at closing time, without being seen, and finding a tap on the back of a building over a fence where we could get drinking water. Now, back then I know I was struggling with massive depression and anxiety, PTSD and nightmares (I fell off the roof of the bus shelter more than once after jolting in my sleep) but that I believe was only normal, and the product of experiencing traumatic events. However, I think what was so helpful was having the sink or swim effect, as it really focussed me on treating myself well/with value and respect so I could then show others that is what I expected, and also use that to move my life forward by seeking out opportunities (no matter how small), and systematically progressing from one small achievement to the next.
I still have moments where I think of the bottomless pit of black fear that threatened to suck me down to my own demise, and I still feel it in all it’s horrible glory, but I then can see the other side of things, and get some balance seeing some positives of who I am and what those series’ of small achievements did to help me live a life. I also used to project my mind into the future, asking myself what will life be like in a year/5 years/10 years when I was sleeping on the roof of the bus shelter, and I would imagine finishing schooling, working, furthering education, rebuilding my life.
Things didn’t work out perfect (my ex husband isn’t the kind of guy I would go hang out with on the weekend at all, and I have some pretty annoying health issues), however that’s ok - nothing is perfect; all that matters is to keep putting one foot in front of the other while heading in the right direction and making a little bit of effort to consciously do that each day that you can.
I do feel for you guys - it’s not easy.
But nobody expects perfection and besides, life’s better off without it because then you can put that and the difficulty of achieving it aside and really see how a mistake laden world is actually full of opportunities to learn from and master those mistakes 🙂🌺