My Life in a nutshell

Side note: this is written as I speak to myself, this isn't written to lecture, just to get how I think written down somewhere. thank you for reading this, please don't be afraid to share any and all thoughts and feedback in the comments!  Love always, MadiJ What Does "Letting Go" mean to you?  As someone with a complex past, and no real solid plan for the future, often times letting go feels like abandonment.  It feels like loss, pain, disappointment, fear, aloneness and in all honesty, failure too.  Why might letting go feel so negative? To me, letting go feels like giving up.  Toxic marriages happen, and when children are involved in those toxic marriages, then to let go can feel like "giving up" on your family, on your children and maybe even on your dreams.  Toxic family structures are normalized and even sometimes admired.  In toxic environments, you can get stuck in the negativity, and sometimes that is all you know, so how can you know what hea...

 When you look back on your triggers, what flags for you? For me? yeah its moving and toxic people.  I can run away forever and never look back, but now I believe that I have grown a pair!  If I can stand up to a parental abuser, and be okay I promise you can too! It is a lot of self respect, self work and TIME put into respecting yourself!  It is worth it!

 Accepting help can be exceptionally hard when you have a past of neglect, abuse, blame or in general not feeling heard.  You know that I have had a hard past, but did you know I never stopped begging for help? I asked therapists, doctors, lawyers, police, my other parent, my older sister and many others.  Some used this to harm me more (childhood sexual assault by a martial arts instructor) and others really tried to help, but nothing was ever really done to fix the issues.   My abuser was SO good at spinning the narrative as a healthy family with a sick child and making the issues in the home all my fault.  So many people believed her and so many people still believe her.  What can I do to change that besides speak my truth right?  Well this IS my truth and no-one else's. I will tell my side and use my voice, because for so long I was silenced. I was not perfect (who is) nor am I now.  I know my trauma brain minimizes and maximizes parts of the ...

Being sick has knocked me on my ass, and I have had to rely on on my coping skills.  I have struggled to recover in many aspects of day to day life lately. Breathing has been difficult for weeks now, and Im sure that my nicotine addiction doesn't help with that. The fact that my day job is in a smoke shop, most definitely playa a roll, but is also not responsible for my addiction.   So how am I able to hold it together?  Be the person I am, kind and caring while also holding my boundaries, and respecting myself? I am an OG boundary setter and holder.  I am happy to announce that this does not change when I am sick, sad, excited, mad etc.  If it is outside of my standard hours of operation, I decide if I am able to take on extra in that moment.  Some ways in which I might do this are "Hey (insert name here), I adore you but I am out and about and I do not have the mental capacity needed to dedicate the time, attention and effort my (person I am with) deserve...

 I am far from perfect as I have stated.  I still struggle and I still lose hope, but like I also mentioned I have a support system. I have an adoptive parent, whom I love very much, but was away a lot and I don't know if I will ever get over the anger that still lingers at her absence and lack of availability to effectively protect me growing up.  I still rely on her though, and now as an adult, I rely on her more than ever.  Her heart is to correct what happened when I was a child, and I'm not sure she has realized that the past is done, however I appreciate how involved, how attentive and how intentional she is now. I have a very close friend, he held me as I sobbed and lost hope as me dreams and expectations crashed around me.  As I lost all hope of ever seeing a future full of success, a future that has any joy in it, a future not overshadowed with struggle, pain and anxiety.  I couldn't do anything but cry, and he felt that I was unduly brining myself...

  What the heck even are boundaries, why are they neccisary and HOW the HECK do they work? link for this chart Setting boundaries starts with understanding your own basic needs, for me there are a few basic things I need for every relationship, friendship or partnership to be successful.  Everyone has their own needs and desires but for the sake of this blog, these are my needs, wants and desires when it comes to conversations, interactions, disagreements and discussions. Personally these are my needs: 1) Open communication in conversations including calling me out when I interrupt and being willing to be called out when interrupting  2) Ability to accept fault on all sides 3) Ability to think critically and use empathy too see other peoples point of view, or see situations for other points of view. Here are some boundaries that I have set based on those needs that I have expressed here: 1) During communication I will not be yelled at or screamed at in a conversation and ...

  THERE IS STILL HOPE! What exactly is hope? There are a few definitions so I will start with the verb:  to cherish a desire with anticipation  :  to want something to happen or be true ( source ). When we want something like peace, happiness or joy, and everything we do in life turns into a mess, it may feel like we will never experience these emotions, but what if we are just looking in all the wrong places.  what if we can find peace within ourselves, for only a moment?  Was it worth it?  We felt it, so then we hold onto hope that we will feel it again.  Do we feel happiness on a solo hike, or surfing in the ocean alone? if we have something that we find happiness doing, then we use hope that we will feel that the next time we do that same thing, the key is that hope is a verb- an action word, so we have to actively create hope.  We can do this by planning, scheduling and creating  opportunities  for these positive emotions to ha...