How come I’m so easily depressed? I don’t know.
‘I don’t know’ is a very nice excuse for us so we don’t have to come up with the answer. Why do we use that phrase so often? Does it help us get to the answer quicker? Not at all. Does it help us hide, because we don’t want to know the truth? Why wouldn’t we want to know? If we don’t know the answer to a difficult ( or personal ) question, we tend to turn away from the question and look for a different subject. But the question will most likely linger in your head for a while. Avoiding the question by saying ‘I don’t know’ seems to be the fastest way out. It seems so much easier and it will feel like a solution. But you have just pushed the question away, for it to come back to you sooner or later. We should want to know what is bothering us. We should want to know what the reason is. If we say that we don’t want to know, we’re lying to ourselves. Nobody else will have troubles with it. You will be the only one who feels it. ‘I don’t know’ used to be my favorite answer. To anything. - What do you want to eat? - Where do you want to go? - What’s going on? My other favorite answer was ‘Nothing’. I just didnt want to explain anything to others. But in the mean time i didn’t sit down by myself to explain it to myself either. I was running away from the truth. Now, so many years later, I try to find the answers but when it gets too deep, I still fall back on my ‘I don’t know’. Why? Because I don't want to know the answers. I know why. I am scared to find out what the answers are. The only thing I have to do is keep those three words out of my mind and out of my mouth. Because they are so easily spoken that I don’t have to thing about it. But to answer the question I asked myself earlier. I have two options. Do I hide or do I face the truth? Why am I so easily depressed? - I dont know. - Because of all the things that have happened in the last few years, i’m scared to mess things up and I over think everything way too much. When I see something on TV that reminds me of something I did/said or something that happened to me a while back I relive that moment in my head for a minute and I get that feeling back. Facing the truth feels good. Digging for it might not, but knowing the answer means you don't have to hide from that question ever again. That is a great feeling. Do you have questions you hide from? Do you want to know the answer? Please, share your thoughts/experiences in the comments. Or send me an email ( contact form).
0 Comments
Because I don't have the balls to speak up, people can get away with a lot around me.
I don't even know where to begin when people throw certain things at me. The other day, there were men working on my kitchen and living room. Me and my daughter were on my bed watching TV. Without a warning one of the guys barged into my room and came to look at the heater. I was mad, on the inside but couldn't get myself to open my mouth and tell him to show some respect. This man was a stranger, I hadn't seen him before and I will probably never see him again, so why in the world couldn't I speak my mind to him? It's not only strangers, it's also people I am close with. People I see as friends. Even certain family members. I would rather eat my tongue, than say something that they might not like or receive the way I would have hoped. I am scared that my words will come out wrong and it will ruin the relationship I have with that person. Why I can't speak my mind around strangers is still a mystery to me. So is the reason behind my fear. Why am I scared to speak what's truly on my mind? Why can't I just say what's bothering me? To be honest, I think I'm scared to lose people. I don't speak to any of my so called friends from any time in my life. My relationship with my father is on the very edge of a cliff because I spoke my mind. The relationship with my mother isn't what it used to be because I finally told her what had been on my mind for a very long time. I'm scared to lose them so I rather shut up. Does it help me in any way? No! Because it gets to me and I get mad at myself for not telling them what I want when I want. In the beginning of my relationship I couldn't tell him anything. I would choke. It didn't matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. The few times I could I wished I hadn't said anything because I was terrified of his reaction. He helped me see that it is good to say what's bothering you. It took us 3 years but I can finally tell him if I'm angry and why, I still beat around the bush every now and then but I get to the point a lot faster. But that is one person. I don't want to be scared for people's reaction. Let them think what they want to and say what they want to, as long as I have shared my truth with them, it's no longer eating at me. Keeping your mouth shut when something is bothering you, in any situation, is wrong! Because I kept my mouth shut for so long, I became depressed. I started to believe that it wouldn't help anyone if I told them how I felt. Who would even care about it? Well, the truth is, people will respect you for having an opinion. They will maybe feel like you stepped on their toes at first, but will come to realize that you are also entitled to your own feelings and emotions. Ok, so back to the title of this entry. "How to speak my mind" 1. I have to take a deep breath. 2. I have to stop over thinking. If I have done that, I might even say a short prayer. Asking God to help me. Give me the right words to explain how I really feel. And most of the time, it's out before I realized I even started. It sounds so easy. But I know it's not. Maybe you have to take 10 breaths. And because you want to stop over thinking you might even start over thinking even more. Praying might not even seem to work because your jaws are locked whenever you try to speak. I remember times where I had pain in my jaws and a headache from forcing my mouth shut. It isn't worth it! If somebody is rude, is disrespectful to you or makes you feel uncomfortable you have every right to speak on it! It will do you good. You'll probably feel a little uncomfortable after the first few times but eventually, you will feel relieved. What's on your mind, is valuable information! How you feel, is important! How you feel, is not to be criticized, it's to be accepted. So please, next time you feel a certain way,whale a deep breath, let go of every fear in your body and speak your mind. Do you have trouble speaking your mind? How did you learn to speak up in stead of keeping it in? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments. You can also go to my contact page and send me an email. Growing up with one parent on another continent is challenging. You grow up missing a lot.
I guess it must have been more than just challenging for my mom. She had to tell us that, no matter how much we wanted to see daddy, we couldn't. She was the one that had 3 kids on her own. Knowing that, no matter how tired she'd be from work, there wouldn't be a husband at home who could help her get the kids fed and ready for bed. I grew up with a lot of anger towards my dad. That anger turned into hate at some point and it took me a very long time to turn that hate back into anger. After that, I wanted to let go of my anger so I could move on from it. I haven't made peace with it. I don't think I ever will, but I did accept the situation. Now I'm older and I have a kid of my own I started thinking about it. Raising one child by myself is hard enough. I could never really understand how hard it must have been on my mom. My daughter and I went to my aunt's house for the weekend. She has 3 young kids and it finally hit me. Having three kids running around is more than a challenge. Can you imagine having one 15 year old, a 8-year-old and a 3 -year-old who are all angry and don't understand the situation. Who are fighting for moms attention. Seeing my aunt with her kids made me realize that raising children isn't something you do over night. It's a never ending job. From the second the kids wake up, to the second they finally give in and fall asleep, you are teaching them, reasoning with them, making sure they're OK and when they are finally asleep, you have to clean up their mess and prepare for the day after. I now see that I have it easy! Raising one kid is a breeze compared to raising multiples. Seeing this and thinking about how we grew up, I have a new kind of respect for my mother and every mother who is raising multiple children. Being married or having their dad around doesn't mean it's easy. It still is a challenge. I know I didn't make it easier on my mom. Not on purpose, I just didn't know what to do with the things I was feeling. I was mad at my mom too. I guess I blamed her for everything. That was easier. Getting mad at someone on the other side of the world doesn't help. It was easier for me to get mad at my mom. She was there. Compared to a family with 2, 3 or more kids, my life with one is easy. But on its own, it isn't as easy as it may seem. You as a parent are responsible for everything. You need to make sure the kids have a full stomach and a clean diaper before they head to bed. When they're older you have to make sure the kids learn valuable life lessons. You are responsible for their self esteem... and everything else. I just hope I'll be old one day, look at my children and see that they have found their ways in life. That they are happy and that I helped them become the great people that they are. No matter how challenging things have gotten, I hope I will grow enough as a person to give those things to my child(ren) so she/they don't have to go through all the things I went through to learn those lessons. Do you have kids? If so, how many? How do you experience parenthood? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments or go to my contact page to send me an email. Have you ever made a plan and while working things out, you keep stumbling upon new bumps in the road, each one higher than the one before? Up to the point where getting over the bump, which is starting to look more like a hill, needs a plan for itself. Which makes you want to give up?
These things keep happening to me. For example: I was looking for a publisher. One who will publish my book in English and most around here work in Dutch. Finding that is probably ever harder than writing the whole book. So I finally found a publisher, based in Holland who will publish my book, not only in English but, wait for it… publish it in America, and on Amazon in all English speaking countries and Japan, China, Spain, Italy, Germany,... I was over the moon. So I looked for some information and some people who had experiences with them. Pff, instead of stopping on the moon, I went over it and came rushing back to earth. Bad experiences, people who didn’t get what they expected and for most people a disappointment. So back at square one: Finding a publisher. Now, I can do two things: 1. Give up and just leave my book on the hard drive of my computer for the next 20 years. Where I will occasionally get reminded that I wrote the story, so I will read it but won’t do anything else with it. Basically, let it collect ‘dust’. 2. Keep going, stay positive. Find a publisher and do what I wanted to do with my book from the day I started writing it: show it to others. I know what I will do. I’m not even going to think about choosing option 1. I have so many files on my computer and laptop which I eventually stopped opening because after a while, reading it got boring. I will never delete it, but I won’t do anything with them either. I started this with one goal: Get it published. So I’m going to stick to my goal. No matter what your goal is, you always have those same options. 1. Give up. 2. Keep going. Going back to square one to start over again is always disappointing. It will always give you a feeling of hesitation to if you should keep going or give up. My advice to you (and myself) is keep going. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the reward. You will feel so much better about your project or goal when you’re finished and you had to overcome so many obstacles. Keep focusing on your goal and all the progress you have made, even if it’s hard to see at this point. Keep in mind where you started, that will make it clearer to see how much progress you've made. Never give up. No matter how high that bump you have to get over is. You can get over it. What are some of the bumps or hills you had to get over? How did you get over it? Please share your experiences and thoughts in the comments. |
AuthorMy passion is writing. I started writing stories when I was only 6 years old and I still do it today. Blogging is something I've been wanting to do for a long time, so here we are. Archives
July 2017
|