I happened to be talking to a friend and our thoughts drifted back to our teenage years. And I found myself remembering my mental state during that time. I had so much angst, almost nonexistent self-esteem and a lot of tough circumstances.
The period I’m talking about was when I was about 16-17. Wow. Just wow. Firstly, I was an avid hobby artist. It was my main form of self expression. There were a lot of demonic motives in my drawings and during that time it brought me comfort, so I never understood why my mom was unsettled by them (the cover picture for this post being one of them). I was drawn to people who were very toxic, mentally abusive and sometimes outright dangerous. That was the age I lived through quite few betrayals, gaslighting and eventually stalking.
I felt I had no joy in life. I was just going to school on autopilot, nothing really made me better or worse, my baseline was in the negative. At home I immersed myself in the dark!hetalia fandom and some epic but gloomy music. Hetalia is an old manga and anime where countries are personified characters. I found the concept brilliant at that time. While the original series is light-hearted and tries to be comedic, the dark side of the fandom took that concept and applied it to the grave side of history. Wars, other serious consequences etc. For some reason living in that apocalyptic fantasy brought me a lot of comfort.
I haven’t thought about that time so deeply in years. Strangely, the thing that made me determined to build my life up to the positive side (eventually) was when I was stalked for over a year due to a bad breakup. It was an awakening that I’m my own person and not just a young copy of my mom, who I deemed as the ultimate authority until the moment I had to tell off my ex in a way I’ve never had to face another human being ever again. The moment after that my mom said she’s proud of me, and suddenly the switch flipped, it felt like utter disillusionment. Somehow in that state I found strenght. I found spite and determination to get better, be better, become my own person at a time I didn’t know how to adequately cope with my mental issues. I continued to be on autopilot, but the fact I’d discovered I do have a backbone and some self-worth, it carried me through.
I moved out, eventually pulled myself out of the fully hitting depression, and took a deep dive into a metalhead phase. Life got better, was exciting, but still turbulent, ups and downs. By that time I’d already met my now husband. We actually started dating when I was still being actively stalked. Sometimes I wonder how did he manage to stick with me through all that, but I have to remember I didn’t express a lot of my struggles outright. For a long time I felt like 2 separate people. The positive, full of life side. And the dark pit. He mostly saw the first side with some of the downs. It’s taken a lot of work for me to truly open up.
I started coping relatively well in the beginning of my 20s. But I didn’t really fully deal with the baggage. I was still making impulsive decisions (MLM, dropping out of university) and riding the wave of what all that brought. Our relationship got more serious so I started making an effort to be less impulsive with big decisions. Mostly I was living in the now and taking things as they came.
It’s only after I had RJ, all the unaddressed baggage started coming up as recurring dreams to the point of disturbance. Postpartum anxiety and depression added another layer to it until I just couldn’t cope and started taking online counseling. That’s something that I’ve already written about more extensively but I have to say I don’t feel like two separate beings. I feel whole. Every day I’m making an effort to find harmony and also deal with anything that still crops up.
When I look back further, before the angst, to childhood, I’ve achieved everything I dreamed of then. More on the surface stuff like going to the Canary Islands, general traveling, performing on stage, and scuba diving in the ocean, but also truly deep things like love, a strong loving partnership and marriage, a child. Despite the angst, I never truly lost hope of one day experiencing love like I kept reading about in fiction. And while I have so many more goals, new goals to raise life quality, I do need to take time to be immensely grateful for where I am and who I have in my life. If me from 10 years ago could see me now at 26, the emotions would be exclusively positive.
So that’s a self-healing recap I figured to share with you. Thanks for taking the time to read through it, I’ll be signing off and getting some proper sleep as much as I can.
Have a good Day! ( / or Night!)
-Ann
One Day at a Time 
Leave a Reply