I keep coming back to this one quote.

“I understood myself only after I destroyed myself. And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was.”
– Sade Andria Zabala

A few months ago, I decided to say screw it.

I’d had to quit my job. My health was terrible and I could hardly eat anything at all. I was feeling like I’d never be any good at my YouTube channel, even though I put in so much time, effort, and money. I ran out of money. I was obsessed with the fact that I’m turning 29 this year and I’m still not financially reliant.

My health had destroyed me. I couldn’t see any way out of my constant struggle to work with my health issues until it tore me apart and I had to quit.

How am I supposed to be a person when all I am is the impossible restrictions my body places on me, as it tries to stop me from living?

When bipolar depression and anxiety slither into every split second?

When the doctors’ only answers are, “I don’t know what else we can try”?

When I feel no enjoyment, only physical and psychological pain that I can’t escape?

So I gave into it.

The hopelessness, depression, doubt, and pain that swam just below the surface of my every moment, every thought, every forced smile.

For a good month, I probably wasn’t the funnest person to be around.

I’m glad.

Because I’m sick of caring about everyone else to the point that I don’t exist.

So what if people are uncomfortable because I’m not faking a smile or pretending to be happy and peppy?

I BLOODY MATTER TOO!

I’d gotten fed up with putting on a face. Being what everyone else needed. With being so wrapped up in feeling like I had the responsibility to make others happy. Or that I was a bad person if I wasn’t in a good mood all the time (even though it was quite fine for others to have their mood swings).

Hadn’t I learned this lesson already?

So I spent a good month being depressed. Mad at God (knowing I was wrong to be mad at Him), fighting with myself over everything I felt, despondent. Hopeless. Angry. Crying. Sinking in emotions I hated, didn’t want. Wanted free from. 100% negative. Drowning in terror that this was all my life would ever be. The back and forth from Hell.

No matter what I did. No matter how hard I fought.

I got wrapped up in me and all that I’d been ignoring. Letting all the sickness I ignored take the driver’s seat. I was swallowed by the pain I’d denied.

I can’t pinpoint exactly where I came out of it.

But I know I needed it.

I feel different.

More solid.

Trying to pretend I didn’t feel all these things, feeling ashamed that they existed inside me, and shoving them down – it hurt me. Gave these feelings power over me. And caring so much about being what others wanted just made it a harder trap to escape from.

I feel like too many of us feel like we’re a burden. A good vibes killer. A downer. Too much to love. Hard to love.

That’s absolute crap.

We are strong. We have so much to fight through. To deal with. We are not bad or wrong for feeling how we feel.

We don’t owe anyone a peppy attitude.

I mean, there’s a different between focusing on negative thoughts and bad things in life – and feeling your feelings instead of burying them.

There’s also a difference between feeling your feelings and taking them out on others.

There’s no reason for us to feel guilty or ashamed for having hard days. Hard weeks. Struggles. Pain. Doubts. Fears.

When we try to pretend we don’t feel these things, we give them a certain power over us. And they fester in the darkness of our souls. Until they’re bigger and stronger than us.

We don’t owe anyone being fake.

We owe it to ourselves to live inside our own skin.

Either that, or we lose ourselves.