My Brain Calls the Shots

Hello friends, fam, and trolls! Oh girl, has it been a minute. Life has been somewhat chaotic as of late, so I figured that means it is definitely time for a blog post. You may be wondering what could possibly be so chaotic that I couldn’t write a blog post for a whole month. Great thought. Y’all are so smart.

Well, for starters work has been interesting. As someone who is brand new to the field, my professors were not lying when they said burnout is real. TOO REAL. Most nights I go to bed and I have nightmares about my clients. I am constantly thinking about how they are doing and if I am helping and if I chose the right career and if my left boob is bigger than my right. The rabbit hole goes deep. On top of my big life questions, I sit here thinking about how I am not taking care of myself and how I need to do better at eating healthy and exercising and look thinner and prettier and figure out how to make my right boob bigger. It feels like these loops have been constant as of late.

It’s funny because I spent my whole young adult life thinking, “as long as I find someone to love me, I will be okay. All the bad thoughts about myself will magically disappear.” My worth is only measured by love of a man. What a crock of shit… that I fell for. I won’t lie. Even when I would talk about self love, in the back of my mind that message repeated: get a boyfriend; get happiness. Or as my disordered eating would put it: get skinny; get happiness. Obviously, ridiculous and not true. I know this. I am in a happy relationship with someone who truly loves me and I still spend nights reminding myself of all the worst parts about me. I forget that my self worth comes from me. My thoughts are controlled by me. He doesn’t make my thoughts for me. A thin body also doesn’t make my thoughts. No matter my relationship or size, my brain calls the shots.  So, I had to sit down with myself the other night and have a good talking to. It went a little something like this…

“Hey Sarah, you have to snap out of it. You know that there is no such thing as perfect. I know you know this, so why do you keep expecting yourself to be something that is nonexistent? It makes zero sense. You are doing the best with what you have got and that is all anyone can ask for you. You can be sad, angry, frustrated, upset, or what have you, but don’t you dare be mean to yourself.”

The thing is we find it so easy though, don’t we? I can tell myself I hate me 100 times over and not even blink an eye. I would never tell someone I hated them. I will sit in the mirror, literally pick at my flaws (excoriation disorder), and call myself ugly. You want to know all the times I have called another person ugly, like zero. (I say like zero, because I have 4 sisters and we were pretty mean to each other growing up).  Definitely zero after the age of 18 though. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve called myself ugly, even starting at the age of 18. It’s likely in the trillions.

All my life I have been told I am too hard on myself and I tend to agree. I politely nod my head, turn around, and tell myself I have to be hard on myself in order to reach the ideal me. Pure fuckery (technical term). I don’t want to be the girl that spends all her kindness on others and forgets about herself. That’s how I burnout. I can only beat myself down for so long, until I know longer get back up.

On top of all my own internal struggles, I continue to have friends and family battling sickness, Trump (no need for further explanation), and homesickness. Life is scary and overwhelming sometimes. These tend to be the moments I am meanest to myself because of the wretched thought that maybe these things are happening because I wasn’t a good person and the female above wants me to suffer. How selfish does that sound? I think that other people are sick because I somehow need to be punished… for what? That time I forged my mom’s signature in kindergarten?

If you are reading this today and you think you are going through something hard because you deserve it I need you to take 5 deep breaths for me.

1…..2…..3…..4…..5

Good. Now, repeat after me “bad things happen all the time. I am not being punished. I do not control the universe, nor do I want to. Right now is hard and that is okay.” Try to show yourself the same compassion that you show others. I know that it is easier said than done. My yeezy, do I know that. I am not trying to perfect it because that is what got me into this problem in the first place. Even if I can battle off one negative thought about myself today, that will be an improvement. I don’t want to reach the point where I can’t get back up.

Honestly, I need to be working on a presentation for work about self-care right now and I couldn’t start it today without writing this post first. I had to remind myself of what it feels like to show myself kindness. I hope to get back to writing more weekly. I love you all, even the trolls.