Patience is the key to my life.. Pt. 2

Two: Remaining patient through a tough time is key.

Remaining patient through a tough time, is key. One thing that I always told myself growing up, is that everything happens for a reason.

While I was in the eighth grade, I was attending multiple counseling sessions. My counselor had been treating me since my house burned down back in the sixth grade. Mrs. T wasn’t just a counselor to me, she became my best friend. Someone who I trusted with all of my darkest pains and secrets, yet the only thing I kept from her was my molestation. During my sessions with Mrs. T, we would play the board game ‘LIFE’: she would place me in scenarios in which I had to respond with my own life situations. She twisted them so I could relate them to my life and put myself to critically think and analyze the given scenarios. We had countless conversations about my estranged father, my school friends, my academics, my pets, literally anything you could think of we discussed it. Mrs. T became my mentor for almost three years until she finally saw growth and stability within me.

It is important that parents, friends or even associates of those in need realize that counseling services do not make someone weak, nor does it make someone incapable of being able to do something on their own. It is very difficult sometimes for people to handle specific situations or emotions on their own. Gaining the strength to go to counseling is very admiring because not everyone wants to admit they are having a rough time, or that they need the help of someone else. You also have to consider the beauty behind counseling. These are individuals who look at you like a blank canvas, you paint the picture that you want them to see. You are the one who controls what they know and what they don’t, and they help you put the pieces together that you might have dropped along the way. So when you hear someone talk about counseling, don’t shoot the idea down, because counseling is something that I am definitely very thankful for. My counselor really helped me learn how to value life, and find myself again. I learned through counseling, that life is precious because we only have one.

I have to say that I have always been someone strong, and my problem has always been that I don’t know when to be weak. I am the one to hold my head up high, even when my world is crumbling down around me. I have always been this way, but I realized that this comes along with a lot of extra baggage and unnecessary stress. I have cried behind closed doors, kept everything to myself, and found ways to numb the pain. It is important, for humans to feel pain or fear, just as it is important for us to feel happiness and love. We are allowed to feel multiple feelings to balance out life. If I had been someone to talk and be more open about everything while growing up, I wouldn’t have had suicidal thoughts or questioned my reason for ever being here. “Suicidal thoughts are not just about how to kill oneself, it can range from detailed plans to escape/fleet and does not include the final act of one killing oneself”. I remember the times I would sit on my bed, with a blade to my wrists, questioning why should I continue to live. Tears would run down my face as I sobbed, and silently screamed inside my head. I would re-live moments of my past and feel like a movie was constantly being played in the back of my mind. This would make me question whether this world could be a better place without me? Would my family miss me, would my siblings need me? How can I stop this pain, how can I stop the suffering inside and out? How is it that I can stop these vivid mental images from constantly coming to mind?

It is well-known that many of those who have these thoughts: don’t always follow through, but then we also have to confront the issue on hand when someone does take their life. These thoughts connect to my prior post and how I dealt with bullying as well. It is very common nowadays that our younger audiences are facing bullying, whether it be physically, mentally, emotionally, cyber wise, etc. The issue is much greater than back when I was younger, and because of that, it is important to hear children and young teenagers when they are conversing with others. Usually those who are undergoing a tough situation, drops hints or clues throughout daily conversations to code the situation. It is important for communication to be key, this is when I learned how to listen to others and most importantly, how to listen to myself and communicate what I was feeling with others. The feeling of questioning life is something serious: that dark, heavy cloud that follows you everywhere. The feelings of uneasiness and exhaustion that one can feel mentally, sooner or later catches up with you. It was definitely a dark time at this point in my life.

I learned by the age of fifteen finally, that I was ready for change and that it needed to happen fast. My mother ended up pulling me out of Douglass and transferred me into Edison high School. I was in ninth grade, surrounded by hundreds of new faces, dealing with a completely different environment and that made this transition very difficult at first. I have to say that my experience at Edison was one of a kind. My first year there I ended up getting involved into many physical altercations. One thing about me, I don’t brag about myself, I don’t think I am better than anyone, but I will not stand for anyone trying to manipulate and talk me down. That weak part of me was well gone by this time, so it was really hard for me to adjust to a school in where every girl thought it was a competition of the best hair, makeup, clothes etc. Every time someone would ‘side-step’ me or try to ‘double-cross’ me at this time, I just wasn’t letting it slide by me. I was a hot-head at this age, trying to fit in, and trying to climb to the top of the popularity charts at Edison. If your name was well known in high school, then you were doing everything right.

Aside, from constantly getting suspended and being involved in fights, I was always at the top with my academics. I received honor roll all the time, and was very serious when it came to maintaining my academics afloat. I have to say that I didn’t calm down until tenth grade when I was faced with a situation that almost led me to having charges pressed against me. I ended up getting involved in two fights the same day, which was completely un-intentional. Around lunch time, a fight broke out in the cafeteria, I only got involved to break-up the fight. One thing I always did was break-up a fight that I believed wasn’t a fair one. I can’t stand to see someone being taken advantage of when it comes to a fight. After hand-cuffed during that fight, many of my friends were able to vouch for me and say that I was just trying to help and break up the fight. Later on that day, another fight broke out in the hallway during transition, this led to all of the students being able to close out the hallways, making it difficult for our security and police to become involved.

There was a girl, who was a Senior at the time, tall (maybe like 5’9 -5’10) who constantly talked shit to me every time she saw me. For some reason, she thought that I tried to date the same person who she was interested in. Mind you, at this time I was way too involved in trying to deal with my own life and at that, I never messed around with any Seniors. So, with all the commotion going on in the halls with fights, she called me out in front of everyone. At first, I looked at my cousin who was standing next to me because I was dumb-founded, literally. The first thing that crossed my mind: does she know who the hell she calling out? Next thing I know, my cousin is telling her to come fight and I see all the students begin to surround us. I dropped my bag, and swung first. By the time my left hand was coming to hit her, I remember being grabbed and slammed against lockers face first. Never did I once realize that it was a cop so my first instinct was to swing. I ended up accidentally hitting our school officer in the face, which led to me being handcuffed and slammed even harder on the ground again. Since I was being thrown around like a puppet, I got pissed and started talking back to the officer because he was using unnecessary force with me. He threatened to pepper spray me if I kept resisting which only pissed me off even more. After being arrested, my mother was called and no charges were pressed against me because of my age. I did have to go to school board hearings after this though because they wanted to expel me: the officer considered me a ‘danger’ to his presence. At this time, my principal was the one saved my a**, by vouching for me and telling the committee that aside from all the trouble I was constantly involved in, my academics were at their highest all the time. I ended up being suspended for the rest of the school year which definitely taught me a lesson.

Peer-pressure is real people. Granted nobody physically pressured me to do anything, but because of my peers, I always thought that I had something to stand for. I always felt like I had to live up to this expectation, my friends always considered me to be someone untouchable because of my fierceness and strong character. Many admired it, others truly hated me for it. I learned that my attitude definitely developed over time, all of my hardships molded me to be strong and resilient.

At the same time, I was also dealing with this break-up, something that I definitely took hard at this age in high school. You know that at this age, we have our high school sweet hearts, that we are ‘oh so in-love’ with. This is the person you’re going to marry and spend the rest of your life with: YEAH RIGHT. My two-and-a-half-year relationship suddenly went down the drain because this bean-head decided to leave me for his ex-girlfriend that played him better than most of these men play females out here. When I began to date M, he was just the perfect person to me. Aside from being good looking, he had a heart of gold. What I didn’t realize was that I was in for a nice little treat. He was older than me, maybe three or four years older than me, a high school drop-out, working a full time job, and living with his mother who was addicted to drugs at the time. I am not going to put his business out here, but it is very hard to know acknowledge this piece of my life because it definitely has an impact on my character and who I am today. He ended up moving in with me and my family after sometime into us dating. When this move happened, he stopped working and didn’t want to attempt to even get his GED. I became the head honcho in this relationship. I did his job applications, I paid his bills, I helped buy him clothes and sneakers and whatever else he needed. At the time, I thought it was normal, it’s what girlfriends do right? Long story short, I found out he was seeing his ex-girlfriend again. He just simply woke up one day, right before I went to school, woke me up and told me to pack his shit up that he was leaving. Without asking any questions, I helped him pack everything up, didn’t hesitate and I sat on my porch as I watched him leave.

I remember going the whole day feeling numb. I literally sat in the same spot on the porch all day without moving, trying to digest what the hell just happened. Once it hit me, I cried my eyes out. Literally was probably the most miserable person. I stopped eating for weeks, I went to school and didn’t talk to anyone. I didn’t do my hair, I didn’t want to get dressed, I didn’t want to do anything. Moral of this story, I was a week away from my NYS Regents Exam, everyone thought I wasn’t going to pull through because of what was going on with me. Every day, my teachers would try to talk to me, encourage me, and every day I would shut them out and continue to just live day by day. I always say that this would have been different for me if I wouldn’t have found out through Facebook, and he would’ve just communicated this with me. No, it didn’t make me think that boys are the most terrible people ever, it taught me about communication, and it definitely taught me that not everything can last forever. My teacher once told me “when your dating someone, never forget who you are. Always remember that there are two different people in a relationship, so there should always be two separate lives. Don’t lose yourself in that other person because then you’re left with nothing”. This really has to be the best piece of advice I have received on relationships because even until my present day, I rely so heavily on this advice. This experience definitely taught me that as a woman, I don’t have to be the only one putting in efforts towards a relationship. Yes, showing love, affection, and attention are all important components in a relationship, but being equal is also very important. This relationship gave me a strong mold for future relationships, especially by teaching me to let my partner be independent: ladies if your man can’t hold himself down first, then he won’t be able to hold you down in return.

This relationship also took another blow at my self-confidence:

I always found flaws within myself every time I looked into my mirror. Like I said before, I am not perfect. I am just like any other young woman; I have always been my biggest competitor. I was always too hard headed to let my guard down even when it came to self-critiquing myself. Yet, others always have an influence on how you look at yourself, for example: I thought my thick curly hair wasn’t up to societies standards, straight and long was the way to go. I thought my eyebrows were too thick and bushy. My skin was too dark, and because I was loud and had an accent I was too ghetto and uneducated. Having small boobs was a curse, and not having the biggest a** was even a bigger curse. Not having a perfect smile, not having the best clothes, being too ‘fat’ where all things that made looking at myself in the mirror a challenge in itself. What we say too people can really affect how they look at themselves, so we should consider the things we have to say about people more. Although I constantly found myself down, I learned to surround myself with positive people who began to uplift me and motivate me with time. My two guy best friends definitely pulled me through this tough time in life, and for that I can’t thank them enough. The addition of positive people, and places is what helped me learn that self-love is very important. It takes time to build confidence and strength, especially to look at yourself in the mirror and be happy with yourself. Yet, my self-love is being able to have regards for one owns well-being and happiness. To love and admire the smallest things about yourself, to learn how to appreciate your flaws because they are what make you unique. It is about teaching yourself that you are your own person: your own image is a reflection of your best characteristics and traits that make you a beautiful person inside and out.

Patience: “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset”. Again, being patient in a tough time is key. If I didn’t have patience at this time in my life, and with myself I wouldn’t have aced my Regents Exams that year. If I didn’t have patience, I would’ve lost myself again. If I didn’t have patience, I would’ve been kicked out of school. If I didn’t have patience, I would’ve lost sight of what really matters in life. If I didn’t have patience, I wouldn’t be able to love myself the way I do today.

Patience has been the key to my life, and I can’t stress it enough. When we think of patience, we tend to think of it as something we use when in a strenuous situation: it’s not only during the tough times that you should be patient but also during the good. Those who don’t know how to be patient become arrogant and displeased with life. Everything bothers them because everything goes wrong in their eyes. I have learned to evolve and become a better person through patience. I have become humbled by many of my experiences in which I will continue to share with you. I learned to love myself again, by losing a lot of the good in my life, and by dealing with constant confrontations that led to me finding my inner strength. This taught me how to value my many struggles in life. Having self- love is to love yourself, literally yet humbly.

This is when I learned to differentiate between someone who is egotistical from someone who is humble.

To be continued….

Three: learning to be humble at an early age is essential