Responding To Others

I don’t know about you but I have found myself reverting to old comforts in a way to help deal with the stress of a world dealing with a pandemic. Then add extra conflict and separation between people on top of that.

One being stress eating or emotional eating. I haven’t done this in a long time. I had gotten to a point where I would say I wish I could just inject nutrients in me so I wouldn’t have to eat. I felt that I had better use of my time than eat. Which I still think that at times. I have only recently started emotional eating again. About a few weeks ago, at most. It started with granola bars and me just eating them carelessly. Then the other day I had gotten Thai food, which I caught myself eating past me being hungry just to fill some void.

I don’t know what the void is particularly. I think just all that is going on. Now that I am on an antidepressant, I don’t cry as much unless I am really sad which doesn’t happen often. Now I am holding in whatever I am feeling since I am not crying it out weekly or daily like I once was, though I will pick this over that. It could be a range of things. My job has been extra stressful. Changes are happening. I’m wanting to go somewhere that isn’t where I’ve spent most of my time the past year.

I like to say I am both an extrovert and an introvert.

I believe if anyone were to spend this time living and working at home alone, I would be one to be able to do it. I can be a homebody. I also strive when around people. I do have a few people that I get to see and be around during this time. That is usually once a week or so. That’s still six days and sometimes more, alone. Most of the time I am good and would pick staying at home. Isolation still wears on you. I am feeling it extra lately.

Though I am trying to kick my emotional eating, I am trying to remind myself that it is okay. I am in a world dealing with extreme things that I have yet to experience in my lifetime. The same goes for many of us. Like many that don’t stop you from being overly self-critical.

I have gained twenty pounds in the last year, though I don’t think I can blame the pandemic for the full twenty pounds. I am at that stage of becoming a woman ha. I am worthy at the weight I was, what I may be in the future, and what I currently am.

During this time I am learning how to love myself and not be so critical about myself. I am always going to be my hardest critic. I think no matter what age, but in your twenties, you get discouraged because you aren’t where you thought you were going to be. Or where society tells you where you should be. For example, I think as young adults we think we need to have a certain paying job by a certain age. Where some get a high paying job sooner, it is normal to be at an entry-level job getting paid something that barely gets you through. Life is a bunch of ladders you have to climb up. Life is also falling down ladders and climbing another one.

For some people it’s not getting married by the age they thought they would. There is no correct age for anything in this world. Something that has taken me a long time to believe and be okay with. My mom lost her husband and daughter in a house fire about ten or so years before I was born. She was barely making it up any ladders after that happened. I wasn’t supposed to happen for many reasons. Then I came just months shy of my mother’s fortieth birthday.

I think I have had a hard time being okay with “slowly” getting places in life because in my head I don’t have that long. I come from a family that barely makes it to sixty if that. Both my mom and dad didn’t even make it to sixty. My aunt was sixty-three when she died. That has given me a slight push to have a child earlier on because I don’t want to have a child and then leave them in this world like I was.

We can only be in charge of so much in our life. The rest is unknown.

I watched a documentary on Netflix about Nina Simone. I have been a big fan of her music for years now, but I didn’t know much more about her. She was an activist for black lives as she was in the era before and during the Civil Rights Movement. I will never be able to understand what it is like to be black no matter what era it is. I can’t fathom what it was like to be a black woman born in the 1930s. A time of extreme segregation. Then on top of that, physically abused by her husband and father of her child. She had a personality that was so focused on activism. So many of her songs were about that. There was never an off button, like most people. Later on in her life when medicine advanced she was diagnosed with being bipolar which then explained a lot of what she dealt with, especially when it came to her mental health and her feelings towards life and people. To be a black woman in the time that she lived and add bipolar disorder on top of it. Amazingly, she made it as far as she did with two life long struggles.

I know personally how it is to live life with the constant struggle of bad mental health. My mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, something I have feared developing (though I do struggle with something else that can be mistaken as bipolar disorder). It’s almost impossible to understand unless personally dealt with. Depending on how extreme it is, it can destroy a life and relationships. A lot of sacrifices are made for the person and those around them.

This is a reason why I believe it’s important to raise awareness of mental health. Invisible illnesses are just as valid as any that are visible. Even if you may not know how it feels to struggle with a mental illness, it is still possible to support those who do. Even believing what someone is feeling is real can be a big thing. You are going to find people who are unable to grasp the struggles of mental illness. Even me, someone who struggles daily with her mental health in extreme ways will never fully be able to understand how Nina Simone felt with her struggles of mental health. It’s important to find people who either understand or can do their best at understanding why you may think or respond in the ways that you do. I have people from one end to the other in how they respond to how I feel. For example, my friend Bri and I deal with social anxiety. We can text each other and let the other know the reason we didn’t respond as quickly was that we were struggling extra at the moment.

It takes a lot of grace on both parties. You have to be understanding and open to criticism and have the ability to learn. Even when it came to me being with my friends who were black I noticed how they would respond to certain things I said. There was one time that I said something that they took me as assuming instead of it being a question. With that interaction, I learned that I should change how I say that next time. Though I may have not meant any harm, doesn’t mean they haven’t dealt with many others who did.

There is a lot of misunderstanding in this world full of people with big egos. You are going to be wrong. You are going to make a mistake. You are going to offend someone. That’s why it’s so important to be understanding. Two people with bipolar disorder aren’t going to have the same issues. Two people of color aren’t going to have the same experiences, let alone a black person and a white person.

Check yourself once in a while. There are always ways to improve yourself in how you respond to others.