Hello + My Thoughts |

Well, hello there!

I know it has been awhile since I have written on here, but life just got in the way to be honest and I just haven’t been in the writing mood until now.  I’ve also taken a step back from being super active on social media lately too– because I just needed a break. Honestly, I just remember how therapeutic it was to sit down and just write my thoughts down and let it go. So, I thought it would be good to try this again. I know the chances of many people reading it is low and that is okay. Because I am writing for myself and if it does reach someone – I’m hoping it is something they can relate to. I apologize in advance for this long post.

Lately, I have been really struggling with my anxiety in a different way. I’m not having the “I feel like I’m dying” anxiety attacks, but this isn’t ideal either. This time my thoughts have been wandering to negative places that are causing me to be so hard on myself and I know it is not okay.

If you don’t know me personally, I can be known to be a perfectionist. Ever since I was a little girl I always had a vision of what my life should look like at every stage.  I have always been a planner (which can be a downfall of mine). As I grew I wanted to ensure I was doing everything in my power to achieve these life goals I set out for myself at a young age. I wanted to be perfect in school so I could have the perfect job to have the perfect house to provide the perfect life to my kids and future husband. I wanted to be the perfect girlfriend and person so I could have that perfect husband/family, respect from others, not hurt anyone. I always dreamed about my future, the life I planned and the time it would all happen. All these things I was trying to do just ended up putting a lot of pressure on myself and didn’t allow me to recognize what I was achieving or the good person I was, because I always kept thinking I could be more or do better. I always told myself I wasn’t doing enough, achieving enough or that anything I achieved was simply just not a big deal.  This is still the case.

If you have read my previous blogs, you know my life hasn’t been picture perfect in any means. I got pregnant when I was 16 in a bad situation (which had many other attached issues), left when I was pregnant, bullied as child, lied to many times, gone through many tough breakups and dealt with many health and stress related issues. Honestly, it feels like there is always something.   I believe this heightened my need to perfect anything I could to kind of balance anything negative that was happening. Unrealistic, I know.  But the feeling of something going right in one aspect of my life let me forget the negative impact of another situation.

For the longest time, school became my outlet to perfect. I wanted to do well in every class, I wanted to have the highest grade, land honour roll, etc.  This came easily to me, but it also became an obsession now that I look back on it. I didn’t really let myself enjoy certain things because I was too concerned about school.  My reasoning for my obsession was that I was a mom and I needed to do the best for my daughter.

Once I completed school, I didn’t have anything to measure how well I was doing. No one was going to give me an “A” in life and this caused me to constantly doubt myself even more than I was then. This led me to trying to perfect myself. I am constantly picking out flaws in my appearance. I always found something I wasn’t happy with. I begun working out- it made me feel good and helped me feel like I was changing the things I didn’t like about myself. In my head, I was acting on my words instead of just complaining, which I thought was good. I started feeling better and more confident. However, when I had my health issues last year, it didn’t allow me to workout for awhile. This led me to feel stressed and opened the gates to negativity.   I became unkind to my body. Constantly feeding it negative thoughts, not appreciating everything it was doing for me, working out when I was tired (once I was able to and sometimes going against the doctor), restricting myself, stressing my body out. Over the past few months, my struggles with appearance lead to me judging other aspects of myself – my role as a mom, daughter, dog mom, employee, girlfriend etc.  All the positive things I saw about myself in every aspect started to be a second thought and the negative ones overpowered.

I am constantly feeling like I’m not doing enough.  For example, if I spent an evening doing fun things with Mialyna, I somehow would convince myself I wasn’t spending enough time with her or doing enough as a mom.  The same applied to me with the pup, my job, my house, our business, my family, etc.

I would take the dog for a walk and I would think “You aren’t playing with the dog enough”

I would complete a project at work and think “You aren’t working hard enough”

I would save or purchase something and think “You aren’t saving enough”

I would sit down and relax and think “You are slacking”

Don’t get me wrong, I have my days where I am perfectly fine and know I’m being ridiculous! However, there are days where I give into my anxiety and it sucks to let yourself feel down and compare yourself to unrealistic goals. Especially when you know you have so much to be grateful for and that you have a pretty awesome life. 

On top of this feeling of not doing enough or being enough, I have let my past experiences effect my thoughts. In the past, I have been in relationships where I wasn’t appreciated, lied to and taken advantage of. I constantly felt that no matter how much I gave someone or wanted something to work, I was always let down in the end or felt less than to someone else. I never understood how you could make someone your world for so long and then throw them away like they meant nothing no matter the situation and forget them so easily. This made me distance myself.  This has made me doubt people in my life… doubt amazing people who don’t deserve to be doubted. This has resulted in me not letting myself fully be happy as I live in fear of the past repeating itself.   I have become the person who says “It’s better to be negative and think worse case scenario so you are never let down”.

And now I have realized that this is not okay. I realized that I am done letting the people and events who have hurt me have so much control of how I live my life in the present. I realized my need to perfect myself comes from the fact that I was always let down by people and put the blame on myself. I always thought I did something or let people tell me it was my fault even when it wasn’t. So, now I’m trying to be this perfect person so it won’t happen again because I let them have the control to trick myself into thinking I wasn’t good enough.

Well, you know what- I am good enough. It is those people who weren’t good enough for me.  I am perfectly imperfect just the way I am.

I deserve to recognize everything I did and achieved.

I deserve to love my body. My body that gave me my beautiful daughter, my body that has healed many times, my body that let’s me explore and see everyone I love.

I deserve to enjoy my amazing relationship with a man I trust and who cares deeply about me without letting other irrelevant people’s actions affect my happiness, my trust and doubt my relationship.

I deserve to recognize that I am a good person, a good mom, and a hard worker. I don’t deserve to let the anxiety that others have caused me to have to overpower this.

So, if you are currently feeling the way I have you need to recognize that you need to not let your past experience determine your thoughts about yourself and your present. You need to fully love yourself for who you are and not let other people’s negativity or actions affect the way you see yourself.  Stop picking away at the amazing person you are. Stop letting the poor choices of others live in fear of being let down. You deserve more than that.

For those of you who made it to the end of this post, thanks for listening.  Sorry if it didn’t make sense, sounded like I was rambling or was not grammatical correct!

Until next time,

Alysia xo