Undeniable soul while struggling in life
My name is Tracy, and I’m a 49-year-old woman in the United States. I’ve really been struggling, not just recently but my whole life. I have physical and mental health issues as well as financial struggles. Most of my life my self-esteem has been non-existent, and I have barely lived. I’ve learned a lot about life as an outcast, and I’m hoping I can help other people while trying to fix my life. And I need to fix my life. I can’t keep going on the way I am.
Purpose of blog
Before I explain more about who I am, let me just say what I want this blog to be. One of the main goals is to have an online journal where I can talk about my life and, hopefully, have a little accountability for the changes I need to make. But even though I’m still struggling, I know I can help others, and I want to talk to people a little about self-compassion and help people in a realistic way. I don’t want this blog to be about perfection or lie to people with toxic positivity. Positivity is a good thing, but I think too often self-help gurus (not all, of course) just focus on endless positivity and forget about people’s realities. For most of us, we’re not going to change our thinking overnight. I do think it’s possible for people to wake up one day and be a completely different person who changes their life, but it’s just not realistic for many of us. And we do need to deal with life realistically. The other topic I’m going to talk about a lot is believing and trusting in ourselves. I’ve spent a lot of my life being someone I’m not for the simple reason that so many others were telling me that’s who I am. The fact is, I know people don’t know me very well. They rarely get even simple things right about me. To truly know me, the main thing that people would have to know is that I feel emotion very strongly, I just don’t express it. Sadly, there has not been a single person I’ve known who has ever learned this. Yet I let people tell me who I was and am. So, the main components of this blog are self-compassion (we need to have patience and love ourselves when we don’t get it from others), being realistic about ourselves and the world around us, and learning to believe in and stand up for ourselves. I’m working on all of these, still struggling with them, but trying to improve. I’m hoping by talking about my life more maybe other people will do even better than me.
Struggling in life
So now the hard part. I’ll try and explain what has made my life hard and made me an outcast. The main thing that has caused issues for me is how I “seem” to others. There are two aspects of this: the way I look and the way I come across. For one, I have resting bitch face. For those of you who don’t know what that is (so many think it is a “look” we put on our face), it simply means I look bitchy when I have no expression on my face; essentially, when my face is “at rest.” I’m not going to get into this too much right now, but I have harsh enough facial features many people don’t like me as soon as they meet me. I’ve even had people insult me within a few minutes of meeting. Unfortunately, the other part of why I “seem” a certain way is not only bad on its own but it’s especially bad when combined with my resting bitch face. It’s what I stated earlier: that I don’t express emotion like others. I don’t mean I don’t feel emotion; I absolutely feel emotion strongly; I just don’t express it like other people. I don’t even have the facial expressions others do. And I don’t mean I choose not to; I mean I don’t know how. I was actually practicing facial expressions in the mirror when I was a teenager. I spent most of my life thinking I was a horrible, worthless person. Part of the reason I figured out that wasn’t true was because I kept trying to be a “better” person but no matter how much I changed; it was never good enough. People just think I’m a horrible person, but I know that even though I’m not perfect (who is?), I’m not the person everyone thinks I am. And I do know how this sounds. We’re generally taught if everyone believes one thing and we believe something else then there’s probably something we’re just not admitting to ourselves. So, in this case, if everyone believes I’m a horrible person, I must be, right? Except people are just not that good at reading others. Not like most think they are.
Another thing that has caused me to be struggling in life is the fact that I have been physically sick most of my life. This includes symptoms like fatigue, pain, motor function issues, and brain fog. I was one of those people who had such general, undefined symptoms no doctor could find what was wrong with me. In fact, since most people thought I was a horrible person, almost nobody believed there was anything wrong. Thankfully, we still figured out what was going on. It’s a mold toxicity issue called Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS) that has also led to numerous food and chemical sensitivities. Unfortunately, I know what’s wrong, I just can’t afford to get away from mold. This is another reason I need to make some changes in my life. I know now I can feel better physically (and this contributes to my mental health issues, as well) if I can get away from mold, I just need to come up with the money to do that. I may end up monetizing this blog but mainly I want to use this blog to hold me accountable to work on other things to make money, including a website and a small e-book. I know what I need to do, I’m just struggling to keep working on things.
Lastly, there is one final reason why I’m struggling so much in every way. It’s caused by the other reasons and is why it’s harder to fix them. My soul is tired. Living the life I have, getting so much hate, having to push through pain and fatigue (and more hate and disbelief from others), and just plain struggling in life led me to feeling so tired I felt like I’d lived a full life by the time I was 20. I then spent 3 decades “pushing” myself through life – my soul getting more and more tired. I know that to fix it, I need to change my thinking and my life. At this point, I’m caught in a vicious cycle. I’m tired physically, mentally, and spiritually and that leads me to live my life in a way that just makes me more tired in all those ways. I need to break the cycle and make those changes. I guess you could say this initial post is my vow to myself and anyone reading this that I will finally make those changes and start living the life I want. I will be happy and healthy.
What I need to do:
- Work on the blog, website, and book daily
- Start making more money
- Move away from mold
- Once my physical health is better, continue to work on my mental health
