Finding myself again

Dear All,

I'm sorry I didn't update in so long.  Truth is, I lost myself over the past months.  I got too caught up trying to help people and lost myself.  Let me explain my thoughts, because today I finally realized everything and started to care about myself again.

I was wondering why I was so lazy the past few days.  I was so lazy that I left my church work to the last minute, spent hours on Youtube browsing instead of doing my homework (got a zero for not doing it on time), and just didn't have any inspiration for anything.

Then today after talking to the counselor I took a lot of time to think about my life and as I realized more and more about myself I cried more and more.  Not tears of depression, but tears of finally "getting it".  Tears of realization and feeling touched by what I learned about myself.

Most of my life many people kept on telling me, "don't overload yourself", "take time to be by yourself and relax", "love yourself".  But I never admitted that I had a problem.  I thought I was OK.  I didn't realize that my identity was revolving around other people.  I felt the way I could be happy was to either make everyone else happy, and my worth would be found in being there for everybody and being the best leader and best friend possible.

I put so much pressure on myself that I started seeing my friends less and less unless they had a problem that they wanted me to listen to.  I started putting pressure on myself to be a great leader, working away for the church, and being strong or appearing strong so that I wouldn't let anyone down.

Don't get me wrong, I was not trying to help others just to feel good about myself.  I truly had compassion for others and I wanted to see them grow.  But I neglected myself and didn't care for my own happiness.  I felt others were more important than me, that I had to be the strong one.

Drowning myself in work, I didn't spend enough time grieving over my four friends who died, I didn't see the counselor for 4 months straight, and I stopped hanging out with Aaron and his friends from church.  Little did I know that I was neglecting myself from happiness.

I found my happiness in work only.  Unfortunately.  And when work became stressful and drama and problems started happening in my life, I clung onto Chris and Golda.  I neglected to turn to my other friends, and when Golda and Chris became triggers because I would have issues with them, I broke down.

Then I only had the counselor to cling onto for help.  I felt alone.  However, slowly I started getting help, not just from the counselor but from Nadia and Pastor Victor and Pastor Wang.  I slowly started to open up about my problems again and work through my own issues.

Today I cried a lot because I realized I missed being with Aaron and the church friends at Aaron's house.  Those were the happiest times of my life because this group of friends really showed God's love to me in a way that is so special.  This group would accept you as you are, appreciate you, selflessly give their time and money to help you, a true family.  They would have fun without alcohol ( I was never that big on alcohol anyway ), and have the most laughs like for example at the Christmas and birthday parties.

Don't get me wrong, I have good friends who are not Christian too.  I don't judge if you drink alcohol or whatever.  I appreciate my non Christian friends too.  But what I mean is that my life's happiest moments were at Aaron's house.  And I missed those times deeply today.  These are the friends who didn't give me drama, and if drama happened to me, they would support and pray for me.  They would check up on me once in a while, and they bore with me when I went wild with my so many romantic relationships.

I realized I went wild and dated Christos because I was overworked and wanted to feel wild and free from work.  Christos gave me temporary happiness and support so I clung onto him.  I clung onto the wrong thing.  I went insane from overworking myself basically.

I stopped doing things I enjoyed, such as dancing and singing.  I stopped caring about myself, eating poorly and not even writing much in my blog anymore.  Chris tried to encourage me to care for myself and all that, but I was drowning in drama and my own problems.

I basically sacrificed myself to help people , especially helping Golda.  But in two months time, I am going to move out of Golda's place and move to Aaron's basement.  I think I will become much happier there.  I'll have room to self reflect and care for myself again.  I won't have to worry about making Golda happy or fear of triggering her.  She is doing much better now anyway and it's not fair that I am doing worse.

My brain hurts from remembering all those good memories at Aaron's parties and crying because I missed those friends so much.  These are the friends that I actually really want to introduce to other friends and to Chris, because they are so caring.

I had a good phone chat with Jen today.  She was really happy for me that I finally realized all these things and she says this just means I will move forward from here.  She encouraged me to write the thoughts down so here I am writing. 

Golda knows I'm going to move out and thank God she was understanding.  She knows that this was only a step in my journey and I'll grow more when I'm away from her house, because my "mission" at her house was pretty much accomplished since she is feeling better now anyways.

I'm thankful for Chris who has been supporting me through this too.  Even though he is overworked in New York, he always makes time to talk to me on Skype.

I'm finding myself again.  Finally.  Today I hugged myself and cried.  Finally I learn to love myself again.  My worth is not found in others.  I am loved and cared for.  Today I sang and I went to the gym dance class. It's a start.