Do you really feel that you have a good support network around you where people are encouraging you to continue achieving?
Do you have people showing a real interest in what you are doing rather than making an emphasis on what they are doing?
Are there people around to support you when you feel like giving up and letting go?
Questions like these we try to avoid as we feel that we are not as supported as we really think we are and to say it aloud makes us feel vulnerable.
I am not the best person in any kind of relationship, and I acknowledge that, and I do not have all the answers to problems I only try to encourage others.
We try our best to stay confident and rely on the valuable feedback that we are getting from all the challenging work that we put in. Although genuine, are these people really a part of your support network.
At times in our lives when we feel fragile, we will need support mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and maybe later, in life, physically.
Support is defined as maintaining, sustaining, and upholding
In my experience, I have found that I am happy to support anyone, (not financially) but emotionally, spiritually, and mentally as much as I can, providing that I have been able to check in with my own health.
People sometimes come across as being beyond help as they seem to never be able manage to move forward.
I was in that situation for years where I found that I just could not move forward from the negative things that have happened in my past. I would use this as an excuse to sit down and feel sorry for myself, to stay in the same depressive state. I felt safer as a pessimist as I felt that it would half the impact of any problem that I may be facing in the future, then my Father died, and I had to wake up and take responsibility for my own behaviour.
It is terrifying to be hiding behind your woes for years and to eventually face your fears makes you want to beat yourself up for all the time you wasted in your mind.
I must admit I am writing this blog because for the past few months I have been mentally and emotionally struggling to make sense of everything going on in my head, I am being mentally tortured in my dreams and awake with thoughts that have stopped me from progressing.
I have been living a lie by denying myself to process and face up to my thoughts by keeping my self-ultra-busy, non-stop studying and working to help others, so I fill every minute of every day to not give me time to think.
I am like a ticking time bomb waiting to explode that is what inspired me to write this at 7am this morning.
I cannot say that I really have a support network as such because I am not one to like to burden others with my problems. But I know I have my Aunt and confidante who lives the other side of the world that I can talk to as she understands me.
I am in no way going to give up the fight and let those demons win.
Therefore, it is important to have someone who is supportive and empathetic, someone who is willing to listen to you and guide you in the right direction, but it is also up to you to put the effort and work in.
I know what it is like to feel emotionally and mentally drained. I have completed nine diplomas in a year and other work-related studies, I have set up my own blogging website and have been doing voluntary jobs that require me to help others mentally and emotionally, and that is what has kept me going.
The problem now is facing the silence, the emptiness as I decided not to do anymore diplomas until next year. I know when I need a break from studying and it was a hard decision to make.
People will see you as confident, driven, and above all, balanced but what is really going on inside you is failure to accept that you can be fragile too.
Being in constant physical and mental pain does have its strain on you and makes you think about the quality of your life, whether it is worth going on.
If you are finding it hard to manage then you need to seek help from somebody who is responsible and that you can trust.
I was so delusional to think that I could just hide behind my work and training and when the problems begin to surface, I made the mistake of thinking that I had ‘superpowers’ to push them away and not the courage to deal with them.
I know that the things that make people happy in life are not the same for everybody. To enjoy these things, you need to be at peace with yourself and try to mindfully manage your mental and physical health.
In everything there must be a balance.
Natalie Bleau
The Scripture of Balance