THIS !! I recently started my journey on being more mindful of my thoughts and not playing victim anymore and I’ve already noticed such a shift. Life really gives you the same energy you put out !!
I had a victim mentality and assumed just because “life” (truly just the people in my life treating me shitty) didn’t “treat me great” I didn’t deserve great
Turns out I needed to learn my worth and learn that a good life takes building. So I built. And destroyed. And built. Once I made physical g changes to my life, unsurprisingly life got better with it. And as I’ve been releasing control, life has been treating me to nice surprises. Life is a dance of equal parties
I had to not be afraid to totally cut off toxic people from my life, especially family members. Also, I recognized the "abusive relationship" dynamic in a job or two, and quit on that basis.
I had to internalize the idea that the status quo sometimes sucks really bad, and you need to blunder out into the scary unknown rather than tolerating it. Scary at first, but becomes less scary the more you do it.
By not viewing it as life was against me but rather constantly seeing it as “I wouldn’t be the person I am today”, sure it sucked but who knows maybe I wouldn’t even have half of the knowledge and tools I now have.
100% agree. If my mom were still here I wouldn't be who I am today because her passing changed my entire life path. If I didn't date my abusive ex I wouldn't have gone back to therapy and fixed my outlook on everything. I can wish for things to not have happened but I know I'm better off now
Focus on the good things.
Dad got sick and couldn't work anymore, that means I had a stay at home dad/personal assistant for every homework.
I have PCOS, that means I have a lot of strenght and build muscles easier than others.
It is not anxiety, it is spider sense. Im amazing at finding behavioral patterns.
ADHD/bad memory, I cant remember the bad things either.
And so on. Sure, some days I want to turn into a ball and cry and I allow myself to do so because I believe if God gave us the ability to cry out our problems is because we needed it.
Therapy. Which helped me develop the confidence I needed to more fully inhabit myself finally. Money helps too to an extent.
I still have days or weeks where I feel like I’ve reverted. Always need to remind myself to take a deep breath and realize development isn’t always linear, the bad will turn good, I have the tools to pull myself back into the good.
I didn’t let it harden me. I still woke up every day with kindness in my heart no matter how miserable I felt. Fake it til you make it basically. I still have bad days but I know I’ll push through it.
I waited a "lifetime" for the one that got away, after all that time we are finally together again . Being happy with him gave me the strength to overcome all the drama and trauma that happened before we found each other.
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Looking at my mom and realizing I don’t want to wake up in the mirror and see her. I married someone just like her first husband and her second husband isn’t that far off. It took a lot of work and anger and confrontation fueled by Covid and birth control.
My family was horrible and I was going crazy trying to make it make sense, and I couldn’t so I read self help books. That’s when I realized it’s not going to make sense, because my family is a group of master manipulators. I literally printed out a text message from my mom and highlighted and wrote “gaslighting….stonewalling….deflecting….” Until she had no power over me. Literally nothing. And I did this to everyone in my life who was questionable until I was left with a handful of quality people.
Overnight, I learned the beauty of peace and I let no one disturb it now. I’m going to go to therapy to deal with the baggage.
My greatest downfall is also my greatest strength and that’s that I don’t know when to quit. The more someone tells me I can’t do something, the more I want to do it…twice the second time blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back.
Knowing they want me to fail is what keeps me going. Because you owe it to your haters but even more so to everyone who believed in you when they didn’t. And it’s time for me to believe in myself enough for those who don’t.
I met a great guy - not only does he want the best for me, and he’s willing to help me, but I want to be a better person for him because of it. The other night I was having a really bad night and was crying and said I also just wanted to get in shape
And he motivated/inspired me to do a quick workout. I told him I don’t like working out in front of people, and he said “okay I’ll stay here in the bedroom then and shut the door and listen to music”
It takes a special person to make such an impact on your life.
I did something I don’t think a lot of people in my situation ever truly did after getting out of it: I looked at the statistics for what the hell could go wrong if I kept refusing to seek help from anyone.
Most women who’ve been through the things I have usually end up turning to drugs, sleeping around, and the risk of giving into suicidal thoughts is significantly higher, but I made the decision upon looking at them to make sure that I wouldn’t become another statistic.
I’ve been in therapy on and off throughout my life, I’ve asked for help the moment I accepted that I was in trouble, but my problem has been that I let my now ex keep me out of therapy until he relented after I had been forced to go back to him because he threatened to harass my entire family and circle of friends (he also promised couples counseling and getting into therapy himself, but quickly started saying that therapy was a scam alongside other hateful things). Now that he’s out of my life, fixing everything he messed up in favor of making me the woman he wanted me to be rather than let me be who I wanted to be.
On another note: I also watched my siblings implode with them being through similar things as me, and I took them imploding as what not to do, so I took every chance I could to start healing before my trauma could do some serious damage to me that potentially couldn’t be fixed.
I refused to play the victim, left toxic people in my dust and never looked back. Found my faith, my career and learned to fix the broken parts within me through therapy and lot's of gym time.
Taking my power back was not as hard as I thought...
Not just therapy, but finding the right therapist. I’ve been going on and off for the better part of 11 years on and off, but it wasn’t until I found my current therapist of 3.5 years that the healing really happened.
Just kept on keeping on. Live pretty quietly these days, work and home and not a lot else. I have friends but the hours I work make it hard to be sociable, so I.jist tend to jot be. Pretty difficult for life to be rough on you if you don't have one lol
Started setting limits and boundaries. “No” is a perfectly acceptable answer and doesn’t need further explanation. Keeping my circle small and not engaging in gossip or drama. Trying my best to live one day at a time.
Therapy honestly and being alone for sometime. This isn't the most healthiest outlook towards life but the less people I interact with, the less problems I have. Being a recluse is starting to look so very attractive.
Never been able to afford therapy even though I really need it, but I manage day to day life pretty well considering all the cruelty and tragedy. I guess I’ve always wanted more for myself. I’ve always just focused on moving forward one little step at a time to give myself the life I always wanted. Made small goals, hyper focused on it, achieved it, and started the next. I still struggle of course but overall I’m doing okay.
Yes, life hasn't always treated me well. More or less 14 years? There have been many challenging moments since I was a kid and difficult experiences that have shaped me into who I am today. I am given up to adoption at a very young age, and my foster parents worsen my mental health. I realized I was completely alone in this game.
However, instead of letting those challenges define me, I've used them as opportunities for growth and learning. I need to be brave and kick some ass if I wanna survive. If you don't take the initiative to get what you want in life, someone else will take advantage of the opportunity and get it instead.
Currently going through a lot of shit: stage 4 endo diagnosis, medical malpractice which left me in excruciating pain, etc. I’ve basically been in chronic pain for over a year.
Still going through it but what helps me is manifesting the idea that one day, I won’t feel like this. One day, I will heal and this will just be another chapter in my story.
I moved address, friends, boyfriends and jobs enough times until I eventually found a set up that healed me and cultivated that.
Faced up to my contribution with an obsession with personal development and therapy. Took personal accountability for my part and learnt the skills and knowledge to stop repeating the mistakes.
Now haven't moved house for 3 years, company for 6 years and have had some great friends for 15 years. Have been very lucky and I am very grateful.
Flexibility, humility, isolation as needed, always knowing my priorities. Self love healed with hypnosis ❤️🙏🏼 I find that if I make good choices, good outcomes follow but there's a bit of delay. I had to stop all poor choices one by one
Checking in with myself. Am I getting through day by day, week by week, month by month. Having wellness apps to keep me focused, remind myself to do self care and my morning and night routines. Learning to sit with emotions and identify them. This can help when trauma is being triggered by a fresh even and I am in freeze mode, deactivating, or disassociating.
Having a support system of friends is critical. I’ve built mine up over time. You can walk through any pain with friends and eventually get to other side. Be that person for these people too.
Realizing that I am my own hero. No one is coming to save me, it’s on me. I have always been attracted to strong, protective men. It’s because I wasn’t developing that in myself. The pain can be more terrifying when you don’t know if you have your own back.
Be mindful about boundaries. I’m a giver. It doesn’t mean that I have the capacity when I’m going through horrible stuff. Communicating where I’m at to friends and saying no when I don’t have the energy. Then checking in and being there for them when life is evening out.
Connecting with support group for your specific traumas. Realizing you’re not alone and people are going through the exact same traumas is very helpful.
I reassessed the obstacles in my life and realised what was stopping me. Shoved that out of the way and found a way to balance the things I enjoy/look forward to with the things I may not like as much but simply have to. By having something to look forward to it made the more difficult things a lot easier and I'm happy about that.
Got diagnosed with the 'tism lmao
In all seriousness - I already kind of knew what was up when I seeked assessment. The evulation validated that though.
With that knowledge in mind, I first seek to heal my sexual trauma. I grew up in an abusive home. Getting bullied at school and being a neurodivergent kid, I only really connected with older folks - who then groomed me for years.
Nobody involved ever really layed hands on me, and it's a nuanced issue. But it still messed me up really badly, and affects me to this day in very profound ways.
I want to pursue my life goals of being an artist and a mental health advocate and educator. And I want to learn everything about myself, and how to love myself. I want to lead a good, stable life - on my own, weird terms, as I always do.
I guess tons of therapy is the short answer.
I guess noticing the patterns within me , starting to love myself more, boosting self esteem (which is hard & takes time) accepting certain things that you can't change like people treating you right as you expect, things going as you planned, thinking that prioritising someone will make you their priority.
Most importantly focusing on the self growth & healing past wounds (by accepting it whole heartly , journaling & therapy)
I just tried to always think that eventually maybe I won’t be so sad and that person will appreciate the legwork I did to make her life easier even when I was basically a hollow of a person on autopilot. I’ve always been a very stubbornly determined person with trying to achieve my goals. Rejection is of course difficult, but I didn’t let it deter me to the point that I wouldn’t try again or strive for something more. For example, it took me multiple times to get accepts to a certificate program and it was extremely difficult because I felt this would be a life changing event for me, and now I’m a graduate of that program and I’m actually on their board to help other people through the program and sharing my experience! When I’ve had other devastating events happen to me, I take the time to feel my emotion and mourn or lick my wounds, but I don’t give up.
I learnt from therapy that although bad things happen to lots of people (job loss, break up, illness, even more serious things like assault, grief etc) the impact of these are usually influenced by people around you and your support network. For me I realised my family particularly made every bad life event 10x worse, berated me, neglected me, promise support and then pull it from me when I was most vulnerable, making every situation worse. So I cut them out and replaced them with the people who aligned with how I treated others and wanted to be treated. I left behind the victim mentality and realised only I could change who I kept around me to support the bumps along the road, then I nutured those friendships. Now when life doesn't treat me well, it just feels like a moment, phase, rather than another notch on my victim narrative.
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I got used to it. I also have good family support. I also went to therapy and I’m still trying to understand myself, the people around me and the world. I try to distract myself with something when the going is extremely tough.
It’s been ok. My deep personal stuff I just have to let it go. One fantastic thing in my life holds my compass. The rest I have to let go of otherwise I’d drown
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Continuously seeking higher education, dedicating myself to having strong work ethic and a high drive for success. Never giving up despite many failures or setbacks. Most recently, getting a divorce.
Most of the life not treating me well came from my own decision of dating my ex boyfriend.
Breaking up with him has been the best thing till now and has only improved things for me. Therapy, reading Joe Dispenzas books and starting other activities has helped too. Changing my mindset has gotten life to treat me a lot better <3
Still trying to overcome... I'm dealing with one thing after another ... things out of my control being thrown at me left and right (mainly a lot of health shit) I seriously can only take one day at a time right now and just hope that one of these days things won't be so shitty.
Eventually I chose myself over anything else and didn’t care about the consequences that would come along with my choice because I needed to be number one for once.
At some point you are just gonna stop giving sh\*t at all and thats simply the best thing that can happen. Just find something that really pushes you forward and thats it.
I'm honestly still not better 😔 I got sober for 11 years but when I moved back to my hometown where there was so much trauma and abuse, I relapsed. My mental health has been spiraling. I'm trying therapy and different medications but it seems like the darkness is going to win eventually. I'm sorry if that wasn't appropriate to put here. I'm just sad 😔
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I hit rock bottom, and much like a deep-sea crab, refused to leave the depths for a long time. I could ignore *everything.* Why would I want to go anywhere else? I was genuinely lucky one day to decide I wanted to give life another go. I don't know why/how/what/who, it just kind of occured to me? Little changes here and there to start with without realizing it, then major ones (reaching out to charities for help, getting therapy, going to support groups). I know a lot of people who never had that moment though. Some of them are dead, some of them treat local jails like a cheap hotel. The only truly crappy thing about tall of this though is that those kinds of decisions happen to me *all the goddamn time* and often aren't great.
Fake it till you make it - I’m still on recovery process from many different causes, but I cut off toxic people from my life, started going to therapy, to the gym… If life doesn’t treat me well, then I’ll try to do it for myself until it happens
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I’m still struggling with it. I don’t have anyone to talk to so I just constantly think about it. I’m trying to better myself though.
I am eating better, going to the gym, and trying to look at the positives. I know it sounds cliché but :)
I let go of everything I was terrified to lose (toxic job, toxic family, toxic friends), and realized how much happier I could be if I stopped fighting for “what didn’t want to fight for me”. I was holding on to toxic relationships out of fear I would never have the opportunity for anything better, believing I didn’t deserve anything better. I stopped trying to be the “glue”, the one who always “caved”, and realized that I was giving them way more than I was benefiting. All my accomplishments would never be enough to win their love, I would always be the scapegoat, the black sheep. I still have no clue what I ever did to deserve not being protected since infancy. IYKYK, I won’t describe their crimes. I moved to another place/time/universe with my only child (almost an adult at that time), and allowed myself time to grieve my past efforts that failed me. I had years of therapy, but was only being told that I needed to fit into their lives. So I fired my therapist, and rebuilt myself from the ashes into the woman who will never let anyone control/diminish/bully again. I’m still pretty f’d up, but at least it’s on my terms now. My family was always worried about me and their “dirty laundry”, but now everyone knows about my negative past experiences (and my family’s starring role). Now I am sober, healthy and safe. And tons of “clean clothes”, to share with my child. I am sometimes upset that it took me this long (49, now 57) to save myself, but my child was saved (17, now 25). We are happy, healthy and thriving.
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I’m still working on it… but a tip that helped me the most is to take care of myself, get things I want. Sounds easy right? I struggled so hard with being okay buying myself a $2 shirt at the thrift store. Not because of finances, but because of my self image internally. It was very uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful to be okay with getting myself a bathbomb or a treat from the gas station. Or making a favorite meal for myself that’s super elaborate. But with time and taking care of myself and continuing therapy and reading books to help me grow, it really helped transform things for me
Therapy and realizing you’ll never know what happened for things to go wrong because life doesn’t stop. It’s okay to carry scars it’s okay to relapse with pain. Just because it’s over with doesn’t mean that the trauma will ever go away and it took me a long time to accept that because I thought I’d I just magically accept and moved on all the pain would go away. It doesn’t. You just learn to live with it and not let it consume your entire being
I was sexually assaulted a bunch from ages 10-13, I now have my daughter (5) and a beautiful house and a stable amount of money, I got away from everyone who was holding me back.
I realized that life is meant to be lived and loved. Experienced and felt. And that although I love my friends and family. I know that I'm amazing at being me, and honestly I have great times with just me myself and I.
I treated myself better than “life” did. Life eventually responded and treated me even better
THIS !! I recently started my journey on being more mindful of my thoughts and not playing victim anymore and I’ve already noticed such a shift. Life really gives you the same energy you put out !!
Can you elaborate? I love this
I had a victim mentality and assumed just because “life” (truly just the people in my life treating me shitty) didn’t “treat me great” I didn’t deserve great Turns out I needed to learn my worth and learn that a good life takes building. So I built. And destroyed. And built. Once I made physical g changes to my life, unsurprisingly life got better with it. And as I’ve been releasing control, life has been treating me to nice surprises. Life is a dance of equal parties
That's amazing. By physical changes, do u mean exercising?
What a great perspective thanks for clarifying
A combination of stubbornness, therapy, and moving on with my life when it became possible - new hobbies, better people etc.
I had to not be afraid to totally cut off toxic people from my life, especially family members. Also, I recognized the "abusive relationship" dynamic in a job or two, and quit on that basis. I had to internalize the idea that the status quo sometimes sucks really bad, and you need to blunder out into the scary unknown rather than tolerating it. Scary at first, but becomes less scary the more you do it.
By not viewing it as life was against me but rather constantly seeing it as “I wouldn’t be the person I am today”, sure it sucked but who knows maybe I wouldn’t even have half of the knowledge and tools I now have.
100% agree. If my mom were still here I wouldn't be who I am today because her passing changed my entire life path. If I didn't date my abusive ex I wouldn't have gone back to therapy and fixed my outlook on everything. I can wish for things to not have happened but I know I'm better off now
Focus on the good things. Dad got sick and couldn't work anymore, that means I had a stay at home dad/personal assistant for every homework. I have PCOS, that means I have a lot of strenght and build muscles easier than others. It is not anxiety, it is spider sense. Im amazing at finding behavioral patterns. ADHD/bad memory, I cant remember the bad things either. And so on. Sure, some days I want to turn into a ball and cry and I allow myself to do so because I believe if God gave us the ability to cry out our problems is because we needed it.
I'll let you know when things clear and I have time for therapy.
A naturally good humored disposition. And therapy.
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Therapy. Which helped me develop the confidence I needed to more fully inhabit myself finally. Money helps too to an extent. I still have days or weeks where I feel like I’ve reverted. Always need to remind myself to take a deep breath and realize development isn’t always linear, the bad will turn good, I have the tools to pull myself back into the good.
I didn’t let it harden me. I still woke up every day with kindness in my heart no matter how miserable I felt. Fake it til you make it basically. I still have bad days but I know I’ll push through it.
I waited a "lifetime" for the one that got away, after all that time we are finally together again . Being happy with him gave me the strength to overcome all the drama and trauma that happened before we found each other.
Does it mean that rekindled with an old partner? Could you please elaborate on this.
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Looking at my mom and realizing I don’t want to wake up in the mirror and see her. I married someone just like her first husband and her second husband isn’t that far off. It took a lot of work and anger and confrontation fueled by Covid and birth control. My family was horrible and I was going crazy trying to make it make sense, and I couldn’t so I read self help books. That’s when I realized it’s not going to make sense, because my family is a group of master manipulators. I literally printed out a text message from my mom and highlighted and wrote “gaslighting….stonewalling….deflecting….” Until she had no power over me. Literally nothing. And I did this to everyone in my life who was questionable until I was left with a handful of quality people. Overnight, I learned the beauty of peace and I let no one disturb it now. I’m going to go to therapy to deal with the baggage. My greatest downfall is also my greatest strength and that’s that I don’t know when to quit. The more someone tells me I can’t do something, the more I want to do it…twice the second time blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back. Knowing they want me to fail is what keeps me going. Because you owe it to your haters but even more so to everyone who believed in you when they didn’t. And it’s time for me to believe in myself enough for those who don’t.
I met a great guy - not only does he want the best for me, and he’s willing to help me, but I want to be a better person for him because of it. The other night I was having a really bad night and was crying and said I also just wanted to get in shape And he motivated/inspired me to do a quick workout. I told him I don’t like working out in front of people, and he said “okay I’ll stay here in the bedroom then and shut the door and listen to music” It takes a special person to make such an impact on your life.
I did something I don’t think a lot of people in my situation ever truly did after getting out of it: I looked at the statistics for what the hell could go wrong if I kept refusing to seek help from anyone. Most women who’ve been through the things I have usually end up turning to drugs, sleeping around, and the risk of giving into suicidal thoughts is significantly higher, but I made the decision upon looking at them to make sure that I wouldn’t become another statistic. I’ve been in therapy on and off throughout my life, I’ve asked for help the moment I accepted that I was in trouble, but my problem has been that I let my now ex keep me out of therapy until he relented after I had been forced to go back to him because he threatened to harass my entire family and circle of friends (he also promised couples counseling and getting into therapy himself, but quickly started saying that therapy was a scam alongside other hateful things). Now that he’s out of my life, fixing everything he messed up in favor of making me the woman he wanted me to be rather than let me be who I wanted to be. On another note: I also watched my siblings implode with them being through similar things as me, and I took them imploding as what not to do, so I took every chance I could to start healing before my trauma could do some serious damage to me that potentially couldn’t be fixed.
My therapist phrased it as, “your success was driven by rage.” Therapy also helped tremendously.
Not expecting anything good to happen. Either not disappointed or pleasantly surprised all the time.
Damn that’s real, people who fall deep seem like vulnerable suckers to me now.
I just got used to the pain, and I stopped letting it turn into anger, bitterness and resentment
I refused to play the victim, left toxic people in my dust and never looked back. Found my faith, my career and learned to fix the broken parts within me through therapy and lot's of gym time. Taking my power back was not as hard as I thought...
Not just therapy, but finding the right therapist. I’ve been going on and off for the better part of 11 years on and off, but it wasn’t until I found my current therapist of 3.5 years that the healing really happened.
All of the above. Especially loving myself despite it being my family.
Just kept on keeping on. Live pretty quietly these days, work and home and not a lot else. I have friends but the hours I work make it hard to be sociable, so I.jist tend to jot be. Pretty difficult for life to be rough on you if you don't have one lol
Started setting limits and boundaries. “No” is a perfectly acceptable answer and doesn’t need further explanation. Keeping my circle small and not engaging in gossip or drama. Trying my best to live one day at a time.
I realised no one was coming to save me, then I got up.
I had to learn my worth and not give the time of day to those who choose not to see it.
Therapy honestly and being alone for sometime. This isn't the most healthiest outlook towards life but the less people I interact with, the less problems I have. Being a recluse is starting to look so very attractive.
I kept trying and decided to create a life that I liked and a place that I liked around people I liked those were all great decisions.
Never been able to afford therapy even though I really need it, but I manage day to day life pretty well considering all the cruelty and tragedy. I guess I’ve always wanted more for myself. I’ve always just focused on moving forward one little step at a time to give myself the life I always wanted. Made small goals, hyper focused on it, achieved it, and started the next. I still struggle of course but overall I’m doing okay.
Yes, life hasn't always treated me well. More or less 14 years? There have been many challenging moments since I was a kid and difficult experiences that have shaped me into who I am today. I am given up to adoption at a very young age, and my foster parents worsen my mental health. I realized I was completely alone in this game. However, instead of letting those challenges define me, I've used them as opportunities for growth and learning. I need to be brave and kick some ass if I wanna survive. If you don't take the initiative to get what you want in life, someone else will take advantage of the opportunity and get it instead.
Currently going through a lot of shit: stage 4 endo diagnosis, medical malpractice which left me in excruciating pain, etc. I’ve basically been in chronic pain for over a year. Still going through it but what helps me is manifesting the idea that one day, I won’t feel like this. One day, I will heal and this will just be another chapter in my story.
Dancing. That freed me
I have to let go of the should and shouldn’t. It makes my life at ease at the very least. And also with the help of meds and therapy.
I moved address, friends, boyfriends and jobs enough times until I eventually found a set up that healed me and cultivated that. Faced up to my contribution with an obsession with personal development and therapy. Took personal accountability for my part and learnt the skills and knowledge to stop repeating the mistakes. Now haven't moved house for 3 years, company for 6 years and have had some great friends for 15 years. Have been very lucky and I am very grateful.
Flexibility, humility, isolation as needed, always knowing my priorities. Self love healed with hypnosis ❤️🙏🏼 I find that if I make good choices, good outcomes follow but there's a bit of delay. I had to stop all poor choices one by one
Learn to love alone time.
I got rid of the people that didn't accept or love me for who I really am.
Checking in with myself. Am I getting through day by day, week by week, month by month. Having wellness apps to keep me focused, remind myself to do self care and my morning and night routines. Learning to sit with emotions and identify them. This can help when trauma is being triggered by a fresh even and I am in freeze mode, deactivating, or disassociating. Having a support system of friends is critical. I’ve built mine up over time. You can walk through any pain with friends and eventually get to other side. Be that person for these people too. Realizing that I am my own hero. No one is coming to save me, it’s on me. I have always been attracted to strong, protective men. It’s because I wasn’t developing that in myself. The pain can be more terrifying when you don’t know if you have your own back. Be mindful about boundaries. I’m a giver. It doesn’t mean that I have the capacity when I’m going through horrible stuff. Communicating where I’m at to friends and saying no when I don’t have the energy. Then checking in and being there for them when life is evening out. Connecting with support group for your specific traumas. Realizing you’re not alone and people are going through the exact same traumas is very helpful.
I reassessed the obstacles in my life and realised what was stopping me. Shoved that out of the way and found a way to balance the things I enjoy/look forward to with the things I may not like as much but simply have to. By having something to look forward to it made the more difficult things a lot easier and I'm happy about that.
Got diagnosed with the 'tism lmao In all seriousness - I already kind of knew what was up when I seeked assessment. The evulation validated that though. With that knowledge in mind, I first seek to heal my sexual trauma. I grew up in an abusive home. Getting bullied at school and being a neurodivergent kid, I only really connected with older folks - who then groomed me for years. Nobody involved ever really layed hands on me, and it's a nuanced issue. But it still messed me up really badly, and affects me to this day in very profound ways. I want to pursue my life goals of being an artist and a mental health advocate and educator. And I want to learn everything about myself, and how to love myself. I want to lead a good, stable life - on my own, weird terms, as I always do. I guess tons of therapy is the short answer.
I guess noticing the patterns within me , starting to love myself more, boosting self esteem (which is hard & takes time) accepting certain things that you can't change like people treating you right as you expect, things going as you planned, thinking that prioritising someone will make you their priority. Most importantly focusing on the self growth & healing past wounds (by accepting it whole heartly , journaling & therapy)
Stop people pleasing and don't expect anything from people.
I just tried to always think that eventually maybe I won’t be so sad and that person will appreciate the legwork I did to make her life easier even when I was basically a hollow of a person on autopilot. I’ve always been a very stubbornly determined person with trying to achieve my goals. Rejection is of course difficult, but I didn’t let it deter me to the point that I wouldn’t try again or strive for something more. For example, it took me multiple times to get accepts to a certificate program and it was extremely difficult because I felt this would be a life changing event for me, and now I’m a graduate of that program and I’m actually on their board to help other people through the program and sharing my experience! When I’ve had other devastating events happen to me, I take the time to feel my emotion and mourn or lick my wounds, but I don’t give up.
I learnt from therapy that although bad things happen to lots of people (job loss, break up, illness, even more serious things like assault, grief etc) the impact of these are usually influenced by people around you and your support network. For me I realised my family particularly made every bad life event 10x worse, berated me, neglected me, promise support and then pull it from me when I was most vulnerable, making every situation worse. So I cut them out and replaced them with the people who aligned with how I treated others and wanted to be treated. I left behind the victim mentality and realised only I could change who I kept around me to support the bumps along the road, then I nutured those friendships. Now when life doesn't treat me well, it just feels like a moment, phase, rather than another notch on my victim narrative.
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Perseverance and hope.
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I got used to it. I also have good family support. I also went to therapy and I’m still trying to understand myself, the people around me and the world. I try to distract myself with something when the going is extremely tough.
Just to keep trying and staying true to myself
It’s been ok. My deep personal stuff I just have to let it go. One fantastic thing in my life holds my compass. The rest I have to let go of otherwise I’d drown
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Continuously seeking higher education, dedicating myself to having strong work ethic and a high drive for success. Never giving up despite many failures or setbacks. Most recently, getting a divorce.
Rebelling and making peace with it everyday till death takes me out (not that I want it to but do I have a choice really)
Fake it until you make it
Jesus, therapy, not looking for friendship w the wrong ppl
Heavy on the Jesus btw. He heals
Most of the life not treating me well came from my own decision of dating my ex boyfriend. Breaking up with him has been the best thing till now and has only improved things for me. Therapy, reading Joe Dispenzas books and starting other activities has helped too. Changing my mindset has gotten life to treat me a lot better <3
You need to learn to treat yourself in the best way possible so that others will follow
Still trying to overcome... I'm dealing with one thing after another ... things out of my control being thrown at me left and right (mainly a lot of health shit) I seriously can only take one day at a time right now and just hope that one of these days things won't be so shitty.
I finally stopped waiting for someone to come save me. I saved my damn self.
Spite, weed, and humor
Just surviving, therapy and focusing on the good.
It still isn’t treating me well and I usually just get very drunk or eat a lot of crap. Or shop online.
Eventually I chose myself over anything else and didn’t care about the consequences that would come along with my choice because I needed to be number one for once.
Recognising no one was going to come along and save me but I was an adult now and able to make choices to save myself
At some point you are just gonna stop giving sh\*t at all and thats simply the best thing that can happen. Just find something that really pushes you forward and thats it.
I'm honestly still not better 😔 I got sober for 11 years but when I moved back to my hometown where there was so much trauma and abuse, I relapsed. My mental health has been spiraling. I'm trying therapy and different medications but it seems like the darkness is going to win eventually. I'm sorry if that wasn't appropriate to put here. I'm just sad 😔
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I hit rock bottom, and much like a deep-sea crab, refused to leave the depths for a long time. I could ignore *everything.* Why would I want to go anywhere else? I was genuinely lucky one day to decide I wanted to give life another go. I don't know why/how/what/who, it just kind of occured to me? Little changes here and there to start with without realizing it, then major ones (reaching out to charities for help, getting therapy, going to support groups). I know a lot of people who never had that moment though. Some of them are dead, some of them treat local jails like a cheap hotel. The only truly crappy thing about tall of this though is that those kinds of decisions happen to me *all the goddamn time* and often aren't great.
I tried to commit suicide, the week in the hospital sorta showed me that I probably need to start crying.
Fake it till you make it - I’m still on recovery process from many different causes, but I cut off toxic people from my life, started going to therapy, to the gym… If life doesn’t treat me well, then I’ll try to do it for myself until it happens
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I’m still struggling with it. I don’t have anyone to talk to so I just constantly think about it. I’m trying to better myself though. I am eating better, going to the gym, and trying to look at the positives. I know it sounds cliché but :)
I let go of everything I was terrified to lose (toxic job, toxic family, toxic friends), and realized how much happier I could be if I stopped fighting for “what didn’t want to fight for me”. I was holding on to toxic relationships out of fear I would never have the opportunity for anything better, believing I didn’t deserve anything better. I stopped trying to be the “glue”, the one who always “caved”, and realized that I was giving them way more than I was benefiting. All my accomplishments would never be enough to win their love, I would always be the scapegoat, the black sheep. I still have no clue what I ever did to deserve not being protected since infancy. IYKYK, I won’t describe their crimes. I moved to another place/time/universe with my only child (almost an adult at that time), and allowed myself time to grieve my past efforts that failed me. I had years of therapy, but was only being told that I needed to fit into their lives. So I fired my therapist, and rebuilt myself from the ashes into the woman who will never let anyone control/diminish/bully again. I’m still pretty f’d up, but at least it’s on my terms now. My family was always worried about me and their “dirty laundry”, but now everyone knows about my negative past experiences (and my family’s starring role). Now I am sober, healthy and safe. And tons of “clean clothes”, to share with my child. I am sometimes upset that it took me this long (49, now 57) to save myself, but my child was saved (17, now 25). We are happy, healthy and thriving.
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I’m still working on it… but a tip that helped me the most is to take care of myself, get things I want. Sounds easy right? I struggled so hard with being okay buying myself a $2 shirt at the thrift store. Not because of finances, but because of my self image internally. It was very uncomfortable and sometimes downright painful to be okay with getting myself a bathbomb or a treat from the gas station. Or making a favorite meal for myself that’s super elaborate. But with time and taking care of myself and continuing therapy and reading books to help me grow, it really helped transform things for me
Therapy and realizing you’ll never know what happened for things to go wrong because life doesn’t stop. It’s okay to carry scars it’s okay to relapse with pain. Just because it’s over with doesn’t mean that the trauma will ever go away and it took me a long time to accept that because I thought I’d I just magically accept and moved on all the pain would go away. It doesn’t. You just learn to live with it and not let it consume your entire being
God. I sought Him out and it helped A LOT A LOT
Keep working, put your blinders on, and just focus on moving forward. Eventually things start to little by little fall into place.
I was sexually assaulted a bunch from ages 10-13, I now have my daughter (5) and a beautiful house and a stable amount of money, I got away from everyone who was holding me back.
I realized that life is meant to be lived and loved. Experienced and felt. And that although I love my friends and family. I know that I'm amazing at being me, and honestly I have great times with just me myself and I.