I found this posted on the work dashboard and figured to share it with you all!

“Advice for my followers: self love addition
You do not have to think every part of yourself is perfect, you can want to change something. But if you find yourself wanting to change it so bad you would starve, hurt, or do something unhealthy, I want you to know that it is not healthy and you should seek help. Those feelings are irrational and can go away with care.

In addition, if your reason to change something is “because people will think it’s ugly.” Or “my s/o wouldn’t like the way I look.” Then yet again it is not healthy and not a good reason to change yourself. They should appreciate you, and if you ever feel degraded or ugly because of them leave.
Everyone is cringy. Every part of your life will be cringy in a different way, that’s just the way it is. You know what that is? Growth. So wear a ridiculous shirt, dye your hair neon yellow because it speaks to you, do your make up like everyday is your big concert. Enjoy life.

Take time every week for a little self love and self care. I don’t mean take a day and go to the spa. I mean do a cheap drugstore face mask, paint your nails, read a book, go on a walk, draw even for just 10 minutes. Or just take a couple dishes out of your room, sweep, take a nap, study for ten minutes, go on a walk even for just a minute or two.

Recovery isn’t gorgeous. It won’t just be eating non fat vegan foods. It won’t always look beautiful, it won’t always feel good. But in the end it’s worth it. Recovery can be eating a salad every day with one meal, or it can be eating three pieces of pizza and freaking out a bit but you still did it and hot damn are you proud.

The truth? Not everyone you meet will love you, someone people are just bad, and some people will just never be drawn to you. Neither of those makes you any less worthy of love and affection.

Self deprecating humor will never get you anywhere. Saying “I’m literal trash.” And “I hope I die lol.” May be a joke at first, but it becomes a real train of though that you are teaching your self, and someday, a little kid will here you say something like that and think it’s okay to do the same thing.
Replace self deprecating humor with overly confident behavior. “I AM THE BEST PERSON EVER!” Is okay to say, it’s funny, it builds confidence and honestly it’s fun.

And last but not least. Every time you start to say something hateful to yourself “I’m so fat, and ugly and worthless.” Or “I deserve to die.” Please take a minute and imagine that you are saying that, you just said that to a little kid. How would you feel? If that little kid was you, when you were younger, what would you tell them? I know I would start with telling him he’s good enough.

Today at breakfast, before work, an old family friend had a sit-down with me and asked me how I was sincerely doing. Automatically I wanted to lie, I had the innate urge to tell her there was nothing I wanted to share… But then she brought up that my late mother’s birthday was this passed Saturday, the 26th.

She asked if I went to the cemetery to see her, to talk to her, and I told her I had. But then she frowns and asked me if I felt any better after or if I was just doing it because that made things seem normal. The more I steeped in the question the more I recognized I never liked going to my mother’s grave and I explained this to her. To which she simply said, “Then forget about going at all.” And I didn’t understand; aren’t you supposed to go see someone’s grave when they die? Aren’t you supposed to mourn them?

“Your mom did a lot of bad things, selfish things. So I want you to be selfish, I want you to take care of yourself and not someone who’s been dead almost eight years.”

Still, I didn’t quite understand… She was my mom. I found it right to go ‘see’ her. But then again… It never did anything to sate my emotions, it wouldn’t make me happier, it wouldn’t help me forgive her any sooner.

“After eight years, Fallyn, maybe it’s time you should live for yourself.”

A bold suggestion, if ever I’d heard one. So as I sipped my coffee and considered this woman I rarely got to chat with, I realized:
I had to let it go. One way or another, in forgiving my mother I would therein forgive myself. Or so I’d heard. And after all this time I’d been clinging to the essence that all of this was MY doing, MY burden… When in reality she’d afflicted more people than I care to admit.

The one thing Paulette made me understand today over breakfast is that I don’t have to support a dead woman anymore, mother or no. I can focus on myself, on those around me. But primarily, I should always be selfish and love who I am becoming.

Throughout my life, I have had many people come and go from my circle. The only people who have never left my side no matter what have been both of my parents. Having endured a very tough period in my life where my mental health challenges were at the center of my life and my treatment was everything that surrounded me, I look at the song from a different perspective. Sometimes, when we go through things in life, they may be too hard to handle or we may just not know how to deal with all of the bullshit life has dealt us so we just explode one day. That may lead us to do things that to the “normal” world may see as crazy, unnatural, insane even, but if you were in our shoes, if you would have dealt with half of the things we have, maybe you wouldn’t feel the same way.

This post isn’t about pointing the finger and blaming though. This post is to inform others that one of the hardest things that I faced when I was going through my period of long-term treatment for my mental health issues was isolation and feelings of being alone. I lost all of my friends and felt essentially disconnected to the world around me because along with the fact that I was away from my home for years, no one reached out to me.

This song means a lot to me now that I look back on those times when I really struggled. I don’t know if things would have been easier for me once I tried transitioning back into the community, or if I would even have more friends now. Nevertheless, I do know that it would have definitely made my time “locked up” way easier because I would’ve known I had people who cared about me besides my mom and dad. Although I am definitely grateful, I was a teenager back then and for me, having your mom and dad by your side all the time wasn’t cool- I wanted friends.

I am grateful to know that if I lost it all today, I know I would have people who would still love me and have my back no matter what. But there are people out there who don’t have that, who will have their friends and even family members turn their backs on them if they ever get “labeled” or put into an institution. But why? Providing support and assuring our loved ones that they will be supported no matter what is one of the most essential things we can do. I know this, because the feeling of having everyone turn their back on you because all of a sudden your “sick” is one of the worst feelings in the world.

https://youtu.be/UQOXG-dsMRY

One of the most magical things about dancing is getting to feel the music in your body- truly feeling each note vibrating through your soul. I know that you don’t have to be a dancer to feel that way about music. Some of the Earth’s inhabitants can simply listen to a song and empathize with the emotion that the artist was feeling when they wrote it.

Those kinds of people are special.

Music has shaped and created my world in so many unique and wonderful ways. Sometimes, simply hearing the first few notes of a song allows me to travel through time and space and take on the emotions I was feeling the very first time that song resonated with me. My favorite memories are associated with music.

At 7-years-old, I was given the gift of the album that changed my life. M!zundaztood is the second studio album that P!nk released, and it’s the first studio album that made me feel. At 7, I was able to identify with things that P!nk, a 22-year old, was singing about. Not fitting in. Being misunderstood. Hating yourself. A broken family.

These incredibly heavy and heart-wrenching topics that an adult was singing about, I understood. I identified with. I finally felt like there was someone in the world who knew exactly how I felt in my most depressive state. M!zundaztood got me through my darkest hours. The more I learned about P!nk, the more understood and important I felt. At 27, she was writing things that made people listen. She didn’t care who she was pissing off. If she had something to say, she was going to say it. I needed someone to show me that speaking your mind is GOING to make you stand out, it’s GOING to piss people off, and it’s GOING to make a difference in this world. P!nk was (and still is) that someone.
For the next 7 years, I survived my darkest days by listening to M!sundaztood and I’m Not Dead tracks on repeat for 24 hours straight.

Her words made me trick myself into believing I was strong, until I actually became that strong person I was imagining. She was putting words out into the world that were encouraging girls (just like me) to embrace their differences and to stand up for what they believe in. I was so proud to sing at the top of my lungs,

“I’m so glad that I’ll never fit in. That will never be me. Outcasts and girls with ambition- that’s what I want to see.”

And then, in August of 2008, my beautiful idol gave me another gift.

She gave me So What?

“So What? What do I have to say about So What? Sooooo what??” she says about the track.
Insert image of a 14-year-old high school freshman just trying to survive. Oh, wait. I have that exact photograph. 

There I am. Age 14. Trying to fit into a world in which I was meant to stand out. I spent many of my 14-year-old days alone, in my room, imagining a version of myself that was impossible to maintain. I was angry. Sad. Alone. Scared of what I was going to become as I entered (and lived through) the high school phase of my life. I was intimidated by everything and everyone. I was bullied by kids I thought were my closest friends. It was hard to get out of bed most of my high school days.
But I always had P!nk with me.

If there were ever a time in my life when I needed to pick a theme song for myself, it would be So What?
14-year-old me lived and breathed So What? (In her defense, 23-year-old me still lives and breathes So What?)
I am eternally grateful that P!nk gave me (the whole world really, but I know it was just meant for me specifically) that song and the attitude that so fittingly goes along with it. There’s just something about So What? that can cure any kind of bad day/ailment/chronic pain that I will ever suffer. So What? is exactly that. So what your day sucked? So what someone was mean to you? So what you didn’t finish your to-do list? So what that mean girl in your class made a nasty comment towards you?

SO WHAT.

For Alecia Moore, more affectionately known as P!nk,
thank you for encouraging me to find the strength I had so deeply hidden inside of me. Thank you for giving me someone to look up to, someone who doesn’t care what the press or the rest of the world thinks of her. Thank you for explaining how terrified you were to be a mother, since your mother always wished you a daughter just like you. Thank you for teaching your daughter, “We don’t say mean things and we don’t say things we don’t mean”. Thank you for all of the good you have done for this world. Thank you for putting into words the thoughts that I couldn’t. Thank you for understanding.

Check this out:
https://www.facebook.com/goalcast/videos/1608313555912495/

All it takes is one person. ONE individual who chooses not to give up on someone despite what their internal struggles may be, and who chooses to see the good in them even if they have yet to see it in themselves. YOU can make a difference in the life of someone who is around you that you may not even think looks up to you. Take the time to get to know a young person, understand the reasons why they act the way they do, and come to know that a little compassion can go a LONG way.

Has there been anyone in your life who has acted in a similar way? Do you think you would be where you are at this point in your life if it had not been for that person/those people?