Monday night, I kept waking up wishing that what happened that day was just a bad dream. My breathing shallow, my thoughts racing, I felt anxious and unsettled.
Daphne was killed? Is this real?
I barely got any work done on Tuesday. The moment I began to form a sentence, I was interrupted by a whatsapp message or a Facebook update. We were all trying to figure it out, asking each other questions and throwing fragments of information towards each other in the internet sphere.
“Breathing is painful because my chest is so heavy and tight. It hurts!” she cries, holding onto her chest. “I’m so tired. I’m so tired.”
Most of us can relate to my client’s experience. Sadness and worry that stays with us for weeks. That nagging feeling that something’s not right and an overwhelming urge to no longer feel this way.
“It feels like there’s a weight in my chest.”
Like a lot of teenagers, when I was 13 years old, I had difficulty processing my emotions. Some experiences had left me very emotionally raw, and I didn’t have the life experience to know how to process them and cope.
Overall, I experienced a lot of disgust and shame. At a time when so many changes are occurring physically, I projected those awful feelings onto my body. I felt fat and ugly. I would watch women on MTV and wish that my body could look like theirs.
I tried to diet to get rid of these horrible feelings. I thought that if my weight would go away these awful emotions would as well. After months of grabbing my tummy and wishing it would disappear, my self-loathing grew so huge that I decided I had to find a way to make myself smaller.
Dear You,
I came across so many nourishing things this month and I want to share them with you. Keep reading for a chance to win one of my favourites…
Do you remember being 20 years old and having a plan for how your life was going to pan out? In my 20-year old mind, I would go to graduate school at some fancy school in the States, I’d be married to my then-boyfriend by the time I was 25, and I was totally keen to have my first child by 28. I’m 30 and none of that happened.
I know there are times when you feel like you’re not doing as well as some other people. Maybe it looks like they have it all together: good job, good relationship, money in the bank. And where are you, right? Maybe you’re in a job you don’t like, or you can’t seem to make a relationship stick, or maybe you just manage to pay your bills. Whatever it is, we all go through times when we feel like we’re just not good enough.
