Real Bits of Me!

Happy Sunday! I hope you are all having a great weekend. I debated what topic I would write about today and my first thought was about reviewing some new products from the Sephora sale I recently purchased, but the urge to write about my experience at an event I attended last evening is dominating my current thoughts. I will do some posts about Sephora sale items on my Instagram so we cover both:)

This past week was a very difficult one for me and I had to deal with some circumstances that are out of my control. I found my emotions to be all over the place and the constant worry of the unknown was taking over. I was losing sleep, shedding some tears and the alarm inside me was sounding off loudly.

Do you ever find that your thoughts can be so overwhelming at times that you immediately go to a place where you are trying to control all of these things that are really not in your control? I do and I always have to find that voice inside my head that says 'focus on what you can control, Whitlock - and focus on how you react to it.'

I did my best to navigate the rest of the week and get to the weekend where I knew I needed a break from the rollercoaster of emotions I was on. Saturday, I had plans with some friends to attend a fundraiser and I was so looking forward to it.

I attended the 14th annual Women and Wellness event which is a mental health fundraiser for the PEI chapter of the Canadian Mental Health Association. There were three Island women on the stage sharing their stories with their mental health challenges over the years and it was very powerful.

Some of what they shared really hit home as I could relate to some of what they were sharing. As they spoke, I reflected on some of the challenges in my own life and how they impacted my mental health. I realized how many of us when we were children experienced feelings and thoughts of anxiety that perhaps we didn't know how to explain, kept hidden or they just weren't topics openly discussed in that time.

There is so much more information and research at our finger tips now that we didn't know back then. Only in recent years are we openly talking about mental health and trying to remove the stigma attached to it. THANK GOODNESS.

We still have a long way to go, but because of brave women like the ones I listened to last night, it is really helping others realize that it's okay to not be okay. After all, we are human and no one gets to escape the hardships of life and at some point, we will or we are met with experiences in our lives that can impact our well-being. And even some that literally knock us off our feet.

The global pandemic would be just one example of a time where life wasn't easy for any of us. Some of us are still working our way through the aftermath of those experiences and recognizing how it may have changed who we were pre-pandemic.

I have always had a lot of anxiety for as long as I can remember and it wasn't until later in my life that I realized it was something I needed help with. In 2018, I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD).

That was hard for me as I had a lot of shame and kept so much of this part of me hidden for decades. While some close to me would know I was a worrier, no one knew to what extent I worried because they were not inside of my head, heart or body.

If any of you suffer from debilitating anxiety, I am sending you so much love right because I know what you deal with every single day and it's super hard.

Last night comforted my heart because I heard these courageous women sharing their stories maybe not realizing how much they were helping some of us listening that we are not alone. And that it's okay to talk about it and how important it is to support one another.

There are so many women who juggle a lot and their own needs slip to the back of the line. We are raised to be good girls. Through media and other forms of public facing information, we are bombarded with a society that being busy is a positive and necessary way to live. The comparisons of 'well if she can do it all, I should be able to too' is a real thing.

Unfortunately, for so many years, females were overlooked and lumped into many studies that were solely done on the male makeup. The differences between the two are significant so we didn't even know what to look for in females when it came to symptoms and signs because they would not be presenting the same as their male counterparts. The outcomes of past studies, research and evidence-based analysis would not be as relevant to females as they were to males.

In a world that promotes busy and misrepresentation of actual real life situations on social media platforms, it's hard to know sometimes what is reality and what is not. We do not always see that life isn't perfect and that people are living in shame or silence fighting battles alone. And if you are someone like me who is masking everything so that no one will catch on, you are exhausted right now, aren't you?

I hope to someday be as brave as these women and talk more about mental 'strongness'! I call it that because I don't know a single soul who faces mental health challenges that is not strong. Whether they know it or not, they are strong. Even on their hardest days they are strong. Chances are they have overcome or continue to deal with more than anyone would ever know.

In the last five years, when I look back now I can recognize why my own mental health struggles were such a challenge for me. I lost a very close friend and coworker to cancer. My best friend died suddenly. A global pandemic. Said goodbye to two uncles who passed unexpectedly a year apart. My 15 year old doggie Quinn passed. We suddenly lost my dad during one of the most destructive storms in Canadian history. And those are just the ones I am sharing today. Unfortunately, there is more and it doesn't just stem from five years ago but as far back as I can remember.

Trauma is a part of my life but it does not define me. You can try to run from it but you can't hide. You have to face it head on. BUT it will make you stronger recognizing how far you've come and the distance you will go to grow and heal from it all.

My point is, that it's taken until I am 50 years old to ever talk about any of this openly. A good friend of mine said the other day to me 'a secret holds so much power.' I felt that deeply. She was not wrong. I think many things have lined up this week for me to come to this realization. I have a voice and it is now time I use it. It's time to stop hiding and preventing these 'secrets' from holding any form of power over me anymore.

I definitely learned last night that it's my time to share. In this decision, I am truly hoping that I can be some kind of support for someone who is/was like me. Just really afraid that I would be 'figured out'. Trying to hold all of the pieces together and put on a brave face that all is good when really it is not.

I learned last night that maybe I have not stopped to recognize I have not processed my own grief in the past five years. I've been trucking along thinking I have but in reality, I was just trying to get through my days in survival mode. Can any of you relate? I bet you can.

As one of the ladies said last night, just put one foot in front of the other and take that step forward. I may have been more riding my bike at a high speed and just spinning my tires on the road to nowhere.

I want to get off that ride and find my footing. So while this post is likely off the beaten path of what my intention was originally behind my blog, I have decided that anything goes here. It's about being authentic and honest.

So my friends, today I share with you just a small piece of me that I have never shared wider than some family and close friends. Does it scare me? Hell YES it does. But living inside the box I created many years ago is preventing me from being who I want to be.

Anyone out there who is not okay right now, please know you are not alone and connection is so important. There are people who care about you and will support you. I will share more with you as I have more recently discovered other things about me I am currently trying to navigate.

If you are looking for help, the Canadian Mental Health Association can and they have programs and services that may be of support to you or your family. They have a website: pei.cmha.ca you can check out. Or you can call them at 902-566-3034 or by email at division@cmha.pe.ca.

If you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I am looking to interview women for this blog so if you are ever interested, please reach out to me by email at juleswhitlock@hotmail.com.

And before I sign off, here are some things that always lift me up when I am in a hard moment of time: listen to music, read a good book, find a place of peace and quiet, meditate, pray, keep a gratitude journal, write, paint, take some deep breaths, exercise, find ways to laugh and have fun, get outside or hang out with friends/family.

You are loved and you are not alone. xo