My reflection of...

 my mental health. This will be triggering for those that are high-functioning anxious and depressed individuals so just be aware of this. 

Since the start of puberty, I have been an anxious and depressed person. I have hidden this side of me to protect myself from those that would take advantage of my willingness to be vulnerable. It has come back to bite me in the ass more than once. Everyone that I have hidden it from is extremely surprised when I come forward telling them that I have issues with my mental health and body image and the fact that I have for years. 

Mental health issues don't show in every person in the same way. The media unfortunately has helped to perpetuate this perspective and stereotype. This keeps the outside world on the outside and never truly able to understand what the person suffering is going through until it is too late most of the time. 

For me, it shows up when I am sick due to overworking myself to the point beyond burnout. These conditioned traits of overworking myself to the point of illness that I need to isolate which I hate more than anything. Isolation is a feeling and emotion that is not enjoyable to me but too much of it can push me over the edge. 

This happened recently around a week ago on my birthday and the day after. I had been ill and was finally getting better but was triggered by a family member on my birthday who called to ask if they could invite a complete stranger to my Master's degree graduation. This was after they got the Happy Birthday obligatory message out of the way! I then proceeded to drink too much alcohol and mix my medicines into the mix. These medicines include anti-anxiety and anti-depressants which are NOT SUPPOSED to be mixed with alcohol!! DON'T BE ME!! This pushed me to the point of asking existential questions and thinking that I would be better, not alive. 

I am doing much better! I wrote this to help others facing their mental health issues alone or are scared to talk about it to others! We all need help at times in our lives! Please call the 24/7 hotlines when needed, I luckily had someone who was staying with me so they made sure I was doing okay and not doing anything suspicious. Reach out to your people because they do care about you! 

My Reflection of...

 Defy Gravity and the Healing Movements workshop hosted and instructed by Athena. Defy Gravity is an amazing pole dancing studio in Urbana IL that I found and started going to over the summer to feel less alone and build a sense of community. I took this workshop in June for the first time and it was great then but I loved it the second time around because Athena made a requirement of having to take 3 classes of any pole level. I have been on fundamentals since this summer mostly because the fact of breaks from dancing due to traveling or school work just bogging me down. 

This second time around I felt that I really needed to feel less lonely and loved that Athena was teaching it again. I had updated them separately as to what I was and am still going through at this time. At this time I am not comfortable posting about the blog or Instagram due to some issues I am having at school. The first time they had offered for the class to show off a freestyle dance to whatever music we wanted. I was not willing to do it the first time. This time around I asked through Instagram first if that was still going to happen and so it did. Everyone in the class did one! It was amazing! 

I decided to record mine to help show how relaxing, reflective, and helpful this workshop was for me! The song I chose was Praying by Kesha. That is a deep and reflective song that I have danced to at home without people staring at me in a dance studio. I chose this song because it is helpful when I need to process something that I am going through that is deep and dark. This dance was a complete freestyle so I just let my body go with the flow which I don't usually like to do. 

So please take a look at the video on Instagram if you haven't already! Thank you for reading my blog and I hope to write more soon! 

My Reflection of...

 Yoni Circle, it will be two years in December since I joined one of my favorite online communities mostly due to the global pandemic and feeling lonely. I was super nervous about joining my first circle because once you get accepted and off the waiting list you are just dumped into this beautiful app experience with really no instructions or clue what is going on or anyone that you know they are all complete strangers. So I signed up for a circle with someone all the way in India which was interesting to me having someone on a polar opposite time than me running this! Her name is Anusha and is an amazing artist and creator that owns a small jewelry business based in India called Wanderlust Art Boutique. 

To give some context there are 4 parts to a circle: Intention, Introduction, Story, and Reflection rounds. 

At the time when I joined the app and community the leader of the circle, Salonniere, got to pick the prompt (or this is my understanding of how it worked at the time this could be incorrect). The prompt that was picked was about Family if I am remembering correctly, which was a slight bit of a trigger for me (still is if you have interacted with me recently, I am working on it with a professional therapist and I recommend you do as well if this is you). When it came to meditation time I struggled to settle down because I was so nervous about doing this correctly. When it came to coming up with my story I was going in the negative direction with the stories that came up in my mind. Any story is valid and I would say that if a negative one comes up it means that you need to get it out right then and there. But at the time my nervous and anxious energy around these complete strangers I didn't want to lead off with a negative story. Anusha started off the storytelling round with her amazingly positive story about her family and I think it was more specifically her mom if I am remembering correctly. Her story prompted me to tell a better story. I don't remember which one I told and I don't have it recorded. 

Overall the past two years have been amazing on this app. I highly recommend this app and community to any woman that wants to feel safe, heal and be able to be vulnerable again. 

My reflection of...

 The overturning of Roe v Wade. This is not something I take lightly at all, especially as someone who almost got one. As a 19-year-old, I experienced my first pregnancy scare with my first very serious relationship in college. This occurred of course after a conversation with my father about what the consequences would be if I came home pregnant with this person's child, option 1 get an abortion, and option 2 give the baby up for adoption if I carried it to full term. He felt that I shouldn't want to keep the child but if I decided that I wanted to keep the child I was going to be disowned by him at least because what he said went and anything that deviated from that he wanted me to no longer be a part of his life anymore. To have your own father have such a condition to his love and affection still hurts me a lot to this day.

Yet when it comes to voting politically he always votes against those politicians that support equal access for everyone to services like abortions. Why be such a hypocrite? Maybe because it doesn't directly affect him as someone who is cisgender heterosexual middle aged white man?!? These are just some of the questions I have been asking myself as I am feeling the aftermath of this overturning. 

As someone who is not ready to have children and this point in my life I will be getting an abortion if I become pregnant with an unplanned pregnancy. The person would be alerted but I would have the last say because it is my body going through this big radical and if they didn't at least buy be a lot of pain killers and provide me with food and heating pads afterwards they'd be out of my live.