Life's Experiences
It was a privilege to be given the opportunity to share my life’s experiences on Positive Pressure. Positive Pressure is a podcast about finding ways to spread positivity in the times we live in. Things get hard but they can always be harder. So It’s important to keep your head up in the now, NOT the negative.
This episode was about embracing life’s traumas. I started the discussion by giving a brief overview of my background. The host asked if there was a specific experience I had that motivated me to write this book. I had many experiences but I think throughout my life I found myself telling bits and pieces of my story when appropriate. People would tell my that I need to write a book and that my story could be a movie. When the COVID hit and we were all on lockdown. I saw it as an opportunity to write more and release my story. Not just for me but for the world. To inspire and encourage others through my life’s experiences and not to be pitied.
The host asked what impact did my past have on who I am today.
The impact is definitely positive. I still advocate for mental health. I am not perfect, I am human and still learning. We all have choices and I may have not always made the right choices. But I wake up every day and I choose my happiness, my self-worth, my peace. As long as we live there will always be challenges and circumstances. Some tools that have helped me to develop strength are:
Acceptance. Learning to Accept. Accepting my whole past as well as unexpected outcomes. I embrace mental health. I still have a mental health therapist who I speak to. I also love music and embrace all forms of music.
In my book, I have a chapter called the Silent Pain. Sometimes when things happen in your past, your voice is taken and you adapt to non-verbal and unhealthy forms of expression. But now I have found my voice and my sense of self-worth.
Would you say your past defines you?
To a certain extent, yes. I always said that my past didn’t define me. In my book I spoke about how I was misdiagnosed with mild retardation but it was actually PTSD. I knew that there was still a learning disability. But I would never quit and it would not prevent me from getting my degree. I had to get to the root of my trauma and not let me statistics or life’s experiences define me.
Trauma, Mental Health & Healing
Mental Health in the African American community.
I think it’s getting a lot better. I love when the African American celebrities expose things that happened in their life that lead them to have to seek mental health. Going through a divorce it’s not easy, it’s like a funeral! There is a period of grieving and we still need to work and provide for ourselves. And if there are kids involved then that is another issue. There is so much we have to do as African-Americans and it’s not easy.
What would qualify as a Trauma
A negative experience beyond your control that affects your life. I had to invest in me and learn to love me. Trauma impacted my life so much that I had to realize that I did not even love or accept me, so how could I expect someone else to love me? My first sexual experience was being molested by my uncle at an early age. This was a man who did jail time for pedophilia but religion and scripture was so dominant in my home and my parents believed he was a born-again christian and his past has been washed away. I remember him crying at the alter in church and the elders prayed with him. This was someone who was supposed to be my favorite uncle and he had broken my foundation from the very beginning and scared me to death with his sexual misconduct. I thought that I could suppress it and I once believed it was my fault.
This also impacted my marriage because my husband’s touch reminded me of my uncle and I had to explain what had happened to me from an early age. This same uncle passed away from cancer and I still had to forgive him and be by his death bed. I still continued to recover with the help of my therapist and not let my past life’s experiences affect future marriages. It was all part of a healing process that I shared in my memoir.
“The race is not given to the swift nor to the strong but to the one who endureth to the end”
~ Daddy Bill
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