Author: Amanda Garcia

Today I had the honor to be a guest speaker at a womens empowerment event on trauma hosted by &Rise. It was an incredible experience.

It’s been about a year since I last posted, one long year. I came across a draft that I never published. I didn’t make any changes and clicked post. I look back one whole year. Who was that girl? the sad, depressed one. What was going on through her head? Why did she not feel happy? I really felt in a dark place. I had thoughts about suicide. I was angry and hated life. I didn’t know how to be happy anymore. I couldn’t do it though, take my life. I knew I was meant for more but how do I get there? I spoke with one of my girlfriends about starting a podcast to share our traumatic stories. How do I start doing that? Share vocally to the world. Do I have the courage? Eh, maybe, this blog is a start. Than life got busy all over again. My husband and I did a whole lot of talking in late December of 2018. We cried, we yelled, but we agreed we needed counseling and that was the beginning of change. For the longest I was not giving myself any self care through the time of our marriage or any time before that and letting myself become someone who was not me. In January of 2019 we started therapy about once a month. It was going great. We talk about the good and bad and the terrible. Only after two to three sessions I had a major breakdown. We were doing an exercise on “How do you think your spouse will describe you to others?”  I thought hard, real hard. I couldn’t even say anything nice about myself. Who am I? Not the person I was when we met. What happen to her? I was angry at this very moment. Disappointed in who I’ve become. I realized I needed to take a step back from marriage counseling and focus on individual sessions where I can privately discuss the pain I was dealing with. This struck a light within me. I continued these session once or twice a month depending on how I was feeling. It was hard but I pushed myself to continue to talk about everything. My husband gave me so much support in continuing therapy. I didn’t take shame in what I was doing for myself. I shared with my family and friends that I have begun therapy and after every session I felt one step closer to being myself again. Now, I may have made that sound easy to get better session after session but this was because I wanted to get better. I wanted to be happy again and have peace in my heart. Change is coming I feel it within me. My husband and I have grown closer, better than ever before.

It’s been months since I could take the time to write, not because I didn’t want to but life…it just gets busy and easily distracting. I’ve come to realize that I need to be consistent especially because this blog is my happy place and I tend to forget to take care of me first. I started a new jobs a months ago and I thought this is it, “I finally made it” I have a career, I can pay my bills in full, I have some money in the bank, I can have cake and ice cream whenever I want but I still felt miserable, unhappy with myself, empty and unhappy. I was stuck in this world I didn’t want anymore, still depressed from being laid off, but mostly my marriage. I had been married a year now and it has been by far a painful one, so much misunderstanding immature acts that has left me to fall out of love with my husband. It tears me up just to write that. I have loved this man for 7 long years. Where do I go from here? We recently separated and I’m sad because I feel lonely but than I feel a sense of relief, like I can breathe again. It just hurts because he has been there for me through my darkest moments, fighting breast cancer and my painful childhood demons. What else can any person what? I on one hand dealt with so much pain of why why why?????? Insecurities. After losing my breast at 25 years I lost a part of me, the beautiful happy me. My thoughts consist of, how gross do I look? How does he even find me attracting? There was hope for me. I was depressed.

Today on my way home from work, just like any other day, I’m rushing to make it to the train station to avoid waiting. I get on the cart and begin to read my book. This book is different from any ordinary type, it’s called Emotional Intelligence. I’ve recently taken interest in learning to control my emotions or to have the right emotion for the right situation. As I’m reading and trying my hardest to focus. My attention is slightly taken by a girl who is extremely hurt and upset at her boyfriend/lover. Now, in situations like this I usually zone out and continue what I’m doing. She was loud and vocal about the pain she was dealing with at the moment. I felt her pain, I could hear it in her voice. She was sad, she felt betrayed by someone she truly loved and cared about. I’m not going to go into detail what she was upset about because in all honesty, does it even matter? I was able to relate to her in so many ways because I sometime ago was in her shoes. I wanted to tell her so badly that it is not worth the internal pain. Would she listen? Would I have listened if someone told me that? I can guarantee you I would not. After a few stops, the couple left the cart to the platform. As we road off I heard yelling and spotted who it was, it was the guy, the one who hurt the girl. He was screaming because she did the unimaginable. She jumped onto the tracks, putting her life at risk. Some may see this as a joke or prank to get attention. This was a serious matter. I’ve been there, wanting to get rid of that pain, that internal pain. I’ve thought about hurting myself time and time again for years. Wanting life to go on without me. I’ve felt this from my childhood nightmare, to young love and adult problems. With the faith and the help from my mother, I’ve pushed myself to know I would be missing out. Reminded myself that this pain is temporary. I wish I could have told her that. That she is worth it and no one is more important than yourself. Love yourself.