This is my journey through emotional triggers, quiet strength, and learning to believe in myself. Growing up with something I didn’t know I had, meant facing up to the fact that I'd have to life with mental health challenges. Those challenges shaped every part of my life. Every day was a mental and emotional struggle. Adding to that now is the loss of my twin, and the path forward feels even harder; it's more challenging.
Yet here I am: still standing, rebuilding, moving forward, trying to make a new life on my own terms.
Self-belief carries me. Even when my confidence has known to falter, my self-belief remains. It's quiet, it's not loud, or showy. It's the inner knowing that even though I may not always feel strong, there is a strength in me that is real and unshakable.
My upbringing didn’t nurture confidence. Instead, it left me with emotional triggers that I continually have to work on. Triggers that continue through situations I have little control over. I am lucky I have my writing. It's teaching me what I should have been taught all those years ago: that my voice matters – that no matter what, I need to sit with my truth.
Healing doesn’t always make itself obvious. Healing is a slow process that takes time and starting over isn’t easy. Doing it while working with triggers, navigating loss, and coming to terms with a mental disability, a changed life and without my twin, makes it even more complex.
But self-belief continues to remind me:
Some days, everything feels heavy, other days I cope admirably, but my life is forever changed.
