Ageing, Agency and Adversity

 

In this fallen world each day that comes is another painful day of decisions and choices. Another day determining what is right and what is wrong. All kinds of decisions to make – ‘What should I eat for breakfast?’...’what should I wear today?’...’how can I get through this hopeless, endless dark hole of a life?’.

We are born. As babies we are: fed, washed, clothed. We didn’t need to worry about making choices. We could just cry as loud as our lungs would let us and hey presto an adult appeared to give us exactly what we needed. In fact all throughout most of our school years life was a fairly easy ride. The trickiest decision we had to decide was who we were going to hang out with during lunch break.

Then, those teenage years arrive and suddenly everything changes. Now your a teenager everything drastically becomes important. You have to fit in. The world becomes this big place where things  happen so rapidly and spontaneously, you realize you no longer have shelter. All you want to do is stay on the right track and not get lost.

I have realized that throughout life making wrong decisions are inevitable. The world is full of bad things, bad people, bad lifestyles – drugs, alcohol, violence, pornography etc. Sometimes no matter how many good choices we make we can still end up in bad situations. As someone who lived in numerous foster placements and a children’s home I know first hand how the adversary can take hold of your life and try to break you down into a thousand tiny pieces.

Looking at statistics there will always be a link between bad situations and broken people. That is where we have to decide actually, I want to be an anomaly. Dysfunctional families, addictions, death, divorce – these are the kind of things that break people in these latter days but they don’t have to be.  Light always outshines darkness. If we have hope than we can overcome any obstacle, any trial. Hope for good things to come, nothing is forever. We are all unique and talented and all needed to make up this ever changing world. We can learn from all the bad things that happen to make a better future.

Growing up is a blessing that not everyone gets. The transformation into adulthood will always be hard but I think we just need to remember that we are not alone and that if we stay strong and endure all the tribulations that get thrown our way we will come out ten times better for it with a real understanding of our own identity and our place in the world.

Girl Almost 20

So,

I'm almost 20 years old. I have almost lived one fifth of a century. I will be entering into the third decade of my life in six days. So I decided it's time for a new blog.

Should I look back on what I have achieved over the last twenty years? Probably not. The reason for that is because I have achieved little. I could harshly say I have just wasted twenty years of my life, twenty years which some people aren't even fortunate enough to get.

When I look back on my childhood I see demons. When I look back through my teenage years, I see even more.

I was a child who didn't have the perfect up bringing, in fact it was far from it. The first ten years of my life, I try to erase. Living in a family who made it clear they didn't want me from their actions and words. Ten whole years living a fraud of a childhood.

If I could sum up my adolescent years in three words they would have to be: Lost, hurt & despair.

 It felt like I was pushed off of a cliff top at ten years old and forced to dive into the big wide world whether or not I could swim.

I went into foster care aged ten. I lived in over twenty foster placements in the space of a year and a half. Why did I go through so many? - I don't even know. I was an angry child, who didn't want to live with all of these strangers in these unfamiliar houses.

Aged twelve, I was placed into a children's home - This is where the devil really tore into me. I was a girl who wanted to achieve. School had been the only good thing in my life, the only place where I was safe.

I tried my hardest, even though I wasn't wanted, even though I was surrounded by so many other corrupted young people.

Trying to overcome adversity was one of the biggest challenges in my youth, as I am sure it is for most people.

In the children's home where I lived the other residents were so damaged. They would drink, they would do drugs, they would self harm, they would go out late and not return, they would go and have sex with whoever would pay them the slightest bit of attention, they would get in trouble with the law, they would get expelled from every school they had ever bothered to attend.

That's not how a teenagers life should be is it? Even at the young age of twelve something in me knew that. Something in me knew those things were wrong.

So I tried and tried and tried my hardest to get by, to survive, to not be dragged into the whirlwind of chaos around me.

Did I managed not to get dragged into any of those things? Of course I didn't managed too. When the adversity is so strong within four walls, there's nowhere to turn. I have flashbacks and bad memories I want so badly to disappear. I have issues that I know are going to affect me for the rest of my life.
Witnessing so many psychotic breakdowns, arrests and rushes to hospital isn't going to not leave damage.

I tried to be strong and maybe I was for the first couple of years. But by the time I was seventeen, it was all too much. I overdosed three times in one week. I had paramedics come for a cut so deep that wouldn't stop bleeding. I came so close to having a criminal record for things that weren't even my doing. I have scars that won't ever go. Stretch marks from all the weight I gained, trying to find comfort in the wrong things.

Living on my own at seventeen was hard but it was better by far than living in the children's home. It was still so hard though. No money. No one that cared.

 However I never self harmed again, I never overdosed again. I mean, why would I need to do those things when by eighteen I could legally buy as much alcohol as I liked? I could just go out and get completely smashed and I forget that I was me for a while? And when I remembered who I was and the sham that was my life I could just drink again?
And while I was doing that, I could just drop out of college. Because I was never going to win at life so what was the point in trying?

I wanted meaning in my life, I really did but I wasn't going to get any.

How wrong I was.

So a pessimist - which I am, could look back at all the negatives like I have done and could be sad and dismayed.

But then I could remember that.

- I got through it all, no matter how many scars, how much damage, I'm alive...I made it!

When I was eighteen and a half, meaning got brought into my life. I came to the knowledge of God. I came to the knowledge that I am loved. I came to the knowledge that there is someone who has been through far worse than I have and made it though. I came to the knowledge that I am here on this earth to go though trials, to become stronger. I came to the knowledge that I am a daughter of God, that I have purpose.

I may not of achieved loads in the first twenty years of my life but I have so much more time ahead of me. I am wiser and I have gained so much life experience. I may still get down sometimes - or a lot. I may still struggle to figure out who I am and what I want in life.

But, I know that I can keep going. I know that I am strong. I know that I have meaning.

To anyone who could be bothered to read this, you should know you have meaning to.
To anyone battling depression, other mental illnesses, difficulties - keep going because you are worth far more than you realise.

As hard it was to post this, I feel like a weight has been lifted. I have quite often tried to deny my past and who I was from fear of judgement from others. I now realise that I don't need to cover things up and pretend because any one who could love me, will love me for who I am, flaws and past included.