My Biggest Flaw

Admitting your flaws is one thing, overcoming them is another. I haven't overcome mine yet, but I try to grow through it...

I become discouraged so easily. It happens in a flash, and often due to something innocent with no ill-intent. Of my many flaws this is the one I would say I struggle with the most. It's frustrating to watch from the inside out, because I am well aware that I take this discouragement to an extreme, but struggle to stop the speeding train of thought that accompanies it. Not to say there is nothing that can be done, but to a discouraged heart, sometimes it feels as if there isn't. After a lot of time spent on self-reflection and working through therapy over the years, I have come to see different sides of myself. In times of weak mental states- when I feel the scales tipping against me and that super train powering up- I now often separate these sides of myself to try and create a dialogue, a conversation to geared towards figuring out what's wrong and how to work through it.

While the "logical me", or the more self-aware me, recognizes the reality of the situation and tries to wake the discouraged, more "broken me", from the illusion that this discouragement has manifested, I find an internal battle taking place that can only leave me exhausted. This is something I struggle with and in my opinion, is my biggest flaw. I tell you this because lately I find the fight to be about My Mess.

This blog started out, as some of you have heard a thousand times already and I apologize for that, as a way for me to write. I was in one of the hardest places of my life and needed an escape. I had been batting around the idea of a blog for a long time, I felt battered and beaten by life at the time, and one day I just couldn't take it anymore. Here's something I don't think I've said before- I had friends over the day I started this. They were laughing and chatting and I was not paying a lick of attention. I couldn't tell you a single thing they said or did that day. All I know is that something clicked inside me suddenly: "I can't take it anymore". I needed something to change because I felt like I was dying inside. I got up, I grabbed my laptop and after minor googling I picked Wix and started designing my blog site right there in front of them. For the first week, I wrote almost every day. I was just desperate to get some of my thoughts and feelings out of my body. Whether that was about deeper, emotional things, which resulted in The Mess, or if it was simply my love and passion for nerd content, which birthed Nerdom.

Though I posted the links, just in case someone was interested (mostly thinking of my friends), I really didn't expect anyone to read it. My Mess was created first and foremost, for me. A way for me to escape, a way for me to write again, a way for me to focus on my passions and find joy in the mundaneness of life. That's all it was and was supposed to be, but people decided to read. Not a crazy lot but way more than I had anticipated. Quite a few people reached out even. That ignited a new sense of purpose in me, and slowly this changed from a pass time to a new dream. I wanted to invest more into this, I wanted to make this into more so that others could benefit from my content and not just me. Before I knew it, the prospect of what My Mess could be slowly became my goal.

But you see...I'm easily discouraged. I am easily overwhelmed by my own weakness. I've been struggling with the lack of progress I've made in the past 84 installments of this blog. Yesterday, it finally broke me a bit, if I'm being honest. Yesterday the broken me's voice was much louder than the logical me, and the logical me couldn't seem to get a word in. The broken me talked on and on about the projects I've been working on keep getting pushed back and would probably never see completion because of my own lack of follow through or even just my fear created by this magnified sense of perfectionism. She talked about how taking my hiatus was the biggest mistake I could have made, and the amount of viewers I lost because of it... and how I'll never recover from it. She talked about my lack of talent, and my laziness. She talked and talked and talked and wouldn't shut up. I went to sleep exhausted from what seemed to be, simultaneously, a never ending fight and a knock out.

I've talked about mental health a lot on here. My biggest message always being: taking one step at a time if that's all you can do, and that is something I live by. I often try to write encouragement on these topics. That's not to diminish the struggle at all, no, it's because you struggle enough on your own, say the worst things to yourself on your own, sometimes you need to hear from someone else that you CAN actually do it. But I should also recognize the fact that you're going to walk away feeling like you've lost some fights with yourself, and maybe you have. I know I have. But let me also tell you this- when I woke up this morning logical Allison spoke first. She spoke quietly, and lovingly, and she told me to go write. Nothing else. She didn't have any rebuttal for all the things broken Allison said the night before. I think because there is no point in humoring lies.

My projects do keep getting pushed back but that's because I work a full time job, and have a house and a marriage and cats and family issues and social engagements and balancing life is hard. But I think I can get there, if not for any other reason except I want to.

I don't regret my hiatus. I was horribly sick and needed to focus on my health, and now I have the best team of doctors I could have asked for after years of dealing with Lupus and my other ailments alone. I needed that hiatus to be better. People will read this or they won't, and though I love what I do here for other people, and I want with all my heart to just be able to spread my heart to all of you, this was indeed my escape first and can continue to be again.

I might not be the most talented, and I can be lazy at times. I hate social media and know my laziness for addressing it IS what is holding me back from expanding My Mess... But what's the rush? My content will still be here for others when they get here, but I'm here right now, so maybe it's okay if this one's for me?

I wasn't sure what I was going to write today. This article is nothing short of selfish- I don't think I'm sorry about that though. I am easily discouraged. That is my biggest flaw. I don't have the strength needed to overcome that flaw right now, but I can take one step through it at a time, and grow through it. These moment's don't come around in the nicest ways, so if you're going through it, I am sorry, and don't take this the wrong way, but I hope you get tired. I hope you get tired of being tired. I hope you go to sleep and wake up and realize that your time and energy are worth more than wasting it arguing with lies a shadow of yourself came up with. Because that voice isn't you and it's words aren't true. You will most likely have to fight them again, maybe even tomorrow, but today I hope you get to be selfish, even for just a moment. And I hope the knowledge of the fact, that simply taking a single step forward is all it takes to defeat this enemy in you, is enough to keep you going.

I'm going to keep going.

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Thank you for joining me on this very personal installment of The Mess. Thank you for reading and being with me on this journey. Thank you for your support and encouragements. Thank you for each step that you've taken to get here. Just... thank you.