The weight that I carry

Lina Love (Me) at 16 summer of 2010

I started this blog because it was for a class. It started to become a way for me to release stress from myself. I face a lot of demons every day. They are a part of me. Depression is something that has been glued onto me since about the time my father died when I was fourteen. The story is not a happy one. One of the reasons why you should not drink or do hard drugs is because they can kill you. When you have a child, it is messed up to leave them like that. Addiction is a beast that no one should have to deal with, but we do. Dopamine is a main factor to addiction. Anyway moving forward. My father was the parent that I knew cared a lot about me. My mom on the other hand, seems for the most part that she only cared for herself when I was growing up. Now I try to see where she was coming from, but with an adult point of view. To understand the adult point of you view, you have to get the story.

Lina Love (Me) at the age of 17

summer 2011

When I was 14 years old my father died. He died February, 1st, 2015 at 3 AM in the morning. I remembered not crying because someone had to take care of my mother. I feel like I never properly mourned him. After he did I just went through the motions. I was able to cry when I was alone, but I still was not able to comprehend what was happening. Why I felt the way that I did, and that I was guilty for it. The more the world around me became hard, I just looked more inside myself. Creating my own worlds, and living in them. My roleplays were just more than me playing a character they were me. I was that character. The character that was based on myself, but better. After a couple months of "mourning" for my mother, she decided to find someone new, because she could not stand the fact of being alone with her child. I was different, and I always knew that I was. It bothered my mother I could tell. She once told me that people did not like me because of the way I dressed. I was 14 at the time, and I was goth. I often thought to myself "If someone does not like me for what I wear, why do I want to be friends with them?" My father always embraced that part of me. He loved me for what was inside. Moving on, after a couple of months my mom decided to try dating. She did online dating, and that did not work as well. Then by September she met a man that would soon be my step dad. He knew that my dad had was gone. As they got closer I struggled to spend more time with my mom. She never wanted to spend time with me. It never was about my well being. The more I tried to reach out, the more I got shoved a side. I asked for help, and to see a therapist that was not my Guidance Counselor. I felt missed understood, and my concept of love was, and still is a bit skewed. A lot of people see love as this magical thing, and I see it as a weird dependency. An addiction so to speak. For most of my life I have tried to stay away from addiction. Moving forward, for the next 3 years of high school I found a small group of friends that made feel slightly better. I dated a guy on and off because I was never sure how I felt about him, but it was better than being alone. He viewed me the same way. As high school went on I masked the pain more. I covered it up with late night gaming, mixed with Netflix and snacking. That was with my best friend David. He has always been the one person that can make me so angry, but I forgive him the next minute. Our friendship has always been this platonic one. We were two depressed kids that all we wanted to do was forget our problems. As long as there was a computer monitor with the Sims, and a video game or Netflix streaming on the Xbox everything was alright. 

Lina Love (Me) age 18 summer of 2012

I have always thought that my mom had a dependency issue. She cannot be by herself. On top of that she never wanted to talk about the bad. If I did something good she was always putting it on blast. She acted like that proud mother. Her image stayed clean. The thought of her child being broken, she could not handle. Instead of getting me the help I need she would discourage me of getting help. She threatened to send my away, because again that was covering up the problem. She would get mad at me for talking to my Guidance Counselor because according to her I made things up. That she was the one that had to deal with this child that has behavioral issues. I was the problem, and that I should stop lying to this poor woman that needed to help kids that actually needed it. My Guidance Counselor saw that I needed help, but she could not do much. I saw my Guidance Counselor on and off through High School. When I left to go to college was when I decided to get help more so. I was in this relationship with this guy, and I knew that I was not right, that I needed to get help. By the time I started seeing the University Counselor, our relationship was doom. This person and I are good friends now. They are one of the few people that truly understand me. We even had professors that "shipped" us. After the relationship ended was when I knew that I had to get better for myself. After the school year ended I did not get counseling again until the following year. That was when I started to go to a full therapist. That helped a lot. Talking to her was where I was diagnosed with an adjustment disorder with depression and anxiety. At first it made a lot of sense. As therapy went along I felt like this is it, but then soon I realized that there was more than just that. Time went on and I realized that the anger that I hold inside was still inside me. It would still escape whenever it could. Sometimes it would come out at people that I cared about. I tried my best to keep it at bay. That was when I went back to therapy, and I am with my therapist that I have today. I am learning to cope with how I feel, and the anger that I hold. The mood swings that I have. Bi Polar runs in my family, but it is different from that. Anyway I have been thinking about all of this and I just thought that I needed to let it out.

Lina Love (Me) age 19 summer of 2013

Through everything that I have been through. I know the things that I have been through did shape me in away. I sometimes feel angry and wish things could have ended up differently. Maybe my mom could have thought less about herself, and more about her daughter that needed her to be a parent. Instead I help onto everything. I did not know how to be happy. To be happy, you have to find your path. You cannot just shut off the world like that. I hurt a few really great people like that. I shut down and I closed them off. Some of them still talk to me, and to that I am thankful for.

Lina Love (Me) age 20 summer of 2014

Sometimes we let people in our lives that should be out of our lives for good. With therapy I learned that it is natural to cut out people from your life. Sometimes they are poison to your well being and that is when you have to let them go. I also learned that a good support group will go far. Some are lucky to have their families. My friends are my family. I have a bunch of really great group of people that I met online. They made everything a lot less bad. There was a time where I wanted to hurt myself, and I skyped one of them. He was not going to let me off the line until I felt better.

Lina Love (Me) age 21 

Now

Finally, it is one step at a time. You have to make yourself better. At the end of the day, you live with the person that you are. Recently I had a falling out with someone. With support of my friends I realized that I was great. With watching a lot of the Gilmore Girls I also learned that if someone does not want to be with me whether to be friends or more, then that is alright. That is alright because then that means that someone who wants to be with can be with me. Surrounding yourself with people that want to lift you up, and see you raise is one of the best parts. A quote that I often say to myself is "We accept the love we think we deserve." It is from a book. "Perks of Being a Wallflower." To me that quote means, we give ourselves less credit than we should. We all deserve greatness in our lives. Don't take less than you deserve. I still have to tell myself this to this day. I am still on the path of happiness. Some days are harder than others.