With today being the last Reflections Post of the Year, I find it necessary to give a wrap of the year and realize that I am in a better place at the end of this year compared to years past given a multitude of circumstances in my path. I am hoping to start 2023 much better.
If one of the years had to be the year to shine, it would have to be 2022. It has taken alot of growth to get where I was earlier in the year, when I was just green off of letting go of a very toxic relationship from the November before and working more on me and how I could improve my mental health and wellness too. While I had continual struggles in my weight over the current year, there is unwavering wanting to be back in the saddle in 2023 because of a high school classmate dying of a heart attack a few weeks ago. He was a few months younger than me and had so much going for him with children left. Its a sad situation but it made me realize before Chrstmas that I needed to start being serious about my health before its too late.
Mentally, I have learned so much about myself and getting back on track towards the end of the year where I left off when I moved out on my own over 4 years ago. It feels good to be in a good place with family and some genuinity with close ones too. It has taken time to learn what is healthy for me and what isn’t. Sometimes it takes walking from a situation that can be stressful not out of ignorance, but out of my own protection. It takes understanding that in the current paradigm, this is what must be endured and that I need to make the best of the circumstances given. They are not that bad, detrimental or violent, they are just life and I do not need to make a big deal of them like I am a spoiled little brat.
2022 can really be the first true year where I did not have any true meltdown whether inside or outside of my inner circle. This has made me realize that during my last meltdown on July 30, 2021 that others that looked up to me as an inspiration saw me at my darkest and while they understood that everyone has bad days, it painted a picture that I did not want them to see when it could have been easily prevented. I now understand the coping skills I need to deploy in order to manage my emotional health to work to not prevent such drastic circumstances from ever being that possible again.
Mostly it took me realizing that I am an adult man, whether I like it or not and that I cannot always have things my way. Having a meltdown as a mechanism of drawing negative attention to the matter of hand will only make it worse, nor do I want to ostracize others for their freedoms to have what they want or the same, therefore I need to be an equal partner in what must be endured as well.
Another thing I realized in 2022 is the fact that no matter how hard you try to avoid things or want to be the people pleaser and try to fix things, you simply cannot. You have to realize that there are things that are not within your control of being able to be fixed and that you must only be able to fix what is yours, you cannot change others or the actions that they perform. It can often mean radically accepting things for what they are no matter how much you want them to be the way you think they are, unless you have a seat at the table, then there is nothing you can do.
While we may have the opportunity to express our concerns about something just because we may not like something doesn’t necessarily mean that things are going to go the way that we want them to go. Since my meltdown in 2021, I had to gradually learn that sometimes advocating does not mean that we get what we want, we get what we need and as long as we are safe, free from harm and our rights are met, that is often all that is required. It does not mean that we have an ego to get things our way because we want them to be our way. It’s slowly learning that as long as we get what we need, that is all that matters.
2022 has been a learning process with the medication but we are in a better place at the end of the year than where we have been in the past 4 years. We now understand that it is a necessity in life whether we like it or not, that everything we thought that it did or didn’t do is simply untrue and that I can still live the life I want without other things being taken away from me. This has been the countless work of my therapist and psychiatrist working on things to make it work better for me while having me live my best life possible for what it is. There are some things that just have to be and can be valid without the medicine that just aren’t humanly possible but I am in a much better place than where I have been in a very long time.
Looking forward to 2023, I am hoping to have a more positive outlook on life. I don’t know where it will lead me or where I’ll end up. I have some plans on being a healthier person at least because I know that I need to make that a priority while I have a good chunk of health and I am not always promised it in the long term. Its being happy with who I am in my life and making the best of each and every day ahead of me, regardless of what others are experiencing. While I can support them, I cannot sympathize with them and wallow in their misery because I know that I need to focus on me and what I want in life. Life’s too short to be miserable. Yes, there are moments to feel whatever emotion you need to feel, but for me at least, I cannot drag it down in the trenches and be miserable no longer. No one deserves to be a company to my misery and it is not healthy to be brought down in the misery of others.
2022 was great, let’s make 2023 better
Dustin's Dynasty 