I made too many changes too fast all at once last year. I left journalism behind for an unstable career-seeking period of reflection and temporary and seasonal jobs. I sold my house in the country to move into a tiny apartment in the big city of Dallas, Texas. I ended a pseudo relationship with one person and started a healthy romantic relationship with my current girlfriend. I went through several jobs, too many to easily sort in my brain. I went from Christian, to Wicca, to Pagan and back to Christian, twice. I severed, then mended my relationship with my mother, three times in the same year! I went through a lot of changes all at once.
Among those changes was finally getting professionally evaluated by a psychology team. I was formally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, chronic PTSD, general anxiety disorder and a few others I don’t talk about publicly. One part of that was learning how my brain works. One of the reasons I go through so many changes is when I get manic I have to stay busy. I used to stay so busy I would tell myself I never had time to sleep. Recently after getting diagnosed and medicated properly I was starting to sleep well. Then something changed. My religious upbringing returned. I started feeling afraid of the Goddess I had devoted myself to over the past several months. I no longer felt comfort in knowing she was watching over me, instead I felt fear knowing she was in my house watching me for whatever reason. Then her and I had a final falling out.
This was a long time coming. I chose to write about it now because one of the things I lacked in my self care is taking time to talk about things I am passionate about. Thus I decided to reinstate a previous personal rule I had where I don’t bother my friends with my personal problems instead I desire only to have less serious conversations returning to a simpler time in my life. I am choosing this because shedding my interest in favor of seeking a new spiritual path was one of the things causing me anxiety.
I needed to restore some sense of stability, normalcy and familiarity to my life. I needed to bring back some of the things I left behind to begin the healing process. I need to take time for me now. With in that is seeking clarity of mind in my faith. I can no longer identify as pagan. I am now, and always have been, a follower of Jesus Christ. I am not apologizing for that. I don’t push it onto others and I don’t let it interfere with how I treat people. I will restore some of my former faith practices in an attempt to restore balance to my brain. My mental health is dependent upon it.
One thing I learned is making sudden changes in my life can be good like the day I started The Trans Station. However if I am no careful I can find myself in the habit of bouncing around from one hobby or interest to the next. I have to ask myself do I really enjoy this? I found I was forcing myself to experience things simply because I talked myself into thinking it was important. Like the time I vowed to watch more LGBTQ content on YouTube while ignoring several YouTubers who’s content I quite enjoyed. I found myself sifting through playlists and recommendations I’d assume skip over but couldn’t re-teach the algorithm because I trained it to feed me queer content exclusively. I can still enjoy some good lgbt content from time to time as I desire but no longer will I force myself to consume content just to support the community. If I find a video interesting I will watch it. If there is an LGBT creator who’s content I enjoy enough to support their Patreon I will consider it based on my financial ability to do so.
Right now I need o get my brain back to functioning properly. I cannot do that if I am floating through life unsure of who I am. I was holding onto something that didn’t feel right at all simply because, frankly, I was afraid to be judged for being wishy washy. It’s true. I thought people would call me a hypocrite or worse. There. I got that off my chest. Now I can pray to Jesus for peace, get to sleep and tomorrow find time to play me some retro Sega because that’s something I have been neglecting far too long.
Stephanie Bri 