Midterms start this week for me (today actually). Sheesh, so much...stress, anxiety, sleepless nights. I just want to do well. "I wanna graduate". Know what I mean.
Sometimes I think I make things more difficult than they are, or at least in my head I have them seem that way. Do you do that at times?! Overemphasizing what needs to be done or how busy you are. Always failing to prevent yourself from getting to the point where you say, "Enough is enough! I can't take this anymore..."
Yea, we've all been there at some time or another...listen in.
25-28 You're all I want in heaven! You're all I want on earth!
When my skin sags and my bones get brittle, God is rock-firm and faithful.
Look! Those who left you are falling apart!
Deserters, they'll never be heard from again.
But I'm in the very presence of God— oh, how refreshing it is!
I've made Lord God my home.
God, I'm telling the world what you do!
Amen.
So....it's been a while since I talked about my health struggles and everything that went down as a result of a tumultuous summer. Well, here we are; picked up where we left off here (You sure you want someone else's life?!).
Let's jump right in...
Stress...yuck, I can't stand that word. Believe it or not, stress and I are the best of friends. We've known each other since about middle school if not prior to. Perhaps she was always there in the shadows and I never paid as much attention to her. It wasn't until I was introduced to stress that I even knew who stress was. She has her good days and her bad days. Sometimes she might bring along her friends, the vixens they are (e.g. Anxiety, Depression, and a host of others).
In addition to the stress, which I'm not sure which of the two was worse...I had come into an unknowing bout of high blood pressure. Being that I descend from a line of folks who have a predisposition for almost every illness, I was and have been well aware of the consequences of a poor and sedentary lifestyle. The question is, how in the world did I get to the point where there was so much pressure on me that I felt "my head gon pop"?! I'm not sure exactly and even to this day myself, and my "medical staff" have been working somewhat diligently on trying to get to the bottom of this.
Imagine...you've worked for 10 weeks at a job that you don't particularly care about with some "interesting" coworkers who do nothing short of making the job more tense than it has to be. Your commute is a total of 3hrs each day and you're up in the morning on average at 4am, getting to bed about 10pm (if you're lucky). On top of all this, once finished working you jet straight back to academia with no break in between, say for a weekend visit home. You're now 4 weeks into the semester and for some reason are unable to handle the current load. There's classes plus the extracurricular activities which might as well be chalked up as a part-time job. Who does that in graduate school?!
This guy...
Eventually it got to a point where I needed help (SAVE ME) and I decided to get some because I was unable to function. My memory suffered horribly. I don't even know if teammates recognized how "slow" I was being. Simple concepts took hours to understand. I felt mentally incapacitated. Unable to hold conversations where under normal circumstances I'd be able to articulate myself so well. I'd struggle to use the simplest of words. Sentences were hard to construct. It's almost as if my vocabulary had shrunk to that of a middle school student. It felt like there was a vice grip on my head at times, and don't even ask me to think because there really is a mental block going on. If you were to ask me to clarify how I was feeling, I'd say "dumb". I just couldn't get it to work in my favor no matter how hard I'd try.
You ever think to yourself, "Why me?!"
Yea, there might have been a couple days like that here and there. Even with the accommodations made due to my health issues it still seemed to never be ENOUGH to succeed academically. I'd hardly score on assignments, tests...if it wasn't for the team efforts I'd have no grade to even show myself worthy of being in this environment. At one point in trying to get some help I was questioned, "Why are you putting yourself through this? Why not go somewhere else..." This is when they started to name off other schools, specifically the one down the road (it'd be a slap in the face if I even considered switching- to any school).
No matter what I did, the help I gained, or how hard I tried it was never enough.
I'd facilitate the DSL...ID meetings at school and would be given strength in order to get through those, but outside of this I was empty...I didn't understand how I was so inept to live my life in ways that I had before.
As I told my counselor over and over again, "I'm frustrated, yet I remain optimistic". Things would get better. They had too.
Side Note: I used to rock a fro back in the day :-)
Eventually, most likely by mid-November I had accepted the fact that my ability to perform academically had been restricted due to my circumstances. I could only do that which I could do and had to trust that God would not bring me through everything I experienced (whether a result of my own disobedience or designed as part of his plan) to fail. It was then that I began to hold on to something greater than my degree, my intellect, and my hope in performing comparatively to my peers....I held on to God. It was all I could do. He had to be Enough.
I wasn't even sure if I'd make it through that semester. At times the headaches got so bad I felt that it was the end. My threshold for pain had subsided. All i could do is think, "I must be a witness in affliction". It's pretty hard to continue on as if all is well when it's not. I never expected to experience any more struggle than I already had in my first year of graduate school. Boy was I wrong.
Day after day I'd jam away in my kitchen while cooking to "Enough" by KB. I felt as if the things I had "treasured" so much were failing me and against my will I was unable to do that which I wanted. The more I listened to the song the more I realized, "This isn't going away and I'm going to have to tough it out." The hardest thing to accept at the time was that I wouldn't pull the grades I had mentally prepared myself to work so hard for. It would be a struggle...to the end.
Like I said, it's midsemester. Is the struggle still goin on? You bet it is...but God is enough...Lord willing that'll get me to graduation.
Why?
The quick skinny:
What does this mean for me? #theReader
- We all struggle.
- I know you were getting tired of me saying "It's coming..."
Reevaluate your life. Ensure that you're taking the proper steps to have an outlet somewhere. If you have any new changes coming in your life soon, be prepared to deal with the stress of that situation. Whether it's positive or negative you have to be able to understand how you react to your environment, both internally and externally. Most importantly, always have someone you can talk to and be "real, rugged, and raw".
For further insight:
Read-Some Help, DSL_ID: Stress Management Pres.(PDF), Is it good?!, Was it enough?
For further insight:
Read-Some Help, DSL_ID: Stress Management Pres.(PDF), Is it good?!, Was it enough?
This is F.U.N. (For Ur Needs) Use your KEYS
- Know that taking on too much could lead to your downfall
- Expect to have times in your life where things become too much
- Your cognizance of your reactions to your environment improves your functionality
- Stay close to those who can help you cope and don't be afraid to branch out
Challenge
- Deal with an issue that's gone on for too long in your life.
- Think of ways to handle it initially.
- Develop a plan to "conquer it" for the long term
Bob Ya’ Head
Enough (KB)
My goal in life: To show you there's a better way; heaven can wait...
Enough (J. Holley)
