The human mind is new when you first make an appearance into the world and your first teachers are your carers.
'I had an extremely strict upbringing where punishment was given for anything that was disapproved of. This could be as simple as turning around during the service in church.
Everything we did had to be to perfection from our appearances to the way we spoke. We were brought up as Christian Baptists and one the thing that has stuck in my mind is ‘you were angels’.
We could not do any wrong because of the fear of being subjected to a thrashing with whatever was available to hand by our mother.
Due to her own past, she was unable to show any loving emotions towards us.
The scars of the past that were left behind for me, was being singled out. My mother suffered from postnatal depression after having me, so I bared the brunt of all the blame. My siblings treated me as bad as I was treated by my mother. My only ‘saving grace’ was my Father who sacrificed a lot for me.
There came a time when I could not confide in my Father about what the physical, emotional, and verbal abuse I was going through as it would cause arguments in the marriage.
I was alone. I always prayed that God would take my young life. The only regret I have today is that I allowed this trauma to control the way I lived my adult life.
Low self-esteem, zero confidence from being told I was stupid, backward, and ugly.
Not being able to hold down a relationship, refusing to get fully involved because of the fear of feeling trapped.
Sacrificing not having children because there is something abnormal with me.
It had taken me 46 years, the death of my beloved Father in 2017 and the many attempted suicides for me to wake up and realise that I have a purpose.
I suffered from a depressive illness and was diagnosed in 2007 as a manic depressive. I had no family support as they were ashamed of my diagnosis.
My Father, on his death bed had told me that he would rather the cancer than have the mental illness. He took the time to read about my diagnosis in 2016.
When my Father was diagnosed in 2014 with stage IV cancer, I started abusing alcohol. This got out of hand until eventually I decided to quit in October 2018 as I was told I would file an awful death. I also gave up on trying to take my life, July 2018 being my last attempt.
I started going to AA meetings to maintain my sobriety.
My life made a dramatic change when the Pandemic started as I had a spiritual awakening which enabled me to put my talents, which I never thought I had, to effective use. I manically channelled my pain through writing articles on the Medium platform.
I surrendered everything to my higher power and discovered that I have a purpose on this earth. I believe that 'in everything there must be a balance.’ (my signature)
I studied human behaviour and worked hard to find a balance around every subject by reconditioning my irrational, pessimistic mind.
The idea of creating a website came from my nephew as all his friends, in their early twenties, were keeping up to date with my continuous blogs.
The website (SCRIPTURE OF BALANCE) was created in December 2020 and made available for access on many platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Medium.
My passion is to, globally, let people know that to live a balanced life we must change our thought patterns and unlearn the influences of the past.
I spent the past few years reprogramming my thought patterns as my views were based on what I had been fed in my childhood/teenage years through everyone else’s experiences.
I was stupid enough to not use my brain and think for myself.
Today I recognise that many people are trapped in that cycle of how our ‘ancestors’ tackled problems.
Personally, I feel the need to tell people that we must release ourselves from the shackles of the past and break the unhelpful part of the cycle for our descendants.
I have written three books which are available on the Amazon website. The books are my experiences with the techniques that I used to understand myself better.
The journey I took to revisit my beliefs and balance my thoughts.
The fourth book released at the end of the year is my painful poetry written in 2015, when I struggled with accepting my Fathers illness and the lack of support around my mental health.
SCRIPTURE OF BALANCE
ART THERAPY FOR MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING
