The following post is part of a series written by Linds B. It follows her journey from there to here. It speaks to the change that is within us all.

In the past 2 years, I’ve spent hours, days . . weeks taking the time to better myself as a human and allow my mind to grow. I can truthfully say, as painful as it was, it was one of the most beneficial and gratifying experiences of my life. To those few rare humans out there who can attest to the fact that it is absolutely no easy task, my hat goes off to you. Self-transformation tries you in every way possible and even in aspects you never knew to exist. But here I am, standing proudly and so much better for everything I’ve endured. To those of you out there who struggle, I’m here to tell you that, as cliché as it sounds, it does get better and I beg you not to give up.

I write this in the hopes that my experience will drive you to keep pushing even on the hardest days where the only thought you can produce is “I can’t”.

Two years ago, at this time, I can tell you for damn sure I never thought I would be sitting in my own place, writing a story like this; my drive to move forward was all but nonexistent due to being comfortable in what I was yet to discover. I was in my own personal hell. I was googly-eyed, caught up in a woman who only knew of greed and manipulation. She used me for everything that I was and could have become at the time. However, I didn’t exactly realize that, and I can tell you if I did, I likely would have denied it to the ends of the earth. I allowed myself to get so comfy in working a job that offered me next to nothing, while living at her grandmother’s house. Getting a new, more challenging job? Getting a place of my own? “No thanks”.

The universe, however, was not having that mindset of mine. Our relationship started getting “rough”, for lack of a better term. Even in the midst of realizing that she was in fact cheating on me and had been for some time, I still didn’t want everything I “had” to go away. That would require a lot of change, and that’s scary. Thus, began the long strings of endless and unexpected breakdowns and anxiety attacks, to which I was told I was being “too loud and expressive about my emotions”. Fuck you! Stifling emotions never got anyone anywhere. As the strenuous emotional activity continued, things got more tense, and before I knew it, she had broken up with me in one of the shittiest ways possible; Showing up with her new “parasitic host”, or girlfriend, (whatever you want to call it) and not even looking me in the face; simply saying “it’s over”. She needed answers, she told me. To this day I still can’t help but wonder if those answers were indeed in another woman’s pussy, since that was the only place she seemed to look. All petty business aside, I didn’t know it yet, but that breakup was one of the best things that ever happened to me. With that, I got all of my things out of her grandmother’s place and moved it all back into my parent’s place.

The depression really started setting in. To shine a tinge of positivity on this situation, I had landed a better paying, full time job as a vendor. Unfortunately, that proceeded to push my limits even further, which at the time I could not handle. Before anything could begin in that job I had to complete a thirty-six-hour online training seminar. Sounds like a breeze, right? No, of course not. I knew not of an easy time. I went a solid two months with minimal sleep due to waking up at all hours with severe anxiety attacks and unmovable depression, thus triggering constant vomiting. I don’t think I could have told you what happiness was, that wasn’t even a word my mind understood anymore. I was fragile, alone, I pushed everyone away for the sake of putting all of my being into one poisonous bitch. I never left the house, I hadn’t been outside for the longest time, until I finished that training and had to leave the house in order to work. My emotional state remained the same, broken, I was an empty shell. “New opportunities are a good thing.” I attempted to convince myself, as the entirety of what makes me, me, was stripped away. Hire me first and then tell me how you find my hair unprofessional. Every morning began the same way, six thirty in the morning . . a piercing alarm. I would lay in bed trying to decide if I actually must work and try not to vomit at the idea of leaving my room. I’d work up enough strength to remind myself I needed to make money, then I would proceed to all but fall out of bed, put on my “good Christian straight woman attire”, and cram my rainbow hair into a long brown wig. “Who the fuck are you?” I’d ask myself, staring into the mirror. I wasn’t happy, nothing could make me happy.