Category: Self-Appreciation Saturdays

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

Being the last Saturday of May, I wanted to use this time to speak about the importance of this particular subject; it being because May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

Let’s ask this simple question: have you done a mental health check-in this month?

I ask because it’s something that I believe a lot of us glance over, and we seem to only “check-in” when things are already bad. I know in the past, I didn’t check in until things got really bad, and I honestly believe that a lot of my “dark places” could’ve been avoided if I checked in with myself a lot more frequently.

Mental health check-ins are important because they make you more self-aware of the behaviors you’re distributing and how you are handling the situations currently going on in your life. To even take a couple of minutes out of your day to reflect on the things that you felt or went through that particular day can be so helpful to keep yourself balanced and keep your mental health in a healthier place.

Some of the things we should ask ourselves when we do some mental health check-ins could be:

• Did I do anything to relax my mind today? I know for those who are in school and those who work full-time jobs, it’s very easy to not give your mind a break, and in more serious cases, many of us could become burnt out, which could cause your mental health to become worse. During my grad school days, my mental health quickly worsened because I was allowing myself not to have those breaks in between assignments and final papers. Moving forward in life, whether that be doing job hunting our research for my next project, I am more aware of the signs that my mind and body are telling me that I need a break from what I’m working on. Also, I now know that it’s okay to take those breaks: work smarter, not harder. 
• Why did that one thing ruin my day? Sometimes, I allow bad moments to ruin my day, and I’ve realized I never asked myself why did that one thing ruin my day? Was it a mood-related thing? Was it something that I let get to me? Was it something I could’ve handled when it happened? Reflecting back on the event that could’ve turned my day sour allows you to become more aware of your behaviors and reactions to that specific event. For example: A couple of weeks ago, I started one of my days on a good note, but as soon as I went to my therapy session and something that was discussed made me feel judged, I’ve allowed it to ruin my entire day. Coming out of that funk took longer than I would’ve liked, but I know that in the long run, I know to not allow my anxieties about people judging me to ruin my day. Of course, there are going to be other times where I may feel that way and tense up because of it, but I know to check-in and tell myself that it’s not to be taken personally and that I shouldn’t allow it to ruin my day.
• How am I *really* feeling in this exact moment? Again, it’s so easy to allow the days just take you without being honest with yourself about how you may really be feeling. It’s easy to say “I’m fine, tomorrow’s another day” or “It’s just a bad day, tomorrow’s another day”. From experience, minimizing your feelings is never a good thing, and in some cases, you’ll minimize your feelings to point where the clear signs your mind and body are giving you to take care of yourself are going unnoticed. Sometimes, you have to be your own “is everything okay?”. Check-in and be honest with yourself; if you felt sadder than usual, take note of that. Say out loud that you aren’t okay because the more you speak these feelings out into the world (even if you are by yourself), the easier it gets to ask for help and admit that you aren’t doing okay.

Of course, there are so many other questions that you should be asking yourself, and they come from your own experiences and ways you are able to care for yourself. Maybe asking yourself if you read a chapter of your book (for fun) as your “self-care time”, or if you did something that was on your list of things you wanted to do in the last week or so. Still, it’s important that every once in a while you give yourself a mental health check-in, and yes, even do them on your friends and family!

Make sure to check in every once in a while!

To My Summer Body,

It’s that time of year to sweat, girl. It’s that time of year where your legs chafe and your shorts raise up, it’s that time of year where you limit yourself to a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, and converse for three months of the year. It’s also that time of year you hide from the world, really – swimsuits make you insecure, you don’t feel pretty without your layers of clothing, and you wish all summer that maybe, just maybe, you went on that diet during the wintertime.

Maybe then you’d feel pretty enough to walk through a sunny day.

See, you dread the summer. You hate to have sweat kept up under every roll on your body. You hate sweating out your hair. You hate looking like the fat blob sweaty mess walking down the street. You’re convinced that summer was not made for fat people like you. I mean, who wants to jiggle in all the wrong places and show off your fat arms? Every summer, it seems as if I get depressed because of you, and it sucks to feel that way.

As Bianca Del Rio said on that one season of RuPaul’s Drag Race:

Continue reading “SAS: A Letter to My “Summer Body”. (5/18/19)” →

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

First and foremost, Happy May, Happy Taurus Season, Happy Almost-Gemini-Season, and Happy Almost-Unofficial-Start-Of-Summer Memorial Day! Also, Happy Birthday to all the May babies out in the world. 

A little life update on me: I’ve been in a place that I’m very proud to be in. I’ve been feeling a lot more happy, active, present, and my anxiety hasn’t been flaring up as much as it had in the past. To be quite honest, it’s been a couple of months since I had a bad anxiety attack. I’m very happy to see myself in the place I’m in right now because compared to this time last year, I was a complete and utter mess (and that’s not an exaggeration).

So, although I’ve been doing good and I’ve been feeling a lot more stable and happier, I’ve been aware of this “stage” in the process where you feel like you’re doing better than ever and that your mental health isn’t affecting you the way it usually does; I guess you call it the “loving” process of life. A fellow writer of mine shared this image on their Facebook account and thus the inspiration for this week’s SAS letter.

Continue reading “SAS: The Truth About Mental Health Dependency. (5/11/19)” →

To whom it may concern,

Hi! Welcome to Letters From Liz! Of course, if you’re new – my name is Liz and I run this blog. We talk about tons of things, such as mental health, self-appreciation, priorities, music; pretty much anything, really. I also frequently write about my own experiences of life and try to help out others who may feel lost, discouraged, or sad – aka a type of person I’m very familiar with.

If you’re not new, then you know all of this, and if you’ve seen pictures of me or know me in person, you also know that I have a pixie haircut that I debuted back in December. Of course, it turned heads for the first month or so, but 5 months later, I have people in my life telling me that it’s time to grow out my hair.

Let’s rewind it back, shall we?

Hair, to me, is an important staple of my identity. My hair, whatever color it was or what style it was in, became an identity of mine at that moment in time. Do I take hair too seriously? Yeah. Am I obsessed with hair? I’d like to believe that I was reincarnated from a guy who was a sick hairdresser back in the days because my love for hair doesn’t even make sense. 

My hair, although made me feel like myself, hid a lot of my insecurities. It hid my double chin, it hid the back of my neck, it makes me look thinner, girlier, more acceptable in traditional beauty standards, and I even wore it in the same damn hairstyle for three years straight after leaving it down for the first 21 years of my life.

With long hair, I wanted short hair; with short hair, I wanted long hair, but I never took it to the point where my hair couldn’t hide my insecurities or my troubled beliefs on beauty, and sometimes I really have to ask myself, what took me this long to do it?

You see, my pixie cut to you may be boyish. Mannish. Ugly. Too short. Not suitable for a fat girl such as me. You may misgender me even, think I’m a fat man with man boobs or something. You may even think I’m a lesbian or call my haircut “the lesbian cut”. You may think all of these things, and although you won’t admit them to my face, I know that society will always judge you before they compliment you. They will always think “pretty or ugly” before they say anything about your personality or your kindness. Hell, I know I could be judgmental and think societal bullshit towards someone I don’t know. My point being is that our opinions about other people don’t really matter.

Because as long as it makes them happy, they could care less about what you have to say about them.

Back to my haircut: If you were to ask me at least why I decided to cut it this short, then you may know that this haircut came after one of the worst depressive episodes I had in my life. Yeah, worse than the one in 2012. You will know that once I let go of this perfect image of myself, I was allowed to do anything with my body, whether that is getting another tattoo, piercing, or simply cut my hair short as hell. You will know once I got this haircut, something just clicked in me.

Maybe ponytail Liz had to go in order for the pixie cut Liz to finally shine and take in what life had to offer her. 

By saying to grow my hair back, you are telling me that the person who I’ve become in these last 5 months is just a phase in my life and that my only beauty was behind my hair. You are telling me my happiness, my sense of identity in this exact place don’t matter because “you’re a girl, you should have long hair.”

By saying to grow my hair back, you are telling me the progress I made isn’t as worthy as looking “feminine” and “pretty” in society.

Am I taking it too far? Hell yeah, I am. Please, just tell me that it’s just hair.

But to me, it’s more than just that. It was a promise to myself that I wouldn’t let my anxiety dictate my body nor will I allow it to indulge in self-loathe whenever I wasn’t the person my perfectionist side wanted me to be. It was the beginning of just trying new things, whether that be ways I communicate myself to others, the clothes I chose to try on, and have some sort of free trial on how developing self-confidence looked like.

My pixie cut was just the tip of the iceberg, folks. This wasn’t a “Britney Spears 2007 meltdown”. This wasn’t a cry for attention. This was because I told myself enough was enough. What was there to be afraid of?

Although my grandfather never saw me with my hair this short, I know he would enjoy the new look on me. I know that his mantra, in the simplest way possible, was to never fear anything in life. I think his strength, his courage, and his belief on tough-skin, is what keeps me going in my own journey of self-love and appreciation.

So, to the people in my life that look at me and want their Liz with long hair back: there’s hope, she’ll be back. 

Just not for a very long time. 

 

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

First and foremost, Happy 4/20 to all the smokers out there! Roll a hot one, enjoy the start of Spring Break, and get ready to see some family for Easter tomorrow! I still remember that one year that 4/20 was on the same day as Easter Sunday and smokers all over the globe were conflicted whether to celebrate some good weed or the good Lord. (Heh, I crack myself up).

Anyway, this letter is dedicated to yet another self-care mechanism that many of us should adapt to our lifestyles because, in all honesty, we all could use some balance between defending ourselves and not taking things too personally.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s talk about the differences between minimizing and prioritizing.

Minimizing:

Many of us who are the “people-pleaser” kind don’t realize they are doing this, but we tend to think about other people’s reactions and feelings before ours, and even when we do think out ours, we tend to minimize them and play our emotions and feelings off as if they aren’t that big of a deal. While my therapist is on maternity leave, I am currently seeing a temporary therapist for the time being and although we are still getting to know each other, her first depiction of me was pretty much the same one my regular therapist had when I first started therapy: I tend to minimize my feelings and my emotions. I don’t realize I am when I’m discussing them, but I do find myself constantly seeing everyone else’s perspective before mine at times, and in only certain situations, that’s okay!

For example: if you are having a conversation about some issues in any relationship you have with someone in your life (spouse, friend, family, etc.), it’s important to not immediately get defensive and make the entire thing about you. Now, there’s going to be times when you are going to feel attacked or mocked or targeted in these type of discussions, but instead of shooting out your feelings and emotions about the issue because you are prioritizing them in the discussion, always think of the person’s motive before you assume any judgment or criticism is being thrown at you. You have to remember that every serious conversation is not targeted towards your character or your actions, and that to take as much as possible from those discussions, you can’t allow yourself to feel like you are being attacked or targeted, and trust me, having anxiety worsens that feeling and it’s hard to keep that bitch in line when you are in those situations.

A little bit of minimizing like that isn’t harmful to your mental health, I believe. Personally speaking, minimizing how I’m feeling in those moments by remembering the motive of the discussion even helps me learn something about myself along the way. No matter what type of relationship it is, the people who care about you the most is going to tell you how it is, whether you like it or not because of the love and care they have for you. Good minimizing, I believe, is simply not taking everything too personally, because then you present yourself as a person who isn’t willing to grow and learn with the people in your life.

Bad minimizing, is when you’re passive with your feelings and emotions for the sake of other people’s reactions and feelings, which in the long run develops poor communication skills with the people in your life.

Prioritizing:

Because I tend to do some bad minimizing in my life, I am learning when and where I should be prioritizing my feelings and emotions. I’ve been talking a lot about assertiveness this year because, for me, assertiveness is the balance of minimizing and prioritizing. It’s knowing where the other person is coming from, yet also letting them know (without hostility) that your feelings and emotions matter as well and should be respected in the discussion. Prioritizing your feelings and emotions teaches you a lot about yourself; your limits, your morals, and your value as a human being. At the end of the day, no one else in this world is going to prioritize you but you, so why do your body, mind, and soul the injustice?

When people say that no one is going to respect you if you don’t respect yourself, it speaks volumes because it’s true. Of course, you don’t have to be all mean and bossy when demanding respect from others (because quite frankly, demanding respect doesn’t mean you have it for yourself, you just want others to respect you to make yourself feel validated), you could simply meet both ways, or be assertive with yourself and know that you love the people in your life, and you love yourself as well.

I started to realize that prioritizing meant more than just having others understand where you’re coming from. I learned that even prioritizing for my own health and safety is so important in life! When I began to get suicidal thoughts a couple of months ago in 2018, I minimized it because I didn’t think it was that serious to put out in the world. I thought I was able to handle it myself without having to scare anyone in my life or have them worry about me. But, I know that if I didn’t prioritize that feeling and that emotion and didn’t say anything to my therapist at the time, I don’t know what would’ve happened. I don’t wanna think about what might’ve happened, but the case I’m trying to make is that it’s so important to prioritize your feelings and emotions so that you know that in situations like that, you are able to seek the help you may need. Prioritizing your emotions and feelings helps you through the healing process, and it makes things a lot easier on you in the long run. Prioritizing, no matter how severe or minor the situation may be, is an important factor in self-discovery because it helps you even understand yourself better.

As I’m still learning when are the right times to minimize and prioritize, I have to remember that I’m still learning to discover who I am in these situations, who I am in this world, and who I am morally in the long run. Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was self-discovery. 

So, be patient in your process.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

So, towards the end of 2018, I promised myself that going into 2019, I would become more assertive with myself, as well as prioritize my emotions and feelings more through communication and being more open and honest with myself. That’s a whole task, I know, but for the most part, it’s going well. I find myself not being so afraid to have conversations that are more on the serious side, I tend to not hold back how I’m feeling as much anymore, and I’m actively being more like myself than I have been since I honestly started therapy last year. But like my partner once told me, “once you get over the problems you’re currently having, it makes you stronger for the bigger ones coming as you get older.”

As to April’s first post on “Letters”, I opened up about discussing trauma secrets out into the world as being a liberating and healing experience for me. Opening up about something I’ve kept to myself for a year wasn’t something I was going to do until I told my therapist what was going on. If it wasn’t for her explaining the importance of speaking about it more to diffuse the energy it carries, I don’t think I’d be where I am currently in my life.

Thank you, Cathy.

When I started to talk more about the issue to the person who mattered the most (my partner), I began to understand that communication about anything negative in your life helps diffuse the energy that it carries. So not only was I just communicating my trauma secrets to diffuse that energy, but communicating even the toxic traits or the parts of me I self-loathe started to become easier because I began to discuss them more, whether that was with my loved ones, or my therapist.

For a person who hated confrontation and was scared of causing negativity to any degree for most of their life, speaking against these fears have been helpful in the process of me growing. It’s helped me put things into a more helpful and progressive perspective (say that five times fast!). For example: instead of me being afraid to get into a confrontation with friends and family because I was afraid of hurting their feelings or how they’ll react, I began to see it as a way to diffuse the energy between us and the issue, and the more we talk about these issues between us, the smaller they will become and we could move on from them to continue living our lives. Does that make sense?

At the end of the day, it’s more than just communicating for the hell of it; it’s about knowing why you are communicating this, how communicating this is going to help you, and how is it going to improve your way of communicating in the future. Also, don’t just communicate with someone about something for your own personal needs! Always, as much as you can, have a positive motive when talking to someone about something.

Instead of saying: “hey, we need to talk because I’m mad that x,y, and z”, you start off by saying, “hey, I feel the need to talk about this just to diffuse some negative energy behind it, so talking about this won’t be such a big deal in the future.”

Honestly, that’s all it takes.

Regarding my personal issues, you all already know just how open I am about my mental health and my progress and, believe it or not, that helps me diffuse the negative energy society has about mental health. I speak about my experiences to diffuse the negative energy and help others understand that mental health is bigger in other people’s lives than your own, and as well-rounded human beings, we all should respect that.

The more you talk about it, the easier it gets.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

I hope everyone has enjoyed their first week of April, and I hope that the rest of the month either gets better for you guys or continues to have the same energy!

Onto this week’s “Self-Appreciation Saturday” letter to you all:

Let me say this as straightforward as possible: most of us, if not all, wish we were able to know the things people truly think of us and what do they see us as. Personally, I’ve struggled during most of my teenage years worrying about what others were saying about me, what they thought about me, and how I was able to keep doing and being the “positive” things people saw me as. By the time I hit 22, that shit was corny, and I started to just be more like how I supposed to be. But, it doesn’t mean that even at 25, I don’t care about the things people think of me. Yeah, I know more now than I was when I was a teenager, but I’m still trying to figure out the things that make me as I experience new things in my life.

And, if you’re anything like me or who I was when I was younger, then you might find yourself in the same situation, and all you can do is take other people’s thoughts and opinions about you with a grain of salt. 

I’ve learned that there are just going to be people in this world who may not like me, and many of us need to learn that there are people who are not going to like you. Whether these people know you or don’t, a person who doesn’t like you are going to say some negative things about you; whatever, right? 

But what if you hear the same negative thing about you constantly from different people in their life? Are they automatically right about you, and you’re now carrying this negative personality trait on your back? Not necessarily. 

When I was in my senior year of college, that year I had a pretty good head on my shoulders. I had a good group of friends, I was confident in my studies, and I was able to really make decisions that I wanted to make and that felt like were best for me because I valued my worth. After not giving a shit about who I was during my teenage years, I deserved to at least acknowledge and know my self-worth. So, when I stopped being and doing the things that didn’t go with the “image” I portrayed myself to be in the past, I was called “selfish”.

I wrote a post long ago about my thoughts on “being selfish”, so I won’t go into much detail on what I think about the meaning itself. Typically, “selfish” is a word that has a negative connotation, or in other words, has a “bad reputation”. People correlate selfishness with being self-centered or egotistical, which are usually negative traits that are given to people who typically put themselves first, above anyone else in their life.

But, isn’t putting yourself first and prioritizing your feelings and emotions a good thing? Isn’t that what everyone tells you to do with yourself? So, why is that labeled as being selfish?

It just as a negative connotation, but it’s up to you to change the meaning of that word.

Selfishness, to me, is a positive thing because it reminds me that yeah, there are people who care about me and I care about too, but I prioritize myself because no one in this world is going to do that for you. Plus, being selfish with yourself gives you a lot more clarity about the people in your life, the people who left your life, and the type of future you want for yourself. It also helps you become more assertive, which I’ve been personally practicing.

I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t always take what people think about you to heart, in all honesty. If people say you’re loud-mouthed, maybe it’s because you always have something to say about important issues and conflicts happening in society. If people say you’re childish, maybe it’s because you still enjoy the style, interests, and possibly are very youthful for your age. If people say you’re selfish, maybe it’s because you take your self-worth seriously and prioritize your needs before anyone else’s.

Let’s face some reality, shall we? Not everything in life is simply black and white, so both good and bad traits are going to have a little positivity and negativity about them. For example, people think that being a “people-pleaser” is a good thing because it means you help and care for other people, despite the situation at hand; but, being a people-pleaser allows people to take advantage of your kindness and limits you from helping and caring for yourself, despite the situation at hand. Everything in life has its gray areas, and having negative things being described towards you isn’t always a negative thing.

Of course, in extreme cases, there are negative things that are strictly negative and should be changed as soon as possible, but that also depends on how willing a person is able to change for themselves first or if this negative thing becomes a toxic trait, which everyone should acknowledge and be aware of as they grow.

For the most part, try to take the negative things people may say about you and turn it into a positive thing! At the end of the day, people don’t know who you are and what it’s like being in your skin and your mind for the rest of your life. You might as well take care of it before you allow others to influence who you are.

Embrace yourself, even for the “negative” things.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters from Liz!

March pretty much flew by, don’t you think? I mean, April is literally in two days and this time next month, it’s going to be warmer, brighter, and less gloomy and cold. 

While everyone is getting ready to wrap up their productive school years and preparing for the summer season in a couple of months, it’s quite easy to fall in that rabbit hole yourself. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a break just like everyone else, but personally, for me, I feel like I’ve had enough rest and now I’m ready to have a normal, functional routine where I’m productive, and I’m doing what I love.

Being in the job-hunting process is an exhausting one, and even when you’re doing the work needed to find and apply to jobs, it just seems like the rest of the world looks at you as being “lazy” or “unmotivated”. It’s just hard out in these streets to find and land a good job, y’all!

So, when you feel like you’re just walking down rejection lane and see the warmer weather coming, it makes you wanna stop looking and pushing yourself towards the end. You tell yourself, “ehhh, jobs aren’t really looking for people during the summer, so I’m going to take a break and enjoy myself.” Again, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to enjoy the warm weather and scenery, but as someone who is working towards something, it’s very crucial to keep on going and working towards your goal.

It’s so easy to get sidetracked and unfocused on the big picture in hand, and when you do that, you might be missing out on job openings and other opportunities that are being put out there! Someone is always working on something, someone is always looking for extra hands, and someone is always looking for someone with the skills and knowledge that you have that they may need. Don’t just assume just because society turns off their productivity from school and work during the summer, doesn’t mean that everyone out there is.

At the end of the day, it’s important to keep your eye on your goal at all times. If you’re looking to find that job, if you’re looking to take your passion project to the next step, or if you’re looking to improve on anything in your life, it should always be something that you’re focused on doing, despite what everyone else is doing.

So enjoy the warmer weather, you deserve to just like any other person on this planet! Just make sure to take some time out of your day to keep it pushing, and to keep going in your process; whatever what they are for you.

For me, it’s to finally land a damn job. 

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters from Liz!

So, as a little refresher course for old time readers or potentially new readers: Last summer, I was diagnosed with Social Anxiety disorder, and this past November, I was then diagnosed with Major Depression Disorder. A month after my first diagnosis, I thought it would be beneficial for me to be doing both therapy and taking medication. As I spoke about on my post, “Let’s Talk About Mental Health Medication”, I discussed some of the concerns I had about starting medication regarding my anxiety disorder and how it could potentially alter my personality, lifestyle, and everything in between.

Now, being on mental health medication for 9 months, I’m here to discuss something that is just as important as taking medication when you need it: handling the side-effects that come from it.

Continue reading “SAS: Knowing the Side-Effects of Mental Health Medication. (3/23/19)” →

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters from Liz!

Many of us in this world weren’t blessed with the confidence needed to stand by our life choices and our decisions without caring what people may think about them. For those who fall into the category of “people-pleasers” or “needs approval from people”, We never feel really at ease when we make a decision for ourselves and we don’t get that seal of approval or that “good job sticker” from others. Yeah, maybe when we were younger in our teen years, that decision-making process was easier because we had to follow rules from our parents or guardians and quite frankly didn’t have all of the freedom we so desperately wanted back in the day.

Now we’re adults and we’re telling ourselves, “damn, I need some guidance or sense of approval in my life to live it.”

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to adulthood. 

Continue reading “SAS: Owning Your Decisions! (3/16/19)” →