Category: Twelve Letters of Lizmas: 2019

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz.

For the past two years, I’ve written posts reflecting back on my year on Christmas Eve; it’s only right since next week we’ll be counting down the start of 2020! How crazy is that?

2019 was definitely a year I think I needed to have in order to start the rest of my life. This year needed to happen so that I was able to close this decade out and start a new one. It feels surreal, y’ know? I feel like I’m not living in my own body anymore but in a good way! It truly feels like I’m maturing and growing out of the shell that was this decade. It wasn’t an easy transition to get through; in some aspects, I’m still trying to get used to it, but I don’t regret what this year has taught me.

1. Your soul will never stop protecting you and telling you what’s best for you, so listen to it. A lot of the things that changed about me this past year came from the fact that my soul has told me enough was enough in a lot of areas in life. It has told me that it’s time to take care of myself, love myself, and discover myself in its purest form. A lot of the things I’ve tolerated within the last decade I don’t tolerate anymore, and it’s caused me to adjust myself and my relationships with people to take care of my soul. I wrote a post about listening to your soul a month ago, and it’s honestly the one thing I will always take with me as my life lives on.
2. Embrace the things that ultimately make you happy, no matter how quirky, uncommon, or weird they may be to your outside world. Don’t be ashamed of them either! Currently, the one thing that constantly makes me happy no matter what is my love and interest for Kpop, and towards the beginning of the year, I was ashamed of sharing that interest out loud. I didn’t want to be seen as a “koreaboo”, a “person appropriating Korean culture”, or just a person with some sort of “Asian fetish”. After a while, after getting an opportunity to reintroduce myself to the world, I’ve made it very apparent that Kpop makes me really happy and it’s continuously saving me from a lot of dark thoughts and moments. As a matter of fact, I’ve embraced my love for it so much, I even got a tattoo to symbolize my love for it.
3. Heartbreak is inevitable, and no matter what you’ll get through it. Back in August, my ex and I decided that it was best for us to end our relationship after being on-and-off for the last 10 years. He was my best friend, first love, first everything truly, and when the breakup first happened, it was one of the hardest things I’ve dealt with since my grandfather’s death back in 2018. A week after our breakup, I self-harmed myself for the first time in six years just because the physical pain felt better than the emotional pain from everything that was happening at that time in my life. Although it’s something I’ll probably deal with for another couple of months, I know it was the best for both of us. I’m doing a lot better now, and I will always cherish my first relationship for the rest of my life. I’ll never regret it, and I’ll always have mad love for the person who’ve lived this last decade growing with me.
4. Challenge the things that you thought you’d never be able to do; you never know the outcome of things! For the majority of the year, I was job-hunting, unsuccessful due to the lack of work experience I had (I was in school for 6 years straight) and everything I wanted to do required some work experience doing something. After a while, I was losing confidence in finding a job, until my partner at the time suggested I should try doing a “less stressful” type of retail, like a bookstore. Luckily enough, my old college bookstore was looking for people to hire, and one phone interview later, I was hired! I’m so grateful for the job I have at the bookstore; my managers are the sweetest people ever, my co-workers are more so my friends now, and this job has honestly helped get through these last couple of months efficiently. They may not know this, but these people saved my life, and I will always be thankful for challenging my social anxiety fears and going for it.

 

2019 was the year of tons of ups and downs, but it wasn’t a bad year. I’ve gained confidence in ways I never knew I was capable of being, I did things I never thought I was able to do; I truly challenged my comfort zone this year, and I’m so proud of myself for doing so!

So farewell, 2019. Thank you for teaching me lessons I will carry for the rest of my life, and thank you for allowing me the space to embrace the things I never thought I would in my life. Thank you.

Be good to me, 2020.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

So, if you didn’t know this little fact about me despite me being very vocal about it on my blog, I have SAD, or social anxiety disorder. It differs from normal anxiety because of my behavior and patterns are symptoms of a more clinical anxiety disorder. I was diagnosed with it a little over a year ago, and since then I’ve been finding new ways to live with this newfound information as normal as possible, while still trying to take care of myself.

At first, it was very difficult to adapt to the news because it was now something I had to learn to accept myself, as well as be accepting enough to it so that those around me can accept it as well. At first, it was hard to do both, and because of that, my anxiety attacks were through the fuckin’ roof. It had gotten to the point where I was having anxiety about my own damn anxiety, which I learned is quite common in people who are first diagnosed with it.

So as the months passed by, I’ve had lesser anxiety attacks, but they didn’t just disappear. They would happen at the most random times of the day; after dinner, at my former partner’s place, at night before bed, and even moments after I laughed at the funniest joke ever. Talking to my therapist about my fear of having anxiety attacks, she spoke a lot to me about embracing them and take them as learning lessons in why you feel that way you do and how you can acknowledge these feelings better before the anxiety attack phase of them happens.

So, as I’m sitting here writing this, I’ve haven’t had a major anxiety attack for a couple of months now. That was until I was on my way home from work yesterday.

You see, sometimes my anxiety doesn’t like for me to be myself, and as I’ve gotten more comfortable in my work environment, I’ve been even more myself, which sometimes my anxiety tells me that its “annoying” or “obnoxious” and that I’m truly “unlikable”. It’s those things that hold me back from being my complete self, but I guess I thought I was confident enough with myself at work to the point I was being even more myself.

Does that make sense?

Anyway, on Friday at my job, we had a little somewhat holiday lunch to wrap up the semester and celebrate the holidays, which I was very excited and happy to finally be a part of such a community in the first place. While we all are pretty comfortable with each other and with ourselves, we pretty much talk very casually to one other; we are all truly friends and co-workers I believe. So, while everything went well and I left my job feeling pretty happy and content, my anxiety crept up on me, telling me “your co-workers probably talk behind your back about how annoying you are, y’ know? They probably talk about how hard you try to fit in with their younger crowd; ew, you’ve turned into one of those old people that are still trying to be young and cool to young people. Get a grip, these people are only nice to you because they work with you, they aren’t your friends.”

I don’t know why I think these things, to be honest. Maybe it’s not even me thinking them; maybe it is the anxiety behavior and patterns I have when it comes to socializing with people. My anxiety makes me believe that no one likes me and that people are only nice to me because they don’t want to hurt my feelings, as well as I’m not really friend-material; I am easily forgotten. So, with my anxiety telling me that just moments after I leave for work, I have an anxiety attack.

I’m not ashamed of having them anymore, because although my anxiety can be wrong at times, I also believe it happens because it is telling me something, or reminding me of something. While yes, these people I work with are like friends to me and I like them a lot, I have to remind myself that this is my job first, and there are boundaries I have to have with these people. I’m not saying I can’t be myself around these people, but I have to remind myself that we aren’t in an outside setting, we are at work, and some level of professionalism still needs to be at play. Also, I have to remind myself that even though I like them a lot (more on that on the posts about demiromanticism), there are still boundaries that have to be enforced. Going into work next week, I can now still be myself to some degree and still feel comfortable enough to the point where I feel confident in the little quirky things about me.

It’s a very weird explanation, but I wouldn’t have had this talk with myself about this topic if I didn’t have that anxiety attack. While it was helpful to regather myself in this situation, it also allowed me to take a deep breath and remind myself that these people, whether they talk about me or not when I’m not around, I’m still being the best version of myself and that it’s okay if not everyone you like will like you back. You have to put in the work and ask yourself what are the positive things about this anxiety attack and what are the negatives about it as well.

Fearing your anxiety attacks and preventing them from happening will only further hurt you and your healing process. Holding in anxiety attacks is like trying to bottle up all of your emotions: if you avoid them enough times, it will spill over and create an even bigger mess than it would’ve been if you just dealt with it at that moment. If you fear to have anxiety attacks, they will just happen more often than usual, I’ve been there and it fucking sucks. 

Half of your healing process is to prevent the fear and outcomes of certain scenarios in life. Your fears may come true, but they may also not; life is uncertain and you have to let your anxiety know that you will be okay, no matter what.

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

With the holiday season being one of the busiest times of years, it’s quite common to forget to check-in with yourself and see how you’re doing. Personally, for me, my life has been a constant non-stop, and it’s sometimes hard to set some time to prioritize myself and see if I’m doing okay and taking everything in.

Yesterday, I went to therapy for the first time in what felt like weeks. To rescheduling my appointments due to conflicts and working more hours than usual at my job, it felt like it was a while since I had an hour to just check-in with myself and talk about the things that have been happening around me.

It felt good to come back after long weeks of busyness because it felt like I finally got the monthly mental health check-in I needed. Life is going well; I feel like I’m becoming a lot more confident with myself by being myself, and therapy has made me realize that I could be myself and practice my social abilities without judgment within the work environment I have.

Also, my check-in with therapy has made me gain a plan of things I want to work on as time goes on.

So, how have you’ve been this month? Have you been taking care of yourself through the holiday season? Are you taking time out for yourself while you studied for finals this semester? How are you getting through some of the hardships this time of year bring? Have you had the time to reflect on the things that are happening to you, your surroundings, maybe even some of the things your soul has been saying to you?

It’s so important to check-in on yourself, and being as busy as we all are, we all tend to put our mental health in the box of “secondary things to do” in our minds. Even if you don’t have the privilege to dedicate an hour out of your week to reflect and check-in with yourself with your therapist, you should definitely take some time out of your week to talk things out and check-in with yourself. Write in a journal, communicate with someone you care about, do something that takes care of you; anything that promotes self-care, self-awareness, and self-reflection.

So here’s my monthly mental health update.

• I’m so beyond happy to now have a community of people I get to see the majority of the week and be unapologetically myself.
• My job and the fears I’ve faced doing so has made me ready and have the want & desire to socialize more… even though I’m still deathly anxious to do so.
• I’m learning to now be more assertive with my familial relationships now that I’m now comfortable being assertive to non-familial ones.
• My awareness of demiromanticism has made me more comfortable talking to people and like them without feeling any shame that I do as long as there are boundaries.
• With my mental health more intact now, I am ready to move forward taking care of my physical health.
• Happiness isn’t a goal, but a feeling, and I know that I will have bad days; they just will not be permanent.

So let me ask you guys one more time: how have you been?

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

It’s kind of crazy that the people that I met this year never knew the Liz with her signature half updo ponytail, and they possibly can’t imagine me with long hair either since meeting me with a pixie cut. I can assume it’s vice versa for those who only know me with long hair, but it has come that time of year when it’s been one full year being Liz, your pixie cut friend. 

The thought of me having a pixie cut came after I began cutting my hair shorter and shorter throughout 2018; it seems like no matter how short I would cut my “chin-length bob”, I didn’t feel right. Throughout November 2018, I was going through a lot of personal issues and when I decided I needed a fresh change, I always try to change my hair first. On one Sunday evening, I went to my sibling and asked them to cut my hair into a pixie. The rest, ladies and gentlemen, was history. 

Cutting my hair into a hairstyle I never had before was liberating, to say the least. I felt control over my body after months of anxiety not letting me have so anymore, and I found myself gaining the type of confidence I’d never get in this body of mine. Sure, every now and then I had some sort of gender crisis and felt too boyish, but for most of my days, I liked this new version of myself.

I became confident in a lot of areas in my life once I cut my hair this short. I don’t know what it was; maybe it was the mindset of “if I can make such a big decision like chopping all my hair off, I can handle this bump on the road too” that got me through some of the most difficult conversations and decision-making scenarios I’ve had this last year. I also didn’t have many self-regrets or doubts anymore, which was such a huge issue for me throughout 2018. Sure, I still have them as we speak, but I don’t have those episodes as bad as I did since I gained that confidence within myself.

Of course, I got bored every now and then and when the weather got hot, my hair was annoying and sweaty most of the time. I told my sibling I wanted my hair to be even shorter for the summer, and when I got what I wanted, I loved it instantly! I felt that boost of confidence that I had earlier in the year… for like a week. I quickly regretted the decision to cut my hair even shorter because, well, let’s say I felt even more self-conscious and boyish than I felt before. I’m still trying to grow out my hair back to what it was when I first cut it, and she’s getting there!

Even though there were moments I didn’t feel comfortable with myself or secure enough with my gender, I found myself more confident than ever when it came to my wardrobe. You see, prior to this haircut, I did not own one summery casual dress because I felt too fat to wear them, and for some reason, I challenged myself this summer season and wore all the dresses I could possibly wear, and I actually miss wearing them! Wearing the dresses without feeling like I was too fat or insecure was such a major milestone in my journey of healing and loving myself. It’s something I definitely believe my haircut helped me be ready to finally do.

Since then, I’ve played around with color for the last couple of months because, well, I’ve pretty much been on a whole other level with my decision making since this past summer. I mean, I got two tattoos since then, I’ve changed my hair color three times since October, and well, I’ve been trying new things that I was too afraid to try before this new transition in my life began. It’s been trial and error, but there have been moments when I did something and went oh yeah, this is it! Currently, it’s my faded purple hair with roots as long as God knows.

 

Of course, there are moments when I miss my long hair. I miss how it frames my face, I miss straightening it and curling it and trying out different hairstyles whenever I got bored with it. I miss the natural curl on the bottom of my hair. Hello, I miss my signature ponytail! While there are moments that I wish I can have my long hair back like right now, I’m also reminded that hair is hair, and it will grow back. As we speak, I’m not keeping up with my haircuts anymore only because I want more of a long pixie for the new year, and maaaybe we’ll get long hair Liz back in 2021, who knows? All I know is that I don’t regret the decision of cutting my hair into a pixie. It’s become a part of my identity that I actually like; it’s helped me be more confident and assertive with myself and worthy of myself. It’s allowed me to try out new things that my security blanket of long hair wouldn’t allow me to do.

So, happy hair-a-versary, pixie! Thank you for allowing me to grow into the person I am today; a person that I never thought I’d become within the last year! Thank you for helping me gain some confidence, spunk, and good energy within myself. I’m where I’m supposed to be in life because you’ve taught me valuable lessons to move forward with it. Here’s to a longer you coming soon, I mean I’m waiting for your ass to grow into the long pixie you’re supposed to be! Haha (:

Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz!

We all know how joyous, fun, loving, and wonderful the holiday season are; seeing the different houses light up with decorations at night, listening to Christmas music to get into the holiday season, and spending time with family for the holidays are just some of the things many of us enjoy about it. But, the holidays can be just as stressful and depressing as they are happy and joyous. Not everyone’s holiday season is like a Hallmark movie; it’s not always snowed-in and spending time with family, it’s not always decorating the Christmas tree and wrapping up gifts, and it’s not always a happy time. It seems like people are a lot tenser towards this time of year, whether it’s just the quickness of the holidays approaching, shopping for gifts – whatever the case is, it’s not always snowflakes and decorations.

Personally, for me, the holidays can be both happy and depressing, depending on how I see it and how things are going. Over the years, the holidays have been some of the most difficult times of the year just because the spirit around the holidays focuses on things that my family and I struggle with; togetherness, lovingness, whatever family shit the holidays are supposed to make us feel. So, if your holiday season is anything similar to mine, here are some tips and reminders in order to survive the holiday season:

1. The holiday season isn’t just meant for blood-related families, it’s for whatever family means to you. I appreciate the people who go out of their way and spend the holidays with their closest friends and buddies; in a sense, that is their own definition of a family! Many people who have troubled relationships with their blood-related families are still able to feel that loving and togetherness with other people they love and care about, and that’s honestly the true meaning of the holidays! Spend it with people you love and care about; don’t worry if those people in your life are not blood-related.
2. You matter and you deserve to see another holiday season next year. Despite the Spring season being one of the highest suicide rates of the year, the holiday season is a close second. A close family member of mine attempted suicide one holiday season a couple of years ago, and when my family and I visited them in the hospital, the visiting room was packed up with visitors and patients to the point that the workers at the place had to set up chairs outside of the visiting area. Remember that there are tons of people out there who feel like they are not accepted into their families for being who they are, and feel the loneliest during the holiday season. Always remember that you matter and you deserve to live.
3. Just do the damn online shopping. I’m not one to do most physical shopping anymore only because I’m addicted to online shopping, so this holiday season I did most of my shopping online! It saved me a lot of the stress on when and where I’d go on this shopping adventure (especially when I go to work most of the week in Staten Island). As I’m writing this, I’m 95% done with Christmas gifts for my family, which is a relief. So, to save you the stress and chaos of holiday shopping, just do it online, y’all.
4. Make your own holiday traditions. When I was younger, the best part about the holiday season for me was the traditions my family and I had. When my grandfather was alive and when my grandparents were younger, they would bring all of our family gifts down to the city and drop them off at my house and we weren’t allowed to open them until it was Christmas. My sibling and I loved our grandparents’ gifts because they were always amazing. Also, my family always made an attempt to make it seem like Santa came rushing into our window and delivered all of our gifts on Christmas Eve, which made the season always feel magical. Of course, as I got older and everyone in my family got older, the holiday season hasn’t been the same, which is why I’ve made my own holiday traditions to follow! I put up decorations on my own, I write and send out holiday cards to the people I love the most, I honestly just try to do the things that I love to do for the holidays, and I guess when I get older and *maybe* have a family of my own, my traditions will pass down to another generation!
5. Take the holiday season with a grain of salt. The holiday season isn’t something that has to be or feel different than any other time of a year, in reality. If you’re not into the holiday season, then don’t treat it any differently than you do with the rest of the year. The holiday season, if not just a big season full of consumerism, wouldn’t be a big deal if our country wasn’t so captailist-hungry like it is. Again, the holiday season is difficult for a lot of people, and if you just don’t have any holiday spirit within you, that’s okay. No one is telling you that you have to be or feel a certain way because of the holidays. Treat this season how you feel is best for you!

Again, this time of year is different for everybody, and that’s okay if you don’t feel or have that cheesy, Hallmark-like holiday that society tries to shove down your throat. your holiday season is unique to you and whether or not you celebrate, that’s completely okay! As long as you’re healthy, okay, and getting past this next month of holiday stuff, that’s all that should matter.