I'm My Own Worst Enemy

Compartment Syndrome - a painful and rare condition caused by pressure build up from internal bleeding or swelling of muscle tissue.

Mental Breakdown - when an individual is mentally overwhelmed from built up pressure from external forces that causes an extreme emotional outburst

Common term here: PRESSURE

Pressure can come in all different types of forms: physical, mental, and emotional. There are types of pressure that can cause physical damage to one’s body. There are types of pressure that can cause you to shut down emotionally because there’s so much built up under the surface, it explodes in a fit of rage and sadness. There’s pressure to be the best at a job, a sport, to be #1 and anything less is unacceptable. This is a mindset caused by immeasurable amounts of pressure we put on ourselves.

Most of us don’t know how to do this. All we know is to go at 100mph, get as much as we can done in the limited hours of the day. To do everything we can to be the best we can be. To excel at our jobs, at our hobbies, at our relationships. To achieve as much as we can in our lives with promotions, awards, recognitions, etc. We were never taught to slow down. We were never taught to take a breath for a second and just, be. We were never taught that life isn’t about being in 1st place, it’s about what you make of your life and what you gain from it.

I’ve done this twice in my life where I pushed my body to enormous amounts of pressure. One was back in 2016, where I was hospitalized 4 times in a month when my doctors were trying to figure out what’s wrong with my health and I was working 7 days a week. The other time, 2021, where again, I ignored the pain in my legs until it was too much for me to handle. Now, I’ve underwent two surgeries to fix what I broke. I remember when I was young, I put enormous amounts of pressure on myself to succeed in school. This caused me to have anxiety about test taking. This caused me to have breakdowns in my room and in front of my parents when I didn’t get above an 85 or, what I deemed as a “satisfactory grade.” This carried into sports…this carried with me for my whole entire life.

I started therapy this year with a new therapist. It sucks starting over, don’t get me wrong. But, I’ve realized more in this past year about myself by having an outside perspective / voice on how I was feeling or thinking than I ever have.

I’ve never in my life put myself first. My friends and family always came before me. My job ALWAYS came before my health and myself. I would never take a sick day. I would always jump when my friends needed me. I put in long hours to finish any projects on time. I always took on more so I could prove to everyone I could handle anything and everything that was thrown at me. What a huge downfall this was.

But now, I’ve really come to realize how unhealthy this mindset is. When you put so much pressure on yourself, you don’t realize how negatively you are impacting your physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Humans can’t undergo this amount of pressure. In time, when it gets too much, we crumble beneath it.

A job isn’t more important than your health or your well being. A relationship isn’t worth putting yourself in a hole that you can’t dig ourself out of. YOU matter most of all. Your health matters. Your well-being matters. Stand up for yourself. Fight for yourself.

If there’s one thing I gained from 2020-2022, it’s that, “You only have one life to lead. So don’t take for granted those little things. Those little things are all that we have” - A Day to Remember (This Is The House That Doubt Built).