Okay. I will be 31 in 4 days. Usually, my birthdays are a time for celebration. But this time around, I truly just want to be alone on that day. Believe me, I do spend a lot of time alone already. And I thoroughly enjoy it.

By the way, before I continue, Please see the below notice.

**WARNING – This is going to be a LONG, SENTIMENTAL & PERSONAL Blog Post. *** So if you’re here mainly for my Copywriting services, please click HERE.

Or If you just want to catch up on my other small-business related blog posts, then click HERE. ***

.

.

.

Okay,

If you’re still here. then I guess we’re going to do this.

.

.

.

Well damn. Now I realise this is going to be harder for me than I originally thought. But fuck it. So bear with me.

(SIGHS)

The year 2021 has been a very trying, evolving and revealing year for me. And I mean in all 5 aspects of my personal being – Emotionally. Mentally. Physically. Sexually. And Spiritually. This year has been my a true test of patience, resilience, love, self-forgiveness and ambition.

.

.

In the 1st week of 2021, I had my first EVER therapy session.

By the start of the year, I was in a very emotionally damaging living situation with someone I cherish dearly. We had descended into a special type of depravity that left us lost, broken, and only shells of our former selves. And we both paid for it very dearly.

The above situation, coupled with my own challenging family obligations, loss of life and COVID-19 stress all came together finally – like one big shitty cocktail. I experienced a very crushing emotional and mental breakdown just 2 days before the new year 2021. It was truly the most crushing pain I had ever felt.

Allow me to put the pain of that experience into context.

I lived here illegally for 3 years shortly after obtaining my Master’s degree in Accounting & Finance. The feeling of inadequacy and low self-esteem I felt during that period could not compare.

The frustration I felt when I could not travel home to Cameroon for the funerals of both my grandads could not compare. Or the fact that I could not see my parents or siblings for 6 years.

Not even the sadness I felt when I stopped to look at bullet-riddled corpses lying on the street, all victims to an ongoing, senseless civil war in West Cameroon.

Not even the soul-crushing pain of my previous failed relationship could compare, nor the deep pain I felt when I was finally lucky to travel home in late 2019 just to bury my dad.

So believe me when I say…

that at the start of 2021, I had never felt so inadequate in my entire life. I was unambitious, unmotivated and had lost a lot of weight I didn’t even have. COVID pressure did not help either.

I had always taken pride in my resilience. But after my very significant emotional breakdown just 2 days before 2021 , I now felt exposed, vulnerable, undesirable and weak. I made a resolve to never forget that feeling of helplessness, and knew then that something had to change.

So what did I do?

Well, with some support after a desperate cry for help, I had my very first counselling/therapy session. ONLY 1 week into the new year 2021, Great Start.

I was lucky to find a low cost therapist for only €20 per 50 minute session. It was the most uncomfortable thing I had to do at first, but I made a resolve to have a zoom meeting with my therapist every week until the end of 2021.

While I don’t want to elaborate on every aspect of my journey through therapy, I would like to however point out The most important things I learned:

• I learned that I had bottled up WAY too much emotion for years, and I became completely unaware as time went on. This was a coping mechanism I had developed as an undocumented migrant here in Ireland. I believed I needed a tough mindset in order to wear my optimism better, so that I could maintain hope during a hopeless time in my life. And It worked! My perseverance finally led me to gain a valid work permit after 3 years.
• But the cost was a lack of self-awareness when it came to emotional availability. With both my family and partners, I had increasingly become ‘available‘, but never truly ‘present‘. This was also a contributing factor to the breakdown of a relationship that could have become something really beautiful.

• I also learned that it was such a shame that we mostly turn to therapy only at our lowest point. I say this because the most fulfilling part of my therapy happened around 6 months later, when I truly felt I had addressed most of my personal issues. Now that the lump in my chest was gone, my approach to therapy suddenly changed from looking for a way out, to going on a deeper journey of self-evaluation and learning more about myself.

• This 2nd stretch of my therapy allowed me to evaluate my upbringing, my thoughts, values, emotions, actions and reactions. And how they might be connected to the man I am today. In a greater sense, it allowed me to be more self-aware and introspective, to call myself out on my own bullshit, and to be more forgiving to myself of past failures.

• I also learned the importance of setting very clear personal boundaries. And I also learned to communicate the fact that just because I am free, does not necessarily mean I am available.

• And that I am quite resilient, despite all evidence to the contrary.

It All Comes Full Circle.

Around September 2021, I decided to have only bi-weekly sessions instead of weekly sessions, as I felt better and better.

In the last 2 months, I have only had 2 sessions. And I will have my final session on the first week of 2022, exactly a year from when I started.

I feel nothing but gratitude for what I’ve been through and how far I have come. I feel grateful for my friends, my family, my mistakes made, my lessons learned and for the gift of life. I am clearly a much different person now than I was a year ago. And that is a huge win for me.

As a result, I am also a huge advocate for rights for the undocumented, and affordable counselling. It shouldn’t cost you a fortune to get your mind right goddamit!

Again, on my birthday, I really just want to spend the day alone – to reflect, to appreciate, to design my vision board for 2022 and to watch Spiderman: No Way Home. And as I already mentioned at the start of this post, I have been spending a lot of time alone since I moved into my own flat this year. And I love it!

I really enjoy the peace that comes with it.

I really enjoy the space it offers me so I can sit with myself and reflect.

I really enjoy having my loud-speakers on the entire day, while working from home.

I really enjoy the fact that I can choose to have company only when I want to, not when I have to.

And I really enjoy the renewed focus this space affords me as I work to build my freelance copywriting business.

As you can see, right now I feel truly blessed and optimistic. I intend to continue learning more about myself, and how I can help others. I intend to keep setting goals, and smashing them. I intend to continue taking action, so I can be a slightly better person today than I was yesterday. And I intend to ride this wave well into 2022.

You can choose to do the same.

So on that note, I have only one thing left to say;

– Do your worst, Omicron. –