Unrealistic Expectations

This isn’t an easy blog post to write as it can be quite painful and unhealthy to talk about it,  but I feel guided to write

Straight out of secondary school I ended up studying primary teaching at university.  Going to university was an amazing experience and I don’t regret doing it, but it probably led to me developing mental health issues because of the unrealistic expectations of my family.  I was the first child in the family to attend university and my family had expectations of me that turned out to be very unrealistic and based on some sort of fantasy that my family had concerning me.  I found university very challenging and although I loved my major of children’s literature I struggled with other parts of the course and started to have panic and anxiety attacks that my family chose to ignore. Then my cousin passed away and the panic and anxiety attacks worsened to such an extent that I deferred from uni and never went back.  If only I had a family who were worldly and educated about mental health issues.  For the next few years I worked in a couple of different jobs and moved out of home, so I could be independent and lead my own life even as my mental health declined and I became very unwell very quickly and my family became stereotypical in their judgement and shame of my mental health issues.  I internalised alot of my struggle and was determined to use my experience to help others and I was blessed to study welfare studies at TAFE and make a career in peer support roles in mental health 🙏🏽.   That was a blessing in disguise because it so easily could’ve become a victim but chose instead to grow developing empathy and compassion.   My advice to people is not to let others expectations of you define you . Life is a journey and we are all on different paths learning different lessons. Enjoy your journey and don’t let other people define you