Finding Myself

Finding Myself

“I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.” - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Sixteen and seventeen became a time of huge change in my life; I was attending church services in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly known as the Mormon Church. I enjoyed going to the Mormon Services, my life’s questions were being fed the way I needed and I felt I was with people of like-mindedness. No one forced me to attend no one stuck me in a room and brainwashed me, I could come and go as I pleased and it pleased me, I felt it was where I belonged, I fit in. At 18 I was baptized a member.

At aged 21 I served a Mission for the Church in the Scotland Edinburgh Mission, January 1988 to June 1989, it was like 10 years’ experience in 19 Months, that’s right I was there for 19 months not 18 it was the way it worked out, it ship shaped me into real life. It was tough being away from family and friends and all things familiar, however I adapted to my new environment fairly quickly and when time to leave I missed my Scottish families and all that had become my normal, going home to a lot of uncertainty was quite daunting.

I settled back eventually, and then the tornado began, got a job in a shoe shop, got married, got pregnant, lost the baby at 13 weeks August 20 1990, then in October 1993 I became pregnant again I gave birth in July 1994 to Rebekah Barrett my beautiful daughter of now 20 years of age. (Rebekah is now serving a Mission herself for our Church in the Massachusetts Boston Mission). In 2000 I and Rebekah’s Dad divorced. Very quickly after I was Married again and now looking back in retrospect that was not a clever move. However it was congruent with my life’s pattern. I was a needy, under confident self-loathing mess of a human. It wasn’t until my friend Aoife pointed out my mess and got me to really look at myself that I realised all was not well. I was not well. Then life took a turn for the better in an abstract way. I say Abstract because I was still a mess and would be for a while to come.

So Many things where spiraling out of control in my life, I didn’t know who I was anymore or at least didn’t recognise the woman in the mirror. I tried counseling, reading self-help books, alternative therapies all of which helped but it’d be a long time until I woke up. (As a side note, another friend of mine emailed me one day, a day I was in my bed feeling sorry for myself, My second husband had walked out of my life literally and Donna Kennedy said in her fb message, what 10 things are you grateful for today? Through tears and pain I struggled to write them but the POWER in doing so has me to this day writing my 10 things I'm grateful for. The Power in being grateful is outstanding! “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”  - Marcus Tullius Cicero)

An opportunity to help a friend out whilst she helped me arose. That began my journey around the USA, Australia and Canada still my head full of mush. I really was a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. I thought everything I believed in had GONE, I felt ALONE even though I was surrounded, I was in a dark place in a room with no doors, that’s how I felt with all the rubbish going on in my head.

By the time my travels where over so was my second marriage and I’d lost everything and I mean everything. I remember saying this to my best friends Dad and he said I know you think you have hit Rock Bottom but I don’t think you have yet, but you’ll know when you have and then there’s only two things you can do climb up or stay at the bottom and die.  I felt like I had died.