Welcome to Starting Over!

Hi everyone! My name is Gretchen, and I am a fairly new member to the 20’s club.

About six months ago, I turned 20, and I have been lost ever since. I think that I have always felt a bit lost, but now that I am moving on from my teenage years, it has become a much more overwhelming feeling. I am a junior in college and majoring in communications. I love my dog, thrifting, creating art, talking, and learning about others. When coming into college, I had no idea what was expected of me, what my 10-year plan was, or who I even was. Let's talk about that!

For nearly all of my teenage years, I was in an unhealthy long-term relationship that had practically drained the life out of me without me even realizing it. I became someone I will most likely never be proud of, but nevertheless, I am proud of myself for leaving. It took me some time to leave and so much support from my friends to make it through what I thought was going to be the end of my life. Dramatic, I know, but embarrassingly enough, that is truly how I felt. I will most likely talk more about this and how I got through it and learned to live by my own compass, but as of right now, I want to talk about MY life.

From as far back as I can remember, I have always battled with depression, anxiety, and ADHD. I very recently got diagnosed with ADHD and have started my journey with medication. Medicine has never been the way that I wanted to solve any of my mental struggles, but my life has been changed for the better, and honestly, I don’t know how I have made it through life for the last 20 years without it. I feel in control of my life and have the ability to do what I want without the weight of the world on my chest every time it comes to making a decision or leaving my bed. Because of this, for most of my life, I have been called lazy, angry, difficult, and so many other hurtful things. I was exhausted all of the time, never taking a break, and never putting myself first. This obviously led to a lot of problems. My relationships were crumbling, my attendance slipped, and I fell into a really dark place. I don’t talk about that time fondly because it honestly just sucked. There was no silver lining at that point in my life, and I saw no light at the end of the tunnel. I felt so misunderstood, and I so badly wanted to start over, drop everything, and leave everything I knew. This is where I got the inspiration for the name of my blog. Welcome to my journey, and I hope you enjoy hearing my story. 

You have probably heard that everything will get better and there are highs and lows to life. While this is true in a sense, people like to act as if life is bound to always get better and even when things get hard it is all worth it in the end. I would like to accept this as the truth, but honestly, I can’t. Some things just hurt and there isn’t a reason or explanation behind them. It helps to try to find a lesson in crappy experiences, but most of the time the lesson is what we knew all along and ignored because we were too scared of accepting that truth.

I believe that it takes a lot of effort to be happy in life. It usually requires a lot of sacrifice, advocating for yourself, and separation from things that bring you comfort. Growing is glorified discomfort. It is necessary, and without it, it’s impossible to learn about yourself and the world around you. I thought that finding myself was just another task that could be completed, but now I realize that I will never be finished learning about who I am. In the past year, I have experienced many situations that have pushed me to leave my comfort zone and see the parts of myself that I am not so proud of. I have been rejected and shut down while trying to pursue my dreams. Honestly, this nearly made me drop out and give up on myself. I thought that I had chosen the wrong path and been ridiculous for thinking that I was capable of becoming a successful adult. I forgot that following the plan I had created for myself isn’t the only route that I can take.

My dad has always said that he is rich, not in terms of money or assets, but in experiences and life. My father is my biggest role model. He is generous, smart, loving, and humble to a fault. He considers others and is always wanting to learn more and be better. He has always told me I am capable of learning and doing anything I can think of, and while I thought this was a bit unrealistic when I was younger, it set me up with the confidence to do hard things, which I wouldn’t have without his influence. My confidence falters a lot still as I am in a very testing portion of life, but I know now that I am capable of a lot more than I think I am. I feel that it is important to know that even when you feel broken and incapable, you are capable and able to get through the trials that you are enduring. 

Although I could talk about these topics forever, I will leave it for the weeks to come. Thank you for reading and listening to me. 

Welcome to Starting Over!