It clicked, after a lot of tears

There are a lot of moments in your life when you wonder about how things changed, if there was a turning point, a significant event or if it was gradual. I remember one of my very significant days.

I always suffered with extreme anxiety, crippling, crying, every day caring only about what other people thought of me.

Then this one thing happened and I couldn't take it anymore, I couldn't understand how people could be so cruel, which in reality it was just the day I realised I was in charge of what I let affect me and what I could choose not to let bother me.

This was a few years ago, something bad happened to me and I didn't attend a cheer practice due to being, well, majorly depressed. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't talk without crying. I couldn't function. I was in the epitome of depression and told my coaches I wouldn't be at practice- naturally they were fine, I had never missed a training session before, plus I couldn't train anyway.

Some (not many) of team mates decided to belittle me, sending me negative online messages about not attending training. They didn't know I was holding on by a thread, but sure they felt the need to attack me, even though I'd never missed a training, and had quite literally damaged myself beyond repair only 2 days prior. I CLUNG to those messages. I thought I was already feeling the worst I could possibly feel... and my team mates intentionally or unintentionally? made me feel worse.

I got to the point of panic attack that I has to drive myself to the gym to see my coaches to convince myself that my team didn't hate me. My coaches sat me down in their office like the gems they are and talked me through it. They weren't mad at me, not at all. How could you be mad at someone who literally feels numb to the core and that their whole life is over, and has always given everything and everything??

Something clicked that day.

I was forced to answer some questions to help me get over it. They revolved around how I felt about these people, if I planned on being friends with them for life, if I really really cared about what they think of me when its irrelevant. They also reminded me how I could not be compared to any of them. That all of our situations are different and that my coaches couldn't compare someone they'd known for a couple of months, to me who had been around for so many years and never made a bad choice. They reminded me that in the long run these people were going to be irrelevant to me and my life, and that them insulting me was their problem and not mine.

Somehow I stopped crying, somehow it finally clicked that I was worthy, that I couldn't be compared, that what someone else says to you isn't the truth and you don't have to comprehend, believe or listen to what someone else opinion of you is. I'm not sure how that exact moment I chose to listen to what was being said to me, but I did. I dug deep, and I've been a much happier person for it ever since.

Literally, since that day I've been able to not get upset at others opinions of me. If I do whats best for me then thats all I care about. My happiness over an opinion of someone who has no part of my forever life I'll choose 100x over. Its second nature to me now, And even time I'm faced with something that reminds me of that day, I remember the choice I made and I'm brought back to reality.

I'm forever grateful for my coaches. They're the most wonderful people I've ever come across and have taught me SO many life lessons. But that day, when I was at my lowest, they brought me back to reality and forever changed the way I felt about others opinions of me and the irrelevancy of it :):