Umpteen times I wanted to give up.
Not the “leaving this earth” give up, but the “I don’t give a shit anymore” kind—time to guzzle vast amounts of booze and self-destruct by wasting my days away. Never to heal my wounds or work on self-awareness—and acknowledge the fact I was living a helpless life by tearing myself down before giving myself a chance to flourish.
There is something deep in my soul that never allowed me to fully deteriorate and become permanently useless.
Now that I am at the halfway point of my expiration date in this tempestuous journey called life, I can say—nothing surprises me anymore. I have been dragged through the depths of despair, tangoed with chaos, and stared at the ceiling from rock bottom’s basement, wondering how the hell I was still breathing.
Well, almost nothing.
To say that my childhood was a rocky situation would be like saying a tornado is a “light breeze.”
And yet, someone out there still had—has—it worse off than me. A nudge to always stay thankful for what I have, while I previously kept my foot hard-pressed down on survival mode—fight and flight.
I learned how to disappear in plain sight. I hid the pain-I-felt-inside behind laughter, rebellion, and pretending everything was fine and dandy as I walked straight toward destruction—just to feel something real.
And just as I was building my life back up, I was shattered. Obliterated during a time where I was minding my own business and writing my memoir “Random Thoughts & F*cked Up Answers…”
Skipping over the horrifying, unconscionable details and getting to the nitty-gritty of my message: addressing mental breakdowns and removing the stigma from them.
This is one of those topics that I am confident people will not outright say they have been there, done that. It is a messy, scary, and wild place to be mentally. And sadly, highly judged and “looked down upon.”
Although it has been almost two years since I experienced that low-of-lows, it still breaks my heart—the thoughts I had, and where my mind went. Especially since what I went through was avoidable if the Monterey-California-Police had honored their oath and investigated my report instead of covering up for powerful entities.
At any rate—mental breakdowns don’t come with a warning label or a neat little timeline. They creep in like fog—slow, silent, then suddenly everywhere. When suffering in silence is not even an option anymore because the barriers in your mind have vanished with no notice.
I used to think breaking down meant failure—especially since I remember being told that this kind of mental collapse was a weakness. A character flaw. A reason to be ashamed.
Now, I see it differently.
I see it as life’s toolbox cracking open—for the remodeling of everything once known—to be redefined.
A rupture of the “mask” I wore trying to fit into a world that never saw the real me—because, truthfully, I didn’t even know who that was. The breakdown forced me to stop running from myself—to start rebuilding from the raw, jagged truth of it all.
And then come the whispers—I need to get by dignity back. What can I do about what they took from me?
Some things you just don’t forgive overnight. And no—you damn sure don’t forget. But we can live beyond it. We can rise, even with the scars.
There will be a time to let go and move on—not because we’ve “healed perfectly,” but because we have outgrown the version of ourselves that needed to carry all that pain. I am not there yet, but when that time comes, I believe I will know.
And I hold firm to this:
When the chaos doesn’t make sense—when justice is tentatively pending, when healing feels slow—there’s still purpose in the mess.
Even through faith, when we doubt, rage, or cry ourselves empty, I believe He is still working.
And sometimes, He needs everything to fall apart—not to punish us, but to rebuild us as if we were the newborn of our life.
So, if you’re at the start, the middle or at the end of your breaking point—know this:
You’re not failing.
You’re unfolding into something greater then ever imagined in the first place.
And your comeback will be a profound moment—so loud, so undeniable, that even the trauma you barely survived will shrink into the fine print of your life—so faint, a magnifying glass will barely be able to read it.
such a gifted writer.
thank you Monique.