This email exchange between the Graduation Coordinator, my advisor, and I started as source of stress. They audited my classes and said I lack 3 hours, and my diploma was set to have the last wrong name. (🤦🏿♀️) I was like "not today, Satan!" (😂😂😂) Everything is resolved. (🙏🏿🙌🏿) The name on my diploma will read LeKechia Lyshell... 😊😁😀🤩
I woke up, reread this email, and was overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude.
Last December, the level of frustration and disappointment I experienced concerning school and graduation is difficult to discuss. What I perceived to be "another humiliating, heartbreaking, and public failure" took me through one of my darkest emotional periods. I am ashamed of how poorly I coped. I was mad as hell at myself, life, and God, and I felt like a failure. Today, this particular issue is no longer a struggle. It is a settled matter.
This lesson, for me, involves so much. It is difficult to openly discuss this, but I want to be transparent. Beginning in December 2017, initiated by a school debacle, I became depressed with suicidal ideation. For whatever reason, I felt like I couldn't recover from "another failure." (That was my internal rhetoric.) It felt like I experienced years of postponed emotions, and I was mentally somewhere else. Ultimately, I sought professional help. (I am okay now; please don't worry. And, I will continue therapy as I know I benefit from it.)
I said all of that to say this: Do not make permanent decisions over temporary emotions. We can choose to manage short-term setbacks without subjecting ourselves to longer-term, negative consequences. Failure and fear sometimes feel insurmountable, but they can be and are often overcome. Ask for the help you need, and there is no shame in seeking professional help. You got this!
I am a work in progress. I'm still learning myself. I am still healing. I have more to overcome, but I got this!
Social Media Wisdom:
"6 months from now you can be in a completely different space, mentally, spiritually, & financially. Keep working & believing in yourself."
P.S.
Thank God for the people in my life who were relentless with love, support, encouragement, affirmations, and prayers. Thank God for mental health professionals. Thank God for mornings. (The dark is temporary! 🙏🏿) Thank God for keeping me in all my ways. ("For he will give his angels orders concerning you, to protect you in all your ways." Psalms 91:11 CSB)
