Author: TheAyeshaSite

I had so many deaths in my family over the past couple of years. I feel like now that I decided to become a teacher more people are saying things about me and I don’t feel I’m any less competent than anyone else. I make my own decisions in life. First I think of myself and just being less hard on myself but my therapist told me I’m very smart and I am. Life is what you make it. You only get your one life to live. I’m going to keep fighting this difficult battle with schizophrenia. I know people don’t determine my self worth God does. When I get anxious or sad or someone says something negative about me and I wonder what causes people to always talk shit about me I have learned as someone that has mental problems since I was in high school not to be hard on myself. The first thing I’ll do is get my basic driver examination permit.

Sometimes when I was a child I had kids tease me really badly because of the color of my skin. I was a pretty little black girl too but in the African American community color is different and if someone didn’t know that they would soon find out. I had two very kind people in my life my uncle Colin who has his MFA in Film works for Spike Lee and my wonderful mother who is so caring, kind and nice but I was really sensitive too and I got bullied. Life was just different for me. I was a chocolate girl and when someone describes their experiences in life and tells you honestly what their life experiences were like you would learn things you would not otherwise know. I learned to accept myself but I had some unfair things happen to me and I know I’m not alone but all of the people I interact with or say they like me I feel good because I was victimized by people who just didn’t like me. I was always the last girl picked. I felt happy to be empowered by some of my female professors. I also think about women in history and people I admire like poet Emily Dickinson or Justice Bader Ginsburg.

I am a kind person. I like when other people say I’m nice or easy going but I try to be kind to people on purpose. Sometimes even people that I know may have the same struggles that I have may even say “oh Ayesha has the same mental illness I have” even if our diagnosis may differ  but for years it was really hard for before I had the support of NAMI. I can tell you from experience mental illness is really hard. Being able to do so much more with the advances in modern medicine one day sounds nice to me. When I think of medicine and research for mental illness I know I think of wholistic alternatives rather than a psychiatrist but maybe we need both. I know the Bible verse that says “laughter make the heart merry like a medicine.” The more I laugh and enjoy myself the less stressed out I feel. A few jokes a friend and I have the happier we each are in that moment. The successes of my blog are happy successes. I always dreamed of becoming a writer I even wanted to have a chance to put MFA after my name but that didn’t work out. I admire poet Natasha Trethewey but I know she was one of the first females I saw that had that so many successes as a poet and the south is different from the north but there is still racism here I just find more people are very nice and approachable here in New Jersey where I live. I know even in Brooklyn everybody pretty much rides the bus or the train and once when I was a child in school in Brooklyn a bus driver put me off the bus for being ten cents short. I try to be careful but thank God from the train my bus ride is less than 15 minutes and as long as I say getting off at NJCU I’m okay. Things sometimes happen and the bus fare even went up five cents last year. I need to have the fare or I’m in trouble.

I became so much more comfortable in my own skin and even with the way I look too. I know God is there in the details of my story. I was this bullied little hurt black girl who was born in Brooklyn, New York to a mother that recently graduated from college who was studying to become a nurse. My biological father died when I was about two years old. My mom was this skinny black lady from the Caribbean who wanted the best for her daughter and was always skinny until she had me. I know I can think of things I struggled with from my weight to stress even insomnia but this difficult illness didn’t steal everything from me. I was able to have insight into my illness and that made a difference. I know if I thought of losses I had of like my grandfather and my father even my uncle Johnny my grandmother’s brother died when I was 12 years old. I miss my great aunt Elaine too she died at the age of 86. I really felt closest to my great aunt Elaine but my mother’s family is full of drama and so I never talk about them. I miss my great aunt Sybil too she was 89 years old when she passed and she had a photo on her program at her funeral procession she had on these beautiful eyeglasses that her side of the family my mom’s cousins had chosen a nice photo for her funeral.

I know wherever I am God is with me. I have even been able to commute back and forth to NJCU the college I attend. I graduated in August of 2015. For years I had a hard time sleeping until I had a spiritual experience that made me sure that there is a God despite what atheists say. I never want to let myself get bogged down with a lot of negative thoughts. I know just me sharing my experience of what my life is like and me having a cool experience being nominated four times in the past two years. I had someone ask me in French one time if I spoke French. It made me feel exotic. I also like French but there are some people that say they don’t like French people. It was just so cool that Miss Michelle blogging all the way in Paris, France said : “hey girl guess what I nominated you?” I have had some unique experiences in my life but I count my blessings. I know things are sometimes hard even for the more popular people that makes it harder to even really know if they die young and seem to have way easier lives that the average person. I know having the experience of being nominated makes me feel grateful to the people who nominated me and it just made me feel cool to say I was one of the bloggers to be nominated. I appreciate both Mister Stuart and Miss Michelle for the nominations they gave to me.

I have been thinking about my nominations every waking minute and it is because this is really a first experience for me to have had like this. I give praise to God first and foremost but I like taking credit for it. I spent a big portion of my life with the most difficult mental illness you can imagine. I sympathize with people who have mental illnesses because I’m one of them but I have insight into my illness. For years I volunteered with NAMI and it was a Godsend that I was able to find socialization through the Just Friends Social Group. Some days are still really difficult for me. I learned to be proud of the woman I am and to feel gratitude to the people that gave me opportunities along the way. I never had a lot of people like me or many experiences that were positive and happy like this one that I could look back on but now that I’m older if someone asks me “do you like yourself Ayesha?” I say yes because I do I learned to accept myself just the way I am. I believe God had a reason for creating me this way. It was never easy for me. I was this shy, quiet, bullied black kid that got teased a lot that never really had a lot of friends maybe a few friends but not many. I feared bad things happening to me like getting beaten up or just things other than losing my figure. I am always judged or criticized by people one or the other. I remember early on in my early life having difficult experiences that were hard for me and when I had this sudden moment of clarity and there was divine intervention involved I had a peace wash over me when at that moment I knew I had made peace with my difficult illness. I heard mean vicious voices that would make me feel really sad and I wasn’t even able to have a voice. When people read my writings and they say “Ayesha you nailed voice I can hear your voice in your memoir”. I just love that I have my own distinct voice as a writer even if I didn’t say much.

I feel like God put people in my life to help me with things that would otherwise be hard for me. When people say they like me or they find me to be a kind caring person it takes my breath away but it wasn’t always easy for me to see myself the way I began to see myself in my 30s. I have had experiences with racism that are sometimes so hard to talk about but then the other part of my story is God put people in my life that saw something in me that I may not have been able to see in myself as a person that was diagnosed with a mental illness before I was fifteen years old. My illness stole so much from me that it is hard to even think about. I wouldn’t make a big deal out of things that I cannot control I’ll be 39 years old in a few weeks.

I am looking forward to being able to have a good experience doing jury duty in February 2020 and wear my new faux fur. I want to be able to just enjoy an experience that I have never had before at The Trenton Court House. I really feel like even if my life is far from perfect it would be a good choice to make to just appreciate my life and the things I have. I want to be able to help others too and even just being able to make a positive difference in the life of a friend or a family member who has a mental illness too and anyone like a peer who has a mental illness and can also use some help from NAMI. I had a really great experience over the years just being a part of NAMI both as a consumer of the social group and later as a volunteer. NAMI gave me quality of life and their programs and team of staff and volunteers do such good work. Most of the people there are very kind and helpful and just wonderful with a number of supports for people out there struggling with mental illness. I think because I was able to make peace with an illness as difficult as schizophrenia I can try to help others who are affected by mental illness reaching out as a peer who has herself experienced some of the most difficult symptoms among them mean voices before I was fifteen years old. I was scared of my own shadow. I could barely sleep. I know if I have lived experience that are more difficult to describe. I feared so many things. In the past maybe eight or nine years I have had a number of successes that have built up my confidence including being nominated for four blogger awards and thinking of that just being something I can say that is beyond cool that I was able to do. I appreciate both Miss Michelle and Mister Stuart for reaching out to me and caring enough to nominate me and I also appreciate the other bloggers that like the content on my blog even in other countries like France. That is so cool!

I plan to try to graduate again from the program that I am going to. I have been there for about two months and I have been getting my medication injected for a while now so I can get rid of having to take all of these pills. I am looking forward to my 39th birthday later this month. I will not isolate myself. I have gotten perfect attendance for both October, November and December 2019. I feel like no matter how hard I try it is still hard. I need to get my sleep at night and power down the internet after like 11 pm. I have had struggles in my life with my mental illness and racism and insomnia. I sleep better but I can still used to getting my shut eye around 11 pm. I get up to use the restroom but then I go back to bed. I don’t stay up all night anymore but sleep is a big trigger for me that and people pushing my buttons all the time. I am almost forty years old. This experience for me blogging and being nominated for blogger awards has been amazing. I have so much gratitude for being nominated. I feel like I am a part of this blogging community that is something nice to be able to say. I think when a person isolates themselves from others they lose. It’s something I really appreciate here that I am a part of this blogging community and there are so many cool mental health blogger like Mentally Speaking, Hannah Blum’s blog H2H is really great mental health blog and there are a few others that just do a great job as writers and have great content.

I always remind myself of how far I’ve come from where I started from. I am attending an adult partial care program where I socialize with other adults who have mental illnesses. I made like five friends at program a group of maybe nine or ten of us who have mental illnesses and are in our 30s who I socialize with. I will be 39 years old later this January on the 28th. I am feeling good about my choices. I feel like now that I have a year to complete my course with The Institute of Children’s Literature I need to spend more time working on my course. I need to focus on the Praxis Core too. I got an assignment back this past weekend that I did really well on assignments 5A and 5B. I have a new writing instructor for this course and it felt great to have my new writing instructor like what I did for the assignment it was much more difficult. I plan to spend my weekend working on assignment#6. There are ten assignments and I am more than halfway through the course. I get a special diploma from The Institute of Children’s Literature by next January 2021. I want to write for kids. I enjoy it! People say I am really good at writing for children. I would love to have my children’s books be popular!