THE REAL VALUE OF PRIORITIZING YOURSELF AND YOUR WELL-BEING

People always say that friends come and go. It’s just a given in life. People change just like seasons change. When people change, what they look for in life, including the people that they want to be surrounded with, changes. In my personal experience, I lost so many people between me surviving that fateful car accident in August 2015 and me being diagnosed with epilepsy in 2016. I can’t even begin to explain that year even if I tried. My husband did a count of how many people we lost touch with in that year alone, and it was 19 people!

Life trauma can change you as a person, and that’s what happened to me in the year between the car accident and my diagnosis. I didn’t even understand how serious the car accident was until I had my first seizure post car accident. To this day, I have no recollection of what actually happened, which according to all the doctors I’ve seen throughout the years, is the real indication of just how serious the car accident was. To this day, I don’t actually know what happened, and that in itself is a sign as to how serious the car accident really was. My subconscious, though, knew I became a different person.

Losing so many friends in such a short amount of time was difficult. It felt as though I was losing myself and my identity. And then there were also some people in my life that I kept over the years that were the pure definition of what a toxic friendship is. Over time, though, it got easier for me. I realized that I really had no control over what happens in my life. So I started implementing my own motto of ‘whatever will be, will be.’ That motto helped me a lot in my personal life. At the end of the day, the two things that matter the most in life, or at least in my life anyways, are family and health. Everything else is just the icing on the cake.

The pandemic really hit a chord. It wasn’t just about me and what I was going through. It was about everyone in the world. We were all going through the same exact thing. It was absolute chaos. I wasn’t the only one changing drastically anymore. Everyone else was too, including my friends. If the pandemic didn’t affect us one way, it affected us another way. No matter what the case might be, and no matter what anyone’s life circumstance might’ve been, we were all affected by the global pandemic.

I was personally hit hard by the pandemic in the business department. I’d been working as a freelance writer since 2016. It was a very difficult industry to be a part of because of how competitive it was, and even more so now. When I was just starting out, it was just a way for me to make a little money here and there until I got a full-time job. At the time. The car accident happened two weeks before I graduated college. I obviously wasn’t successful at finding full time employment. I was bored of doing nothing, so that was my answer to feeling useful. As years went by though, freelancing became my full-time gig. By 2020, my business was going so well that I barely got any time off. In a blink of an eye. all that success faded with the pandemic. By 2021, all my freelancing activities were completely stopped. At the very same time, my husband and I moved out of my parents’ house and moved in to our own little nest. Also during that time, I was going through fertility treatments – IVF in particular.

It was a very difficult period for me. I was extremely stressed, and my health was deteriorating because of that. And because of that, just like it was in the year that followed me surviving a car accident, I was losing friends left and right. I was starting to really feel sorry for myself. But then, I found out that an old friend of mine passed away in November 2020 of epilepsy and depression. That was the moment I realized I needed to take my sh*t seriously. I needed to prioritize what was actually important, which was my health. Without my health, I wouldn’t be able to start a new business, I wouldn’t be able to live an independent life, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to have a child.

I most certainly understood that people had their own sh*t to deal with. I didn’t want anyone’s help or advice. I wanted to continue on with my life the best that I could and have good people around me. Prioritizing my health was the best decision I ever made in my life, and I should’ve done it sooner. Though I said before that I did years prior, I realize that it was just all an act. It was me trying to prove a point that wasn’t even true. I was lying to myself. I was betraying myself. I still have the ‘whatever will be, will be’ motto that I had years prior. But now, more than ever, I take it seriously. I don’t care how many friends I lose along the way. In a sense, losing friends can be the best thing, with the exception of losing them due to their deaths, because it’s another way to start anew. I need to know that I’m at peace with myself, and that I’m taking care of myself and my well-being first and foremost.

The world doesn’t revolve around me; I know that. No friend or family member, except for my husband and my parents, will ever care for me as much as I care for myself. But my world revolves around me. My life matters to me. Therefore, I need to always make sure I’m putting myself first. It all started with me surviving that fateful car accident. I’m just grateful to have survived. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.It was a real turning point for me. If it wasn’t for it, I would’ve been a completely different person. I would’ve lived a completely different life – an unhealthy, unstable life. I probably would’ve been a 9-5 employee. Life sometimes doesn’t go as planned. But what’s not planned can be the best thing that ever happens to you.

In life, it’s not about what happens to you. Instead, it’s how you handle everything that happens to you. I used to blame the world for everything I’d gone through. I used to ask myself ‘why me?’ or ‘why now?’ a lot. Now I say, ‘why not?’.