How Do You Cope?

If all of your family's problems stem back to you, I wonder where your problems came from.

Our experience of childhood shapes our lives. Whether we experienced neglect, abuse, bullying, scapegoating, we're still left to adapt to the world after.

I cope by building hope in my future. If you ask me at the wrong time, I might tell you there's no hope for my future. But every day, I have the opportunity to connect more (when I want to isolate and seethe), I have the ability to pursue whatever is meaningful to me (despite feeling powerless and without agency most of my life), and I have the responsibility to myself to reflect on each day and interpret it charitably, graciously, and with the affirmation that I am loved first and foremost by myself.