My story begins in 2020. Although I had an upbringing that included its fair share of abuse, abandonment and molestation, and panic attacks, it wasn’t until the pandemic year that I started to realize how it all really affected me. When I began seeing video after video of people who were the same color as me, people who looked like my brother, mother, uncle and friends being murdered in broad daylight and filmed like animals, did I realize I wasn’t okay. I fought to be an activist and to help how I could, but I felt weak and powerless. Although I’m a fighter, I felt that all my training would be useless at the hands of the police in my country. It just kept happening over and over again. It put me in a really dark place. Then after losing loved one after loved one I started to really sink. The depression and anxiety was so real that it made me sick. I was in bed, with a temperature of 104 for 3 weeks, going from hospital to hospital only to be sent home since I never tested positive for Covid. I still don’t know how I survived. I felt like I was technically still breathing but not alive anymore. I thought about the peace that would come from being able to rest indefinitely. My heart felt so broken. I remember passing a mirror, seeing my body thin and weak from illness, but then looked into my own eyes and saw power. Very little, but still there. I decided to pray. And felt the fight returning to me. It didn’t make sense, not logically, but I had this feeling that made me believe I could overcome this and return to who I knew I was. It was an uphill battle but I won. So whoever is reading this. Know you are not alone, your power remains. Peace and love to you all.
