『The Adventure Within You』のカバーアート

The Adventure Within You

The Adventure Within You

著者： Jessica Karafin
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What do you do when you realize your entire life has been a struggle that it never needed to be? You heal, you grow, you learn, and develop self-love. Join me, Jessica Karafin, as we dive into healing, growing in self-love, and creating a community of people ready to support others through the workings of life.

jessicakarafin.substack.comJessica Karafin 心理学 心理学・心の健康 社会科学 衛生・健康的な生活
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  • What an insane week!

    What an insane week!
    2024/03/19

    Here is the letter I wrote today that I mentioned, typos and all, because I try not to edit too many things for my blog and podcast because you need to know that life is messy and you still deserve great love!

    There is a part of me that misses the way my life use to be. Atleast the version that I thought life was before I processed how insane my life was. I grieve the lack of a parental role I wish I could have in my life, but I know to have one, the way it was, was worse than none at all.

    I miss the times my heart felt love and security the way I knew as a young child, before the weight of the world got in the way. Before the times of realizing the truth of my reality, where all I knew of love was that it would only ever be unconditional. How I wish I had the limited capacity to see life for what it really is, maybe then I would feel a sense of pride in me, pride is self love, pride in my own accomplishments. Yet my heart is torn, broken between the what is and what could have been. Between the lies I lived and believed of who I am, with the truth that I know I am that has yet to sink in.

    I am always enough and I always have been. Why could you not see that? Why was I led to believe that I ever had to fight for you to love me? Do you know the countless nights I spend reminding myself who I am? That I am loved, and there is nothing that I could do that would take that away! Because my heart is torn between the what is and what should be.

    Someday my heart will believe what my mind already knows, but here is what I need you to know. I forgave you a long time ago. I still love you today, and although I must do what I know is right. I miss you, and I love you always. Someday I hope you forgive me for the ways that I made you feel, or made you worry. Just so you know we are okay, we are learning to love deeper day by day. I don’t resent you anymore, I know you raised us the way you knew how, and I am thankful for all you sacrificed of yourself.

    I love you, and always will.

    Jessica

    I do not have links yet, but for anyone interested, these are the two covers of the books I was working on



    This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jessicakarafin.substack.com/subscribe
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    11 分
  • Get to Know A Little About Me (Part 2)

    Get to Know A Little About Me (Part 2)
    2024/03/11
    Well, here we are in Part 2.I tend to jump straight into my conversations, so this will be no different. Let me just hit the big points quickly. I dated a person for three years who although he was a good guy was a bad match for me. I had to fight for my self-worth and in the process dropped all my friends to try and make this one guy happy. I compared myself frequently to the best performing person in the room and in doing so destroyed my confidence in my capabilities. My mom told me frequently how she had to work hard to like me as a person.I was frequently told how my mom wished she had a child with a specific mental health diagnosis. My dad lost control of his anger, and about offed my mom.I was told I was the reason my parents stayed together.I watched my dad’s self-esteem plummet. I was constantly screamed at for any moment that my mom disagreed with me.My dad’s family all but disappeared leaving my dad as sole caretaker of my grandpa after he had an accident that changed his physical health and personality.My parents were both given different mental health diagnoses including schizoaffective disorder, autism, anxiety, ADHD, depression, CPSTD, and PTSD.I was left alone going to college after an hour or 2 in a new city because my dad was struggling with his mental health. I lost faith in church communities because of the way they treated my husband and others around me. Now there is a lot more to unpack at future times in these situations. Still, for now these are the big points that you need to know for me to say that I recovered significantly from a household that was emotionally reactive, sometimes physically unsafe, and most of the time not available in the ways I needed them to be.My high school and early adult years were also filled with many great moments. It is where I found my passion for music and the arts. I got married and had kids. While growing up, I had other adults in my life fill in the roles that I needed my parents to fill. The way I was raised told me that I was not enough as I was to be loved well. And quite frankly it is quite frightening to me as a parent now that knew love as being toxic and that sharing love with others even when handled well could still be perceived as dangerous. I had a thought a while ago that was essentially, I was told I was loved and was not shown it in many safe and caring ways, in turn if that is love, I do not want anything to do with it.Except I am a romantic at heart, I do believe in love and I believe love shown well is everything worth fighting for. It is peace. It is stability. It is treating every person like they are the best version of themselves even on their worst days. It is treating your kids like they have autonomy over themselves as adults and giving them the same respect in age-appropriate ways.I learned growing up that the only way I could be safe and keep my needs met was by staying quiet or people-pleasing. I never knew what it was like to live in a safe home. Due to this, my own mental health needs were left unchecked. I found out in the past year that I have ADHD, Autism, OCD, and likely CPTSD. I also had Major Depression and Anxiety. I am recovering my people-pleasing tendencies, and finding self-love in the process of learning that I have always deserved to be taken care of even if I was not. I was watching one of the many variations of Cinderella out there, and my daughter told me that she is glad I am not like the Stepmother, and at that point, I was reminded of why it is important to heal from trauma. If we do not heal our past, we leave it for another generation to deal with later. And although the hurt we carry should have never been given to us, it is our responsibility to heal the hurt and lay it to rest. By doing so, we stop the generational curses carried down by previous family members that did not heal their hurt.There is a saying out there that hurt people hurt people and it is so true. When we carry around our burdens leaving them unchecked and refusing to learn to love who we are, we spread the hurt to others even when we do not try to because we carry them on us for others to feel. We have to do better at being intentional in loving ourselves than the previous generation. Our families deserve better, and we deserve better as well. It is time to let go of the pride that comes with the trauma of having to fend for ourselves and own the fact that we need help. We have to learn how to love ourselves. There is no other choice. If we want to see peace and love carried out in this world. It starts with us.It starts with the purposeful choice of choosing to love who you are, as you are. Flaws and all. There and only there will we see the change we hope to see in the world.Jessica’s Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus ...
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    8 分
  • Get to Know A Little About Me (Part 1)

    Get to Know A Little About Me (Part 1)
    2024/03/08
    Below is a bit of my journey through life, my testimony if you will up to middle school. I stop at that point in this post because from high school forward there is a lot to unpack.I talk a lot about healing, but I never really talk about what I have been healing from.Well, now it is time to give you the inside details of why the healing journey has been so important to me.Be ready. I lived this life as I thought was completely normal, but many people have told me it is not, so just as a caution, I am going to be very real about my experiences in life. Some of it is triggering even for me, so I assume it can also be triggering for others.I will tell you my story not for bashing sake, or to make you feel any certain way about how good or bad I had itbut for the sake that I want my story to remind you that healing is possiblenot just for the extreme stories or the simple life stories,but for everyone.My earliest memories are not memories as much as stories told about me.My parents would frequently tell me about how obnoxious my cry was as a baby. My mom would imitate the cry to me every time she retold the story. I grew up knowing that my earliest years of needing safety needs were met by being ridiculed by at least one parent when they had enough of my cry.I also heard a story about my brother’s infancy, about how my dad stopped drinking because when he came home ended up breaking my brother’s crib, or breaking it while he was still sleeping. I tell you this because I put it together a while ago that if he was not safe I was likely not either, and we all knew that my dad was more of the angry drunk type instead of the playful silly kind.I also have distinct memories by the time I was in Kindergarten of both my parents stopping playtime with me from being overwhelmed or disappointed. I remember my mom being upset because I colored a page in a coloring book that we did together without her once and ended up coloring an elephant green and tried to surprise her in the coloring but I got yelled at when I showed her the picture and I was yelled at about it being the wrong color and should have waited for her. Well, we never colored together ever again, which is why that memory sticks out.Similarly, I was playing with my dad with my brother. He was happy, and then out of nowhere he pushes away and yells at us that he needs space and could not play with us anymore. I had no clue why at the time what was going on, but based on how I internalized it, I took it as an I did something wrong for trying to play with my dad, and we never really played together after that.During my elementary school years, I remember feeling misunderstood. My dad’s side of the family did not enjoy having me around, and I never really understood why I got that feeling, but I always felt pushed to the side and not wanted. So (trigger warning) when my older cousin would make comments like you are my favorite cousin and take me to his room to lay down on top of him or vice versa, I was happy to get the attention. I do not remember how far anything went, thankfully in this case, but I do remember this going on for months until the one day I remember asking him if I was still his favorite cousin and he turned the other way and ignored me. All though I understood what was happening now, then I saw it as another moment in which I could no longer show that I had value for being me.When I was in my third-grade year, I struggled with keeping friends. Being an AuDHD kid I had no idea that what I was doing when what I considered playing frustrated other people until they kept running away from me and my closest friends no longer liked being around me because they only saw that I was trying to take their ideas and not figure out how to play the games they enjoyed. I was very alone that year, and we did not makeup as friends until the last few days of school.This also happened to be the summer that we moved and left school districts. When I switched schools, I remember making friends, but also hearing a lot of remarks about how strange of a person I was. Towards the end of that year, there was another new student in the school and we ended up becoming close best friends.Middle school seemed like how I would expect any average middle school student to go. I played French Horn, worked through all the typical everyone lives through the beginning of puberty, and made it out the other side. I was bullied in what I think are minor ways, like a kid sitting behind me would kick my chair in class and throw spit wads in my hair. I was never told to my face during this time about being made fun of, but it was revealed later in high school of the person’s choosing that they did not talk to me because they were told not to hang out with me…. After all, I was strange.The middle school time frame was when I remember not seeing my dad’s side of the family that often anymore.What I can say is I was very thankful to be in a church with people who cared ...
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    15 分
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