When Caring For You Means Doing Something Hard By Dawn 

When Caring For You Means Doing Something Hard By Dawn 


How often have you heard the phraise you cannot help anyone else until you put on your own xygen mask? I've heard this saying before, in defferent ways. To say that 2024 was a difficult year for me, would be an understatement. I faced a lot of obstacles, challenges, and many more things. One of the things that I faced was mistreatment. For the sake of privacy, I won't go into any details. All I will say, is that because of it, I had to makke the difficult decision to step back from some things, for mental health reasons. It wasn't something I wanted to do, it was something I had to do.

Well, this year, started off with me having to make a similar decision. Someone that would be chairing a committee I would be on, had an issue with something that happened in an event we both attend regularly. This person was angry, and not happy about the situation, and expressed those feelings in an inappropriate way. Then, the next day, they called me, and took their feelings out on me, instead of taking it out on the person in charge. The person in charge intervened and stepped up, and we resolved the situation. However, it left me with some questions, fears, and worries.
I had been in a similar situation before with this person, plus, it reminded me of things that I had experienced before. After thinking about it for a few days, I made the dificult decision to call the person in charge of committees, and step down from that committee. I know that people are disappointed, but, I had to make the right decision for myself. We were able to find a way that I could still do stuff to help out, just in a different capacity.
This was a hard call to make, but, I'm glad I did it. By doing that, I held boundaries, and set the tone for how I would like to treated.
As advocates, and public servants, we get a lot of crap thrown at us on a daily basis. Whether it's from people we work of, people in the various systems, or any other source, we have to take a lot of stuff. I'll admit, I was always one of those people that just took it, and tried working things out, and stayed in the bad situations. However, this time, I stood up for me. I took care of me.
Because another reason I stepped back, is because of time commitments. I'm transitioning into a new elected role, and I want to focus on other projects such as Heartbeat, plus I have other things going on in my personal life. Things are changing and shifting, and, I'm not sure where things will fit, or what this year will look like for me.
Also, I want to have some time to recover from 2024, and find a way to either heal, or live with the scars, and deal with some things that are still going on, and put my personal and professional lives back to rights.
It's important to have and stick to boundaries, stick up for yourself, both as a an advocate, and a person. It's not easy, and sometimes, it hurts, and it can be scary the first time or few times you do it. However, I'm speaking from experience, today, when I got off the phone, I felt lighter, and yes, empowered. I even felt proud of myself. Maybe I'll be able to work on this committee in some capacity at a later time, and maybe not. But, I'm sure that things will work out, no matter how the chips fall. Remember that things like this could be blessings in disguise. Ohio Advocacy Heartbeat is a prime example of this. While last year was painful for me, Ohio Advocacy Heartbeat was what came out of that pain, and, it's still growing. Plus, as a bonus, I get to work with a top-notch advocate, who I am honored to call a friend.

I want to hear from you, and, make space for people to know they're not alone. Have you had to do this type of thing before? Are you still working on it? What advice would you give to anyone struggling with this, both personally, and as an advocate? Do you have any stories like this, that you would consider blessings in disguise? I want to hear from you, and, I want to give you all a space to share your own thoughts.