I’m currently emerging from the longest depressive episode of my life. Truth be told, I’m stumbling out of this bitch.
Exclusive footage of me trying to recover from all of the wild shit that’s been going on since I turned 30.
Over the course of 10 months, I stopped updating my Insta stories, I no longer felt the need to respond to comments on Facebook, I got slack in returning phone calls/texts, canceled hangouts with my friends, and became an all-around unpleasant person. My mom noticed. My best friend talked mad shit about me (to my face). I even received several DMs from readers asking what was going on with me. My tribe has been trying to pull me out of this funk but I allowed myself to sink.
If you look at my blog’s homepage, you’ll see the last post was published on July 18, 2018. The truth is, I have several unpublished blog drafts from the last 10 months. GirlTyler.com is my safe space where I release my innermost thoughts and confide in you. I’ve had inconsistent periods where I would write nonstop and keep my blogs updated then fall into a state of depression where I wouldn’t long for two or three months. Never have I gone this long without updating my blog.
Since my 30th birth in August, I’ve had the most transformative experiences challenging my three decades of living, nagging at my daily processes, and a call to level up. Since I started my blog 7 years ago, I’ve wrestled with whether I should shut it down once and for all. I don’t always feel comfortable putting my life on display and to a certain degree, I am still a very private person fighting inner battles that have plagued me since I was 4 years old. This blog gives me uncomfortable visibility that is necessary.
These days, I haven’t quite had the courage to face you or my current reality. For the sake of my own healing, I’m sitting down face-to-face with the last year of my life. Here we go.
Gone Girl
Since I walked away from my budding career as a news producer at age 26, I’ve been on a path of true self-discovery. I hit a few bumps in the road, and I shared them all with you. The binge-eating. The fuck boys. The heartache of losing my aunt and all of the other shit in between. I finally grew to a place of total faith and I was madly in love with the woman I was becoming. Things weren’t perfect financially or with my career but I knew better days were ahead. Even with the little that I was working with, I had so much to smile about. I was at a place of pure confidence, embracing my sexuality (please don’t send this to my mama and say “Tyler came out on her blog today,” I’m just saying I liked sex and owned that shit) and loving my skin. A huge milestone was ahead and I was beyond excited about what was in store. I didn’t care about not having the house, ideal weight, stunning wardrobe, a man, or any material possession on this Earth. Above all, I’d finally become immune to the thoughts and criticism of others. Tyler was enough.
Everybody was ranting and raving about the beauty of being 30. All of my girlfriends over the age of 35 marveled about their newfound autonomy and security that came after age 30. Some people run from aging…I was ready to embrace it. My twenties were filled with uncertainty and trauma, I just knew greater was on the other side.
I quickly scheduled a photo shoot with my girl Tabitha to commemorate my 30th birthday.
The category is: MOTHER JANET REALNESS.
I’m a huge Janet fan and enjoyed every second of this shoot.
And I loved my body. For the first time, I didn’t give a shit about my FUPA, my adult acne was no longer a concern, and I embraced every inch of my full-figure.
My sister even got me a Janet cake. Life was good.
And then came September.
Exclusive footage of me waving goodbye to the inner-peace that I had worked so hard to achieve.
I Stopped Running My Race
The day after Labor Day, I flew to L.A. to shoot a pilot that I’d written. For six months, I worked remotely with a team across the country on a comedy series involving therapy and mental health in the Black community. I’d met Sade, the show’s director and one of the creators, on Twitter in 2015. We struck up a friendship and met the following year during my first trip to L.A. She and I stayed in touch for the next two years and she contacted me in January 2018 asking if I had any comedy writing samples. I sent her a black-ish spec and she also read my blog. Here is where opportunity meets preparation. She and the team liked my writing style and wanted me to write the pilot. Over the next few months, I wrote the entire first season of the show. It was a true challenge indeed, but I’d found validation in work that actually made me want to get out of bed in the morning.
I spent nearly two weeks in L.A. for the shoot and connecting with some pretty cool folks. It was a great time. In my 30 years of living, I found a community where I felt like I could truly be myself.
On my last day, I told Sade that I’d be coming back to live in January. I’d made up my mind that it was time to face my fear and move across the country to pursue my career as a TV writer.
I had a plan. Go home. Stack up some money. Write my ass off. Say my goodbyes and when 2019 rolled around, I’d hop on a plane to a new life.
Exclusive footage of the future listening to my plans.
Within 24 hours of being home, I felt the fire dying. L.A. is such an incredible city and I’d met so many new people from different cultures and backgrounds, it was extremely jarring to going back to silence. No eye contact from anyone. Nothing. Just my small, close-knit community of fewer than 10 people. I love them all, but we all have separate routines and rarely had time to see each other. Before going to L.A., it was rare for me to even leave my house. I only left home to go to church, the gym, or Wal-Mart. I had more excitement in 14 days than I’d had in three years. I didn’t like my reality. Instead of hanging onto the momentum that would propel me back to L.A. I slipped away. No more writing every day.
Which brings me to the self-sabotaging…
Enter a relationship
Two of the areas in my life where self-sabotage is most evident is in my creative projects and my love life.
After many years of being single and dating on and off, last January, I told myself that it was time to get acclimated with flying solo. I said, “There’s a chance that you won’t get married and have children. You need to be okay with that.” And that was that. I gave up. No more forcing conversations with temporary men or entertaining meaningless text messages. I sat down and found laser focus. I wrote an entire television series and a movie. I put my energy into God’s calling on my life..being a TV writer.
Within three days of being home, I met a man. Not just any man…a man that had been under my nose for quite some time.
He and I were at the same party 10 years ago. No one introduced us and I don’t remember ever seeing him there. More recently, I came across a Facebook photo of him that I commented on 12 years ago. I didn’t know who he was and my comment didn’t reference him, the point is, he was placed along my path long ago. All this time, we’ve been in the same space(s) and knew the same people. Over the years, we’ve had numerous opportunities to meet each other but it never happened.
It’s true. You don’t have to go looking for love. It will find a way to hunt you down.
Deborah Cox’s “Nobody’s Supposed to be Here” hits different at 30.
— GirlTyler (@sheistyler) July 30, 2019
Over the last two years, I had made the deliberate choice to remain single. I wasn’t thinking about a man. I had too much shit to do and dating wasn’t a priority. When I met him, I told myself, “Have fun. Don’t get serious. You’re out of here in January.”
Exclusive footage of the future listening to my plans.
Little did I know that, for the first time in my life, I’d found someone that I never wanted to be without. My feelings for him grew stronger and each day and so did my feelings about being 30. Time started to look different. Instead of living with a sense of wonder and enchantment, I began worrying about time. Was I making good use of it? Should I alter my writing plans and start focusing on my secondary goals: being a wife and a mother? Is he the one? Am I partner material? As I began questioning my future plans, I also started questioning my talents as a writer.
I was commissioned to work on a second project in L.A. and I failed miserably. The project called for drama and I haven’t developed any muscle as a dramatic writer. Instead of studying and asking for the help of a mentor, I relied on my own strength, eventually giving a final lackluster effort that got me replaced from the project. During this time, I made the executive decision to take a break from writing and it damn near ruined me.
Am I lazy or depressed?
We don’t talk enough about that “loss of interest” characteristic that’s associated with depression. Over the last 10 months, I haven’t wanted to participate in any of my old hobbies or interests. My boyfriend would call me after work and ask what I’d accomplished. I’d tell him about the amazing things that I’d written. Lies. I’d spent maybe two hours at my laptop and spent the rest of the day napping. I was sleeping a lot. I didn’t want to leave the house, more than usual. I stopped going to church. I relied on a few scriptures to get me through and prayed that God would work everything out.
I was struggling and losing sight of my purpose. I needed help and didn’t know where to turn. Looking back, I poured all of my personal problems into my relationship, projecting my fears and anxiety into something that was supposed to be a joyful time in my life. I was a zombie.
“Anything we suppress, we empower to destroy us.” -Devon Franklin
My friends and loved ones took notice and constantly told me, “You don’t seem like yourself.” They were right. I wasn’t me. And the most devastating part of it all is that my constant mood swings and inability to bounce back are qualities of the person that he knows me as. Everyone else knows funny, bright, and happy Tyler. He knows the emptiness and it hurts. My friends and family have seen me go through seasons of misfortune, but they’ve always been there to witness my resilience. My best friend said, “You always figure it out.” I do. Usually, after three to six weeks of frustration and sadness, I get my shit together, learn from the experience and move on. Over time, I’d learned how to deal with life’s battles in a calm state. Years ago, I’d flip my shit when things didn’t go my way. Once my late 20’s rolled around, I realized that nothing was happening to me..it was all happening for me. My faith was 1000% supercharged. I knew that God would see me through. This time was different. I could always go home and hide from the world when I felt myself spiraling. This time I had someone with a front-row seat to my self-destruction. To him, this behavior is normal. He has nothing else to compare it to. My boyfriend recognizes my value and has been the most patient with me than anyone I’ve ever encountered. I don’t think he’ll ever understand how much being with him shook my foundation, for the better. Why couldn’t I get it together and present my best self for our relationship? For me?
January came and things got worse.
Someone hit my car during his birthday trip..just four days into the New Year.
I had to use part of the money that I was saving up for L.A. to get it fixed. In mid-January, I had to have two medical procedures. More money continued to leave my wallet, but thankfully I kept an emergency fund. Shit just kept happening (Another blog for another day, whew chile). My deadline to move to L.A. came and went. For the first time in my life, I gave up on a dream. I’m the queen of figuring things out, but this was one time I didn’t have the will to keep going. I convinced myself that I was no longer funny and needed to throw in the towel. The race was crowded and I wasn’t prepared to compete. So I quit.
Spiritually, I relied on old methods to get me by.
When I’m feeling low, I have plenty of inspiration around me.
Michelle Obama’s 2015 commencement speech at Tuskegee University.
“But eventually, I realized that if I wanted to keep my sanity and not let others define me, there was only one thing I could do, and that was to have faith in God’s plan for me. I had to ignore all of the noise and be true to myself — and the rest would work itself out. So throughout this journey, I have learned to block everything out and focus on my truth. I had to answer some basic questions for myself: Who am I? No, really, who am I? What do I care about? “
And then there’s this clip from favorite Sarah Jakes Roberts’ sermon.
And a life-changing quote from Oprah’s final episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show.
“You are responsible for the energy that you create for yourself, and you’re responsible for the energy that you bring to others.”
The list goes on and on. What I’ve come to realize in the last ten months is that I can’t expect to lean on past encouragement to uplift me. What worked back then is no longer effective in propelling me to the next level.
For years I lived by inspirational quotes on Instagram that provide temporary relief from everyday stress:
“A year from now, what you’re stressing about won’t mean shit.”
“You can be the juiciest peach, but there will always be someone who hates peaches.”
“Man’s rejection is often God’s protection.”
All are true yet none of them are the remedy required to fix what’s at my core. I was empty. By April, I was tapped out. I sat crying to my therapist with tears and snot rolling down my lip, “When is this going to be over? I’m tired! Why can’t I get out of this?”. It felt as if I was drowning in the storm. Time wasn’t healing my wounds and I was beginning to feel sorry for myself.
“Know your enemy, it could be you. Do not let your emotions override your judgment.”
I’m sick of getting by
This newfound complacency wasn’t working for me. At the start of May, I heard God tell me, “You’re living beneath your purpose.” I responded, not to be rude father, but I know. I started to focus my energy on finding a stable 9-to-5 job. As we learned in the past, that isn’t for me. The job that I did have, deep down, I knew I was failing miserably. Nothing was working. I finally cried to my dad and had a Lena James, from A Different World, moment.
My mom stepped in during one of my many meltdowns to say, “Tyler! I’m not dead. Your daddy isn’t dead. Get a hold of yourself!”
Both my mom and my grandmother taught me that it’s okay to cry, but you have to fix the thing that’s making you cry. Everything was making me cry and truthfully, I couldn’t pinpoint the area that needed surgery.
My therapist kept reminding me that 31 was on the horizon and that I had time to create the life that I wanted by August 22nd. I wasn’t trying to hear that shit. I was losing control. And that is my problem. I like to control all areas of my life or at least have a good handle on things. I’d forgotten about the power of surrendering. I had a talk with God and he said, “It’s time to step down from your position at work.”
I didn’t listen.
In June, I returned for my third year working at ABFF. I needed to be around likeminded TV/film enthusiasts and hoped to breathe new life into my creativity. It did..but only for the week that I was in Miami. When I got home, he said it again, “You haven’t been a good steward over this position. Let it go.”
I listened. Two months ago, I quit my job demonstrating my fiercest act of surrender and obedience in this season.
And then I received this text message.
I was reminded that there are people counting on me to fulfill God’s calling on my life.
July was the ghetto
Things were slowly turning around. I’d had a few health concerns that I’d been dealing with for many months. All three of my specialists gave me a clean bill of health..or at least I don’t have to see them until next year. I started redesigning my website and working on new content. I even booked more production work. It was a struggle to get my head back in the game, but I’ve been committed to not going to bed at night without writing something. Then dumb shit started happening again. For instance, the later “F” is broken on my computer and I have to get my entire keyboard replaced.
Y’all. I have to copy and paste “F” from the internet just to get my work done.
I think I just about argued with everyone on this planet in the last 30 days. Mercury’s Retrograde was ghetto AF this go-round. And then I heard a sermon reminding me to “renew your mind.” I’m back to reading my scripture daily and taking time to breathe.
This season has been all about succumbing to distractions. Life has never been easy, but I’ve always had my purpose in front of me. The moment I turned away from it. All hell broke loose. I woke up yesterday morning and said, “No more tears. It’s time to get to work.” Usually, I have a full-circle moment to end these blogs on. Today, I don’t. I’m still a work in progress. While much of this season has been a pity party, I did find beauty in utilizing lessons that I’ve learned from previous obstacles in my life. In the past, I’ve relied on binge-eating, alcohol, and sex to cope with problems. I’m happy to say that I’ve had only two drinks in the last two years and since January I’ve lost 31 lbs.
Here is a side-by-side of me weeks after turning 30 and weeks before turning 31.
I’m not having a hot girl or city girls summer. I’m having a “you’ve been crying too long and it’s time to rebuild” summer.
Today is day one of getting back to Girl Tyler.
I’m committed to rewriting my story and I’m thankful that you are here to read all about it.