Unlimited Potential by Destiny Pilon

*Warning. This story contains mentions of drug abuse, physical abuse, and mental health including anxiety and depression. Please do not read if these will be triggers. Thank you.*

I think the bravest thing in the world is taking down those who limit us. The way we hesitate from going further than the road of faith takes us. How we say, “I will never be able to do that,” when we have yet to try it out. And the things we don’t do to change our lives for the better. Limitation blocks our freedom to try. To choose. To hope. The more we hold back from what we wish we could do, the more we never reach the dreams we longed for since childhood.

               I grew up knowing nothing but limitations. In a family of people who left school because they doubted their potential to succeed. People who, instead of following their dreams to reach their maximum potential, chose to be young parents because they didn’t believe they would become anything more than just “the kid who smoked weed.” Only two of my mother’s siblings had decided to leave home early to begin their lives. One of my uncles became a police officer, choosing a different route to better himself and become something more than troublesome. One of my aunts started her own salon, which then became successful enough to own her home and work directly in her basement. They chose to be happy, free, and fulfill their dreams. They chose to believe in their potential.

As a child, I wanted to be a singer. It was the only career I knew of. That was until my mother shaded my dream stating I would never make it as a singer in this world. That I needed to find a different path that was not based on fairytales. I wanted singing lessons and got left out when my siblings got to go to ballet classes. I had my first talent show at the age of sixteen, which my mother entered me in only because of the prize money. I ran off stage and lost everything. I didn’t believe that I could do it because I remembered the limitation my mother planted into my brain.

Another dream I was passionate about was writing. My first novel was a children’s book about an Owl. I was around eight years old and understood the concept of copyright. I would write in my free time and the only person I confided in a lot about it was my grandmother, also a writer. My Grandmother pushed me to do what I loved, despite my mother’s control and shade. However, by the age of eighteen, I had developed anxiety and quit my passion to read and write altogether.

When I moved out at the age of eighteen from my toxic mother’s abusive household, I developed anxiety. I was alone for the first time. My whole life I was sheltered, bullied, and rarely had a decent number of friends. I was kept back from attending high school to watch my siblings so that my mother could party every day. My mother saw no potential within me, so she stripped me from any of it so I couldn’t see it either. I started to believe it. Until one day, I texted my ex while I was at a women’s shelter. Afraid of being alone. Second time hitting depression. I wanted to be with someone I knew.

               During this time, until I was twenty years old, I lived with my first adult relationship for about five months. My boyfriend at the time rapped. He wasn’t the very best, but he had skills I learned to apply to my singing. Rhythm, I found my voice and style and more importantly, how to promote. It took me about thirty songs to make 1.71k followers on Bandlab. I loved it and became close with a few artists including Philypay who was pushing 20k followers at the time. I was going back to school for my diploma, looking for jobs while on social assistance, and even reconnected with my mother four months later.

Reconnecting with my mother at this time may have been the worst mistake I ever did. One of them, at least. My mother had large control over me and deprived me of any positivity I could have ever sipped on while being stuck in her world of drugs, alcohol, abusive men, and negativity. I went back, for reasons I now see were trying to save her. I found a new faith in the light of Wicca and tried numerous times to share that with my mother and siblings, however, since of how deeply rooted they were within the trenches of “what ifs”, “I cants”, and “positivity does nothing for me,” it was impossible to help. As my mother always preached, “you cannot help those who do not wish to be helped.” I now see this was referred to her.

Still battling my anxiety, I moved in back into my mother’s home after I left my ex. I was still doing music and was immediately sent back to the same old restrictions and rules as I did growing up, including babysitting so she could party at forty years old. I immediately found a new roommate and moved in. In this home, my roommate became my boyfriend at the time very quickly. I went through a lot in my second adult relationship. I turned nineteen and started drinking heavily for a year and a half. My new ex cheated on me numerous times and I let him, slowly dying inside. I believed I was in love and numerous times I kept running back to my mother. I was lost, confused, and drowning in toxic behaviors I was too afraid to let go of.

My whole life, I watched these patterns. I, unfortunately, had a fertility problem so I never had a child to put through the mess I was confined in. Thankfully. However, my inner child was slowly dying inside.

I eventually left my ex, still suffering from anxiety. I had a hard time talking with strangers, and communicating, kept leaving school because of mild attacks causing my face to heat up, my hands to tremble, and my heart to race. I stopped looking for work and stay in the house, rarely ever leaving my two cats. I was twenty years old when I moved back in with my mother and met my now fiancé, who lifted me up more than anyone ever had. Doug gave me hope. He restored my faith. He helped me to leave behind my toxic mother. Doug had inspired me to write again. I had something to write about. Romance, love, and what family should look like. My author friend, Brandi Hanson then pushed me to do something with my writing. It was my new outlet even when I was stressed out. I became serious about my writing and found I was more passionate about it than I was about singing.

               Together, Doug and I moved out of my mother’s house after two years of stress and chaos. Control, threats, and harm to us both. We now live on a peaceful farm, hours and hours away from my toxic family, and day by day, I realized something that was always inside me. Unlimited Potential. When I moved away and blocked everyone who hurt me, including my mother, on social media I thought I would be devastated. I thought I would be tempted to go back. I thought I would miss it. I do not. I am finally happy, the happiest I had ever been in my whole life. I have freedom. I have a choice. I have love. Now, only two months later, my anxiety is fading, and I am finding my true self.

Sometimes, your inner strengths are beneath the blockages you let others create on your behalf. My mother led me to believe I would never get anywhere because of unrealistic dreams. I now have 15,00 followers on Instagram as a striving author. I have friends and a new family who love and care about me, lifting me up with positivity. I am no longer limited. I found the strength I thought I would never obtain because of the ways of my family. I, Destiny Pilon, am no longer limited to anything. I have unlimited potential to achieve anything I desire.

And so do you.