Independence, love, and things

Midnight seems to be the gold standard to when I have been falling asleep. I am not sure what specifically is keeping me awake but I know that a lot of it presently has to do with anxiety and depression and this deep need to solve the why’s of my life. My therapist challenges me to think about that because so much of it has me in a shame and guilt spiral that I can’t get myself out of. I have been so hard on myself these last couple weeks and while I feel that it is justified for me to acknowledge myself and my behaviors, it has caused a constant trigger cycle for me. It’s time for me to sort it out. So much childhood stuff coming up for me lately and while I am no longer going to blame my childhood for my actions it has a lot to do with my reactivity and my inability at times see my value. My therapy focus has been so focused on relationship and my role and destruction of them that I had tabled my trauma. I am now refocusing on that.

I don’t know what the future holds and that has been terrifying. In fact, not being able to control for outcome has had me put my entire life on hold. Literally, I have not moved on any major decisions because if I don’t know how the story will end then how can I take such a risk. As a result of that thinking I have single handedly destroyed all the good. I know I need to be gentle with myself but at present I don’t see how I can let myself off the hook without really sitting with myself and above all else my actions. Choice versus a mistake is something that has been drilled into my head. It is this idea that repetitive behavior goes from being a mistake to a choice very quickly when no action is taken and therefore creating a situation that is manipulative to all people involved. I could argue that choice and a mistake are two different things and that repetitive behaviors often are not choices or mistakes they are patterns which essentially become coping mechanisms. And after my therapy session yesterday, I have unhealthy ways of coping and interacting with the people I love when I am triggered and that is why my focus of therapy needs to shift because that doesn’t get better without reprogramming the way that I think.

Being able to recognize the shifts that need to happen has been difficult. I had wanted so desperately to fix what I had broken and every chance that I was given I somehow couldn’t stay in the feeling or the experience of the other person long enough to start to build trust where it had been broken. My focus has always been on feeling good. I know what makes me feel good and that is what drives me into action. It is what makes the hard easier. I have been of the school of thought that if you can find the good in something it allows access to the parts of your brain that you need, to fix the things that are not good. Perhaps my way of thinking is completely off base, and I am willing to acknowledge that but what if it isn’t? What happens when a situation has no light? When all you want is to connect with someone in the ways that you know because you know that it will make things better? Is it really impossible for two people with fundamentally different needs to have a healthy relationship? I don’t think so, truly, I don’t. I think that two people can make things work if they are both putting in the effort. But if they don’t, it just won’t come together. Relationships are a “we” after two people have done the work, they need to on themselves.

Right now, as I sit here snuggled up to my little girl, as she eats a very sugar filled lollipop, on a gloomy Sunday morning, I can’t help but reminisce about what could and should have been. I wish that I could go back even 6 months and have done something different to set my life in motion. All it would have taken was a gear shift towards less toxicity and more healthy interactions. The work I am doing, would have been recognized if I had not only acknowledged my behavior but been more consistent with changing it. What I have realized is that it isn’t all about what I needed to do. I have watched my evolution this last year and a half. I have ebbed and flowed in my progress, I have been self-deprecating, accountable, angry, quick to blame, I have tried different approaches, I have been honest, I have not always been fully transparent, I have been committed to my therapy, to gaining education and insight into myself but in the end the thing I wanted most was for the outcome to result in the creation of something wholesome and good.

Perhaps that was the problem all along. That I wanted something. I was of the belief that wanting something helped establish the steps to getting the thing I wanted. The reality is that wanting something is simply that wanting something and that doesn’t mean you will get it. Try and wrap your head around that because I have struggled with it myself. I have struggled to wrap my head around the fact that there can be so much love and it can be wiped away by triggers, and childhood bullshit that has no relevance unless we give it relevance and that is where I am guilty. I am guilty because I have let myself use my experiences as a justification for my horrible coping mechanisms. The one thing that is true though is that I just want to love and be loved. I want to be accepted where I am at and as long as I am committed to myself and mending my wounds then I am as viable a candidate as anyone else. So, the choice I have made is to love myself the way I need too. I can provide myself the love I desire.

I spent a lifetime seeking it out in others. Hoping that they could tend to my wounds, make me feel what I had not felt most of my life but what I have realized is that is temporary. It is a temporary fix to a longer-term, bigger problem. I had it all backwards. The revelation of all of the loss recently has been really hard to cope with. It has been a reminder of all of my indiscretions. Every moment is encompassed with it, and it is affecting me in all areas of my life. The wonder, the discomfort, it is a perpetual feeling that doesn’t go away, the constant nagging in my stomach. Eventually it will get better but until then I will ride it out and hope that in time it will all feel better again.

Let’s hope the sun comes out and that today sheds some light on tomorrow. Happy Independence Day!