RealMental

Dear Friend-

We spoke on the phone the other day, it’s been a very long time since I’ve spoken with you and it was great to hear your voice.

You reached out for some help and I was honored that you chose me, and that I was available to speak to you. There were a lot of things that I wasn’t able to tell you, as our call was cut short unexpectedly. The things we discussed are things that I have experience with, things that I’ve tried very hard to make better in my own life.

More than anything, I hope you will be able to muster up the strength it will take to remove yourself from your situation and begin rebuilding your life. It is very important for you to know that it IS possible for you to move on and rebuild your life. It won’t be easy, it will be really really hard. You’ll have to process through a lot of bullshit, there are layers that you cannot even see right now.

The emotional pain will be unbearable, you may even think that dying is a viable option. It isn’t. You will grieve your situation as you would grieve a loved one dying. In a way, a part of you will die. A chapter in your life will die, and grieving is something you’ll have to do in order to walk through this whole terrible thing.

Prepare yourself for the fact that you will consider staying with your current situation, because it will be so very hard to make the change. Your life will be a living nightmare.

The positive side to this will be that it will pass, you can walk through it. Once you get past the initial pain, you WILL begin to feel good again. You will begin to see your worth, you will begin to heal, you will rediscover the person you were before this situation consumed you.

I know that you are unable to be objective about yourself and your situation right now. Please try to believe that you are a good person, you are worthy, you are smart, you are beautiful, you are a fantastic mother, you are capable of making your dreams come true and miracles are possible. If I had not seen this happen to many people over the years, I would not believe it to be true. Honestly, I’ve seen people rebuild their lives having lost everything they had.

Right now, these compliments probably don’t mean a lot to you or you may even have a hard time believing they are true. Believe that I believe. Not just me, but your family and friends that you’ve reached out to over the years. You have done nothing to deserve such a painful life. None of us “deserve” to be mistreated. Look at yourself through the eyes of your children, treat yourself with the same love and respect that you look at your children.

No matter what action you take (or don’t take), I want you to know that asking for help is not a character flaw, it is an act of courage.

With love,

Moonflower

Some time over the holidays, I unlocked another box in my psyche. I like to think this process helps me move forward.

Holidays are usually a big mess for a lot of people from an emotional perspective.  I was relieved when i realized that others suffered with the holiday blues like I’d done for many years.  A problem shared is easier to process then a problem kept in solitaire.

A situation came up that involved travel plans, one that would change the dates of visitors from out of town.  I was not pleased especially with the short notice.  I struggled with it, making my partner aware of my displeasure in the most diplomatic way that I could.

Having a few days to process, I tried to figure out why this was a problem for me.  I phoned a friend who suggested that I just suck it up and ride it out.  I responded to her that I was so tired of sucking it up and riding it out, REALLY tired of that.  I wasn’t angry with her about it, and I did call her because she has personal insight into the situation and she doesn’t sugar coat stuff.

Shortly after that call, it dawned on me what my opposition was really about.

There are so many situations in my life right now that I have absolutely zero control over (beyond typical issues).  I realized that I am trying to grasp for something I can actually control however small it is.  As a recovering person, I learned that I am powerless over most situations, which isn’t to say that I do nothing with my problems.  We do what we can, but sometimes there is no action to take.  And, worrying about it over and over only serves to enslave us to the problem.  It’s no easy feet, this acceptance for what is and taking my hands off the wheel.   I have to tell you that this actually works pretty well, when I am able to pick it up and use it.

I know I am not alone in this desire to have some form of control in *some* way.  People  do the craziest things in order to cling to some sliver of control.  This is why people develop eating disorders, addiction, compulsive gambling, self harm, and in many cases behaving like the child within that most emulates the loss of power at any particular time in the formative years.

I guess the key to receiving an insight, is what I actually do with it.  My aim is to try and find the balance.  Don’t go too far to the left or too far to the right, try and find the just right spot for it.

Part of the process of falling in love, one person makes an agreement with their object of affection, pledging their undying loyalty and love.

One agrees to shelter the other from the storms of life.  They will prove their love by fighting the others battles, standing up to the monsters and vowing to never leave their side.  Loyalty becomes an extreme sport.

You’ve heard their history, their stories, the failed relationships in the past and you know without a doubt that you can be the one person they can count on.  You will be the one to fix them.

In that very moment, the ones who are willing to seal the deal, in blood if necessary, in order to prove themselves, do so without one word spoken.

This is an agreement made without specific words from the other person involved.  The agreement is made through body language, hopes and dreams, whispers of love in the heat of passion.

Sadly, neither party realizes this at the time, they do not realize that in reality, they are crippling the other person.  Cutting them off at the knees, not allowing them to fully realize their own human experience.

I suspect we are not meant to be aware of such things, why else do we experience the release of heavy chemicals from our very own bodies during the early stages of love.

You do not realize, until years later there actually were red flags but something in your brain pushed them to the side.  They were there, they are always there.  They are best viewed using your hindsight lenses.

We seek to protect our beloved, believing it to be the honorable thing to do, in order to prove ourselves to them.  In order to prove just how much we love the other person.

Until one day you are sitting in a comfortable chair telling someone the full story, not understanding how it came to this.  Realizing that you can no longer carry their burdens, and it was never your job to begin with.

The love you used to cloak your intended with was merely a reflection of your very own lack of needs.  You realize that those brave promises you made for the one you loved, were in reality the proclamations your heart longed for.  You, were the one that needed saving.

We project all of this onto our partners, our husbands, and our wives.  We act out the very role we wish someone would provide for us.  We love them in the manner in which we want to be loved.

And, they do the same.

Tonight, as I walked in and sat down in the last available wooden chair I began to feel the creepy crawly anxiety creeping it’s way up my legs, into my stomach, and back down again.

What about this place makes me so uncomfortable?

The chair I sit in is hard and slanted, almost like it’s trying to push me out of it’s lap. I look around to see if perhaps I should just sit on the floor.

I remember the last time I was there, I was in a comfortable yet slightly broken recliner.

It’s not my seat, maybe it’s the guy sitting next to me shaking so much I fear he’ll come apart before our eyes in the crowded room where people are sharing their experience, fear, and hopes.

I look around and feel unsettled, again with the sliding feeling as if I’m being pulled gravitationally down to the floor. I look at the floor for a nice spot, and notice it’s dirty and dusty. Why would that matter to me? It’s not like I’m wearing nice slacks. My yoga pants and a fleece jacket were the best I was able to put together. Even before I arrived, I was uncomfortable about going, not knowing until I was there. In the slanted wooden chair.

I push the chair back, I cross my legs. Shortly after, I uncross them and cross the other way. No, it still isn’t working. Surely people can detect my anxiety. Perhaps they understand all too well that this chair, the last open one is not a welcoming chair but a menacing evil ride that has no intentions of being an actual chair.

What happened at the time the wood was chopped down? Could the tree have resented being chopped away, and then striped, sanded, and painted into something a person would use only to put their fat butt into? I can’t blame the chair, I’d rather be standing tall in the woods myself. Not piled into this cramped room with dirty floors listening to the inner thoughts of injured people.

Focus on the topic, focus on why I am there. Focus on why this room makes me uncomfortable. Focus on that. The people? The set up? The chairs? Maybe I could re-arrange the room some time before any of the others showed up? Put a little feng shui on it, make it more inviting and comfortable.

I would definitely vacuum the floors and wipe away the dust. and put out a diffuser to help create a peaceful smell. Diffusers are safer than the candles that burn, or incense. Lest a person forget and leave them burning, burning the place to the ground. That would be bad.

It’s my turn to speak, I have nothing coherent to say so I pass.

Everyone speaks and there is still time left. Before I realize what is happening words are coming from my mouth. Nothing makes any sense. I wrap it up, knowing that I’ve managed to speak words that are of no value.

The last person begins to share.

I finally realize what the problem is with the room. It’s not the people, the dirty floor or the dust.

The room resembles a room from my childhood. The one located at a church that the older men would get together in and watch the latest “game” on television. The room was lined with recliners but much bigger than the room I was currently in.

One day, I happened to have walked into that room taking a break from the church chorus. A man waved me over and greeted me. My back to the wall, hidden from anyone else. He puts his hand into my shorts from the back so that no one could see.

I stand there frozen, unable to move and not understanding what I’d done to allow this to happen. Panic, anxiety, fear and anger are swirling around in my six year old head. Why is he touching my privates and how did I end up in that room? Why did I ever think it would be a good idea to walk into this TV room? I have no idea who any of these men are and this one, acted as if he knew me.

As a predator, he did know me. He saw my sadness, the stamp on my forehead. He knew that I was one that wouldn’t tell. They always know.

Thirty three years later, it still makes me uncomfortable even in a room with others that would understand.

My only hope that the man in the recliner is resting peacefully, twelve feet under in a wooden box his remains being ravaged by worms and insects.

Finding the stopping point in some situations has always eluded me. Either I go on too far, or I stop early and miss the opportunity.

How does anyone know they are officially at the end? When they are screaming and shouting to whomever is within closest range? I know it doesn’t have to come to that, but isn’t that a stopping point for many of us?

It would be nice if I could just pull out my favorite purple crayon and draw a line across my day, my life and announce to all involved, “this is the end”.

Am I really any better off from all the worrying, the second guessing, and years of digging around in the graveyard of my life? If I look back into the written archives here, I can see that I’ve had times in which I would shout from the rooftop of the mental health building telling all who would listen, therapy will save your life!

Therapy is worth all the tears, all the self actualization, all of the broken that brought you to the door in the first place. And then, some days it’s icky. Like the honey jar that no one ever wipes clean, leaving a trail of sticky wherever the honey pot goes.

It’s dark, and sad, and you question everything in your life and despise yourself for always asking why, or what can I do to make this better?

Sometimes, when I am looking for a reason for all of this hashing laid out for all to see, I will kid myself. I will say that the reason that I do this is because I am a thinker. A reacher, a digger, an archaeologist of the mind and I am this way for no other reason than this is who I am.

Often, I wonder if other people have the right idea. Just keep your head down, nose to the grindstone and block it all out. How many people do I actually know that do this and they are free from their demons?

None. Not a one person, despite their claims of being happy or peaceful and FINE with the way things are.

They are big fat liars, those people are.

I know it, you know it, and most of all THEY know it.

But what can you do?

Nothing.

If I am having a problem dealing with a person, or struggling with their actions, my therapist drills home the “accept them for who they are” concept. My job, if I am to be a content person, is to accept them for who they are. The biggest piece of this, is accepting myself for who I am. The better equipped I am for that, the better equipped I am with accepting you for who you are.

I must tell you, I have found that this actually works. Me, accepting people for who they are and not who I want them to be. It really works.

Most days, my simplest choice to pick up the tools that lay at my feet and use them as I embark into the world. Some days, I refuse to pick them up.

Arguing with myself about the tools. “They are too heavy today”, or “I’m SICK to death of picking them up”, “Why do I have to do it when no one else is doing it”.

Look at those other lazy fuckers just walking around with their noses to the grindstone, not looking, not telling, and pretending not to know. They seem fine to me!

And then the voice, that comes from deep inside, the one that speaks logic.

It says to me, in a loving voice that I can trust, “but you are not them”.

Motherfucking hell I thought in my head when I left my Doctor’s office. My thyroid levels are worse, not better.

He doubles the dosage, then I come back in two months to repeat the process of getting blood work, followed up a week later with another appointment with him to check the levels again. When I left his office, I was feeling very low, maybe even depressed.

There are so many disturbing eruptions happening in my life that I can barely piece myself together to be present for my son. Can I just tell you that these issues are not of my own making?

See, I have my shit together. I have scraped and clawed my way into life, I overcame and rose above. Then I fucking got married. Do I sound resentful? You bet, I am very fucking resentful.

The side effects of dealing with grown ups that have no idea how to be a mature and independent adult. A person with a grandchild, still being spoon fed by her mommy and her third husband, a person with such severe mental illness I fear she can never recover from all the damage she’s created. A person that has severely damaged her very own child with her undiagnosed mental illness.

The effexor, armour thyroid, hormone creams, and the supplements that stare at me each morning as I go from bottle to bottle taking the amount prescribed and wonder if this is any kind of life for a person to live. It really isn’t any kind of life for me to live, or you for that matter.

I often wonder how long I will be able to function like this, knowing that things are not improving and the burdens becoming much too heavy to bare. I suited up for my life and showed up, I can support myself, I am a survivor that doesn’t need bleed other people dry like a fucking vampire.

I struggle with reaching out to others based on the severity of my personal conditions. No one really wants to hear it after five or eight years of hearing it. In fact, I’m beyond hearing about it, or living it.

Similar to when a person dies, people are very helpful for the first few months, but soon after they stop calling as much and god forbid if you shed a tear. They want to just get over it, stop wallowing in the past. I too, want to just get over it.

They don’t know what else to say, they cannot be shouted at or cursed.

Something inside of me is screaming very loudly, it’s like a trapped animal in a cage suffering innumerable pain and discomforts. Part of me would like to try and figure out what is being said, so that I can respond in kind to the violent screaming. Eventually, trying to figure it out becomes much too hard and I try and distract myself with activities that I know I must perform in order to put that whole one foot in front of the other.

This is what I keep doing, one foot in front of the other. Just like the big snow monster in that old Christmas movie.

**After re-reading this, I very much wanted to delete the post, to pretend like it never happened.  I struggled with removing it, lest you think bad of me.  Embarrassed with my immature ramblings in the middle of an attack of my ego.  (Or, as my therapist would say, “lack of ego”.)

Instead, I’ll leave it here and tell you what bothers me most, “See, I have my shit together.” Not that I expected anyone to believe me, but this is the crap that I try to tell myself when in the middle of an attack.

Then I remembered one of the reasons that Real Mental exists, to allow me a safe writing place.  My hope is that I do not offend, nor to have a person take this personally.  I struggle with how much to reveal sometimes, I question myself, I do the whole second guessing game, and generally make myself sick over it when that isn’t why I wanted to be a part of this to begin with.

Don’t let my anger, (or is it passion?) scare you, we all have the right to say and write “ugly” things, if only to use it as a tool to get to what is really underneath it all.  It’s just another layer.  Not one I am proud of but one that must be acknowledged in order to move on.

I called her right after I got out of the meeting. I should have called her two weeks ago, but this is a game I play with myself over and over. Before I got to the meeting, I was a jangle of nerves spilling the coffee on my pants and just a few minutes later, the water tumbled over too.

Why do I always have to carry along liquids everywhere I go? Especially liquids that I know do not fit into the cup holders in the car.

Most likely, the same reason that I forget to take medications and make stupid mistakes that I regret two seconds after making them. I told him tonight as I was getting ready for the meeting that all of these “ailments” I am having are directly related to my center not being centered.

Basically, the things that “get to me” are things that are not going to change. It is up to me to accept these things for what they are.

Still, I manage to find ways to pay penance for my being a mere human that fucks up.

Speaking with her on the phone, she suggested that I try and keep the focus on myself. I shoot back pretty quickly, “but I think that is why I’m loony now”. I fear I’ve been focusing on myself entirely too much. She’s quiet and patient with me. She sees no reason to argue this point, knowing that I will come around when I am ready to come around.

Towards the end of the call she tells me that I sound much better than I did at the beginning of the call.

Her voice is always so calm, so loving, and her words have a way of pulling me back into reality. She asks me, “what have you done for yourself lately?”

I think to myself, “I don’t deserve to do anything nice for me”. I make mistakes, I say stupid things. She isn’t buying it. She’s not taking the “please beat me” bait. She never takes that bait.

I want so much for someone to just tell me how incredibly stupid and thoughtless I am. I tell her that if she won’t do it, I’ll call someone who can. This is meant as a joke, but reminds me of all the times I wanted to be punished for making a mistake and I had folks I could call that were more than happy to tear me down. And I did it all on auto-pilot.

That doesn’t work anymore. It hasn’t worked for a very long time, but old habits die hard. The knee-jerk reaction is to seek it out.

It finally dawns on me what I’ve been doing. Creating situations to disrupt my life in such a manner to make me “pay” for my bad behavior. I can know this all day long, and you can even remind me of it but it won’t guarantee my immunity from it.

There is a permanent path in my brain for a few things. When things get crazy, run. When feelings start to rise up, run. If anything uncomfortable, or not nice comes up I am supposed to run.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak I can’t run anymore. It’s like my running legs have been sawed off at the knees. My mind wants to, but my body cannot comply.

I was able to accept what she was giving me, even though it boils down to the truth of me not being able to run. I growled at her for doing such a thing to me. She didn’t do it at all, she was just the voice of reason during a mental breakdown. It is why I have asked her to help me along this journey.

I usually refer to this part of the process as “stop, drop, and roll”.

Reaching our for help pertains to the stop. Releasing what is no longer serving me is the drop. Lastly, the roll part is giving myself a break and moving on. Hopefully that moving on part won’t be as hard as I have a tendency to think it is.