ThinkingThoughts

Goofy title, I know.  I’m okay with that. 

Something about the end of the year tends to turn me introspective – I’m sure I’m not alone in that.  In the past, it has all too often taken the form of sadness and nostalgia, thoughts of what I’ve left undone, what I may never do, what I wish I could have/do/be/see…negatives, in other words.

This year, however, I feel that I have made enormous progress.  I have learned so much.  I have been forced, through the exigiencies of life, to become stronger and wiser and more pragmatic and realistic.  And, by a delightfully shocking quirk of fate, happier.

This year, I have no thoughts of loss or regret.  I have no thoughts of resentment or deprivation, of what I’ve been cheated of.  Partly that is due to the fact that, in the past year and a half, I have taken control of my own life and health.  I have changed my eating habits and started exercising, and consequently lost around 45 pounds, which is great.  I am more excited about the control than the weight, though, to be honest.  I have also taken control of my financial situation and started truly working toward getting out of debt.  I have stepped up to the plate in so many ways, taken responsibility for my own stupidity and excesses in the past, and I have changed my life as a result.

It has not, for one second, been easy.  Much of it has not been fun.  Most of it has been hard, painful, exhausting, and I’ve wanted to lie down, give up, and cry so many times I can’t even count them.  But the cumulative result is this enormous sense of happiness, contentment, and self-respect that I currently find in myself.  Who would have thought?

So…to get back to the reason for the title…

From the time I hit puberty – at age 10 – I have suffered, all my life, with depression and anxiety.  When I was 13, I attempted suicide.  Fortunately, I was stupid and didn’t know how to do it, and failed.  Thank God.  But at the time, I truly wanted to die.  Most of that was chemical – I was loved, nurtured, and cherished as a child, and I really had no cause for unhappiness or complaint in my home life.  I did inherit some fairly unpleasant tendencies to chemical imbalances, however, and those showed up pretty early.  So I spent the next twenty-some years fighting with severe depression, anxiety and panic disorders,  and various self-destructive tendencies that created some serious havoc with my life, my marriage, everything.  I have taken various antidepressants and anxiety medications; I have undergone biofeedback sessions; I have learned meditative and alternative techniques.  I’ve been around the block a time or two, and most of these things were very successful for me to a greater or lesser degree.  I haven’t done anything that I would say “just didn’t help”.  It all helped, but it didn’t get rid of the underlying issues. 

When I was about 28, I started going to therapy.  My reason for this was that I was angry literally all the time. I was angry at myself, my husband, my kids, my boss, my car, my house, my shoes, the people I worked with, the clouds in the sky, certain tall buildings in Beijing…you name it.  I was just pissed off, and it was making my life and the lives of my loved ones sheer and utter hell.

Anger, you see, was empowering for me.  Fear – which was what I REALLY felt – was not.  Fear immobilizes; anger galvanizes.  So I learned, over the course of 25 years or so, to mutate my fear into anger, because then I could cope.  I could act on that.  What I didn’t realize was that I was acting in a way that was making all my fears come true.

So I started therapy, hoping to learn some coping mechanisms that would help me deal with the anger.  What I got instead…well, sometimes you don’t get what you want, you get what you need.  I got the most amazing therapist on the planet, IMO, who instead of teaching me to deal with the anger, instead taught me to recognize and deal with the fear.  She taught me – made me – dig it out, figure out where it came from and why, and address it.  She made me fix myself. 

When I ended therapy after nearly two years, I knew that I had learned some incredible lessons and been given some invaluable tools for coping with life’s curveballs.  I was stronger, more self-aware, wiser…and I had a handle on my own emotional issues.

Then my husband and I entered the most difficult phase of our marriage, which resulted in a thankfully short-lived separation and near divorce.  We got through it, and our relationship became much stronger, and I became an even stronger person.  I knew that without the therapy, I could not have endured that, and I thought, “Cool!  Now I’m really done.  I’m fixed!”

What I didn’t realize then was that the therapy was only the beginning of a long process.  I thought I was a much better, stronger, wiser person after therapy – and I was.  But I still wasn’t all that happy.  I still focused on what life wasn’t giving me, instead of what I had.  I still hid things.  I still pretended, even to myself, that things were other than what they were.

I’ve only just realize that that doesn’t mean therapy failed.  Because when the inevitable denouement came and I was forced to face up to the lies I’d been telling myself and others – I handled it.  I came clean.  I dealt.  I didn’t get angry…I didn’t become consumed with crippling guilt and self-doubt.  I faced it, I admitted it, I took responsibility, and I developed a plan to fix the damage I had done.

And for the first time in my life, at the end of this year, I am happy.  I am content.  I am not complacent, and there are things I fear and am worried about and don’t like…but I like my life.  I don’t feel cheated or resentful…I don’t wonder what things would be like if I could only (insert event of choice here, whether it’s winning the lottery or finishing college or whatever).  And I know that no matter what happens in the future, even if all my fears are realized, I can survive it.  I can live through it.  It may not be easy, but I can do it.

So…though the process has been long and is, no doubt, still incomplete – to my wonderful former therapist:  Thank you.  Again.  And still.  And always.