Filed under: About Me, Fear and Pain, Happiness and Joy, Life Lessons, Psychobabble, Random thoughts, Self-Respect
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.
I am a coward.
I have built myself a framework – a safety net, if you will – of rules and regulations and restrictions and conventions. My job, my home, my bank account, my children’s schools, my doctors’ appointments, my online blogs…these are all a part of the framework, the safety net. They all make me feel safe, and secure, and neatly slotted into my nice, safe, normal niche in life.
I know this because:
Yesterday, at lunch, I was sitting in the car at the gas station, waiting for a friend to come back after paying for gas. I was watching the cars go by, as they entered and exited the interstate, and thinking – as I always do – about who might be in them and where they might be going. Something about the day – the weather, perhaps, which was gray and rainy and gloomy, and cold – or about my own mood, gave me the oddest sensation that these people were all free as birds, going who knew where, while I was securely tied to the earth. I did not envy them.
I couldn’t help wondering if the guy in the old red Pontiac was on a road trip, headed to an unknown destination. Was the woman in the little Toyota running from something? Had she just quit her job and emptied her bank account and taken off to points unknown?
Why would I have these thoughts? One might speculate that they indicate a repressed desire in me to do exactly that – just cut all ties and fly away. But I didn’t find them appealing…I found them frightening. The idea of being in the car, driving, but not to anywhere…not having a job I have to be at the next day, not having kids to be picked up from school, not having bills to be paid on a particular day or a home to be cared for or a paycheck to ensure…was terrifying to me.
So that led me to wonder why? Why would I not WANT that, that ultimate freedom of having no responsibilities, no one to answer to, no one to take care of? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? But it didn’t seem wonderful to me; it seemed terrifying and heartbreaking and awful.
The fact that I have a job (okay, jobs) ensures that I get a paycheck. That paycheck ensures that I have a place to live and can pay my bills. If I want that security – a roof over my head every night, and knowing where it will be, and food to eat and each day a safe environment – then I must follow very strict rules and routines. Get up, get the kids to school, go to work, come home, make sure the kids are picked up, fed, etc…ad nauseam. I should feel trapped by all that – but I don’t. I feel safe and comforted.
To me, the most frightening thing in the world is not knowing what to expect. I did not realize that about myself until just now. Everything that I fear – death, old age, divorce, an empty nest, losing a job, having a serious health condition, going on a new ride at the amusement park for heaven’s sake – all comes down to that. They are all situations in which I do not know what to expect, and that is bone-chillingly terrifying to me.
It seems blindingly obvious, now, that this is at the root of my compulsive planning and organizing and list-making; I am not just a naturally organized person who has a talent for creating order from chaos (though I do) – I am borderline obsessive-compulsive because I am terrified of disorder!
I knew that I had control issues. I thought that I had dealt with them to some extent, but I find that the fear of a loss of control – of not knowing where I am headed and having no way of steering – is worse now than it ever was. It just hides now, under and behind other things. That is sobering and saddening to me, because I don’t want to be timid. Timidity is not a positive trait, to my mind. I wish I knew how to conquer this particular fear…perhaps if my faith were stronger, and I could simply trust that someone is taking care of me, I could deal with it more rationally. But as it stands, I am petrified of the unknown, to the extent (evidently) that I perseverate about it at odd times and seemingly without provocation.
Historically, having unsolicited thoughts like this has meant that an issue I have been avoiding is rearing its ugly head, demanding to be recognized. I am afraid of that, as well – my fear is so great in this context that I am afraid to even think about it, but I can’t help it. It almost sounds like it may be time for therapy again…but I dread that too. It’s never an easy process, and to get to the dawn you have to first go through the night.
I am afraid of so many things, for someone who considers herself fairly assertive and bold. I don’t like that about myself.
Well, it seems that I really should be able to get something useful out of all this drama and angst that I have been experiencing lately…so let’s see where we can wander with it.
I am turning 35 in two days. Now, I am sort of odd in that the big “milestone” birthdays – 21, 30, 40 – have never seemed like a big deal for me. 30 was nothing…25 packed quite a punch though, philosophically speaking, and it appears that 35 will do the same.
I think it makes me feel a little old…not as in “aged” but as in “dated”. So yesterday, in other words. 35 is not the age of someone you lust after, it’s the age of someone’s mom. It’s a minivan age…a mammogram age…a moisturizer-with-retinol and soy-supplement age. It’s not a sexy age…it’s a mature age. It’s an age where you don’t try to appeal to young men, you try to mother them.
Part of me thinks I should care about that…part of me doesn’t want to care. Part of me wants to be sexy and attractive and alluring…and part of me thinks it’s really a lot of fuss over nothing and is sort of anticipating a time of my life when that doesn’t have to be my priority.
Except it does…my husband wants me to be sexy and alluring and attractive, so I will care for him, though I don’t care for myself. I want to look my best, but I don’t care if anyone finds it sexy! But I will care, I guess, for him.
I am scared of getting older, because of the physical limitations it will impose. I do not want to be unable to do things because of my physical condition. I do not want to develop thinning hair and poor eyesight and muscles and joints that will not do as they are told; I do not want to be dependent upon others for things. I do not want my world to shrink to the size of a small apartment, and the voices that I hear on the phone or the words I read in emails. I do not want to begin to shrink, when I do not feel that I am finished growing!
Much of this is prompted by watching Mother, the past few days. She was hospitalized for pneumonia, because she did not go to the doctor for treatment as she had assured me she had done. My long weekend at the cabin was cut short – it amounted to one night – and I came home to be with her. Which is fine, I don’t begrudge her that – but it really made me stop and think about things.
I cannot ever be very far away – because I don’t know when she might need me, and there is no one else here to care for her. She can’t do things for herself – and it breaks my heart. It destroys me, one little piece at a time, to watch this woman who was my rock, who bore me and nourished me and nurtured me and sustained me, slowly becoming helpless. It gnaws at my soul to watch as she has to wait for someone to take notice of her before she can perform simple life functions – to know that if I do not do things for her, she must go without them being done because she cannot do it herself. I cannot bear to think of her lying in a hospital bed, needing something, and not getting it because a nurse hasn’t gotten around to it yet – and she can’t do anything about it. She is at the mercy of those around her – this woman who arranged my world for so many years to keep me safe and sheltered and protected, now cannot even protect herself. So it falls to me to do it.
And it is fair, I know that, and I do not resent it…I do not think, “It’s not fair, why should I have to…” I don’t. My reluctance is not in the nature of resentment or defiance…it is in the nature of heartbreak, because it is not fair. It is not right. What did she do, or not do, to relegate herself to this fate? She was a good woman, a good wife, a good mother, a good grandmother. She was never perfect, but no one is, and her imperfections were in the nature of loving too much, of giving too much, of trying too hard not to hurt or make unhappy. She erred on the side of love and generosity and tenderness, always. So why, why is this her fate? How is this fair?
Worse, I see the slow and gradual progression toward further decline. I know that in the coming years, she will be able to do less and less, and will require more and more from me. I can foresee the future in that I know that she will not experience a sudden death, but rather a gradual decline that will be worse, harder, more brutal, for those around her than any sudden cessation could ever be. She will become helpless to the extent that she will require constant care, and that was always her worst fear. I cannot do it for her – I am not in a position financially to be able to quit work and render round-the-clock care, and so it will have to be strangers. Her very worst fear of all, and mine for her. I will be visiting her and trying to talk to her, and she will not know me, or if she does, she won’t understand what the situation is. I know this; I can see it, and I am terrified. I do not want this for her!! She deserves a long, healthy life, and a quick, easy, peaceful death. I truly believe this, but I cannot give it to her. I do not have that power.
I am scared, so scared, of the pain and trauma of watching her decline and knowing her suffering…and I am also scared that it will happen to me, as well. I have always seen my life as paralleling hers, though in most ways it really hasn’t, and I cannot shake this terrible fear that not only must I watch her go through it, but that one day I will be traveling that same path and my own daughters must make the choices about my care. I am so afraid…and there is nothing at all I can do about it.
I guess I am feeling not only my own mortality, but my own fleshly inadequacies. Death is not so much my fear right now, as decline.
Though I am thinking about death as well, as I always do. I am afraid of that also. I am far too strongly attached to this world and I fear and dread leaving it behind. I do not know what comes after, no matter what my beliefs – I cannot visualize it. And what if there really is no after, and I just stop? I will no longer be, and I cannot imagine that. What is the point to an end of suffering and pain, if you cannot enjoy it?
And what of those I leave behind? How can I do that to my children? How can I leave such an emptiness, such a vacuum, in their lives? No matter their ages, there will be a vacuum, and it tears me apart to think of it. They need me and I cannot imagine leaving them behind to wonder why, to think of all the things that I will never be able to do with them or that they will never be able to say to me…
Death seems more real, more possible, with every day you live, and it scares me. I have lived for 35 years and many many people don’t live any longer than that. I am at an age where every day from here on is questionable. At this age, everything starts to become more common – cancer, heart disease, stroke, you name it. I feel that I’m living on borrowed time and it scares me terribly; my babies are still so young.
I know I think about it too much, but I can’t help it. That’s what I do. I think.
Filed under: Fear and Pain, Happiness and Joy, Life Lessons, Psychobabble, Spirituality
Forgiveness Is Not So Fashionable « Mr Ed Catholic
The statement in this post that forgiveness brings freedom is one of immense and mostly-overlooked truth and power. There is nothing quite so freeing as making the mental and emotional decision that something no longer has to matter so much. For me, that is one of the defining characteristics of true forgiveness: I am certainly still aware of the transgression, but I need no longer base any of my actions, feelings or thoughts upon that transgression. I am free to cease to react.
When you have truly let go…when you have truly forgiven, and moved on…a binding snaps. A chain dissolves…a wall crumbles…a barrier erodes. One inhibiting, restraining, binding factor has disappeared from your life and you are free to react without consideration of that factor.
I do know whereof I speak. I have been given many opportunities, in my life, to learn the power of forgiveness – both given, and received. I rue the experiences that made forgiveness necessary - but I rejoice in the forgiveness itself. I will never regret that, no matter what.
Forgiveness does not mean blinding oneself to the original transgression. It does not mean saying that it was “okay”. It does not mean or imply that you have condoned that behavior, that you have dismissed it, or that you have forgotten it. It means that, while aware of the action, you have chosen to move beyond it, to accept that it happened and acknowledge the consequences thereof, and to reject the further damaging of your soul by that action. You have thrown off your bonds.
Now, you may well choose not to give that person another chance to hurt you, and a severance of that relationship – if done calmly and with prior self-examination and reason – does not invalidate your forgiveness. You may well have reached the conclusion, through calm examination, that even though you choose not to continue to castigate and excoriate that person, you also believe that there is a high likelihood of a repeat offense and you choose not to place yourself in the way of further harm. If you have done so calmly, without angst, then this does not mean you have not forgiven. It only means, simply put, that you have learned that touching the hot stove creates a burn. You don’t hate the stove; you don’t resent the stove and lie awake thinking about how much it hurt you – you simply recognize that you probably shouldn’t touch it anymore. Yet you are no longer holding on to the fear, pain, anger that the action engendered. You are free.
Likewise, forgiving yourself is very freeing. Letting go of the guilt and shame that you carry around because you think you need to, you think you deserve it, you think that if you let it go it means you don’t care that you did something bad… letting go of that can lighten your emotional and spiritual load immensely. Once again, this does not have to mean that you have learned nothing from your mistake – it is possible to acknowledge a negative action and learn from it without performing emotional self-flagellation every day for the rest of your life. Let it go. Forgive yourself. Do not excuse, for behavior that hurts another should not be excused. Simply acknowledge that you have behaved wrongly, accept your culpability, be sincerely remorseful…and resolve to do better. Make amends…undo some or all of the harm, if possible. But don’t carry around that self-hate. Forgive yourself…let it go.
Forgiveness is one of the most wonderful experiences available to us as human beings, and it is one thing that I sincerely wish all people would allow themselves to experience.
Just a note for anyone currently suffering from these:
I suffered from panic attacks for literally years…I took Paxil for five years during the worst of them. You can say what you like about SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) but it literally saved my life and my sanity. I have also taken Zoloft (didn’t work) and Lexapro (did!) as well as training in biofeedback and counseling.
This can be done. You do not have to be a prisoner of your own brain chemistry! You do not have to be medicated for the rest of your life, though if you need it, PLEASE take it! Don’t look at it as a stigmatic thing; medication is there to help you and you wouldn’t hesitate if you were a diabetic and needed insulin, would you? It’s the same thing – yes, it IS.
I strongly recommend a combination of medication and therapy, as well as learning techniques like meditation and controlled breathing that will help you to head off the attacks when they do happen. I won’t tell you that I don’t occasionally get hit with one – but now I can deal with it in the first minute or so and stop it in its tracks. I never get to the dizzy, breathless, hyperventilating, hallucinating stage that used to be standard. I can nip it in the bud.
I am no longer on medication, nor am I in therapy, but I have regained control of my life. You can, too, and it’s worth whatever it takes because life is too beautiful to waste in mindless terror!
Don’t give up on this. You can get through it.
Filed under: Childhood, Fear and Pain, Happiness and Joy, Love, Motherhood, Old Stuff, Transplants from LiveJournal
I have heard it said that life is a journey…
If this is so, then it is a long and frightening one, and fraught with peril.
Along the way, the trail narrows and grows rough
And in some places, it passes through deep-shadowed caves.
I watch as you, my beloved daughter, step onto that darksome path
I am helpless and worried, knowing your fear and confusion
And knowing that nothing I can do can change the path you must walk.
I cannot lead you through the shadows,
for though I have walked this path myself,
my shadows were my own, and not the same as yours.
I cannot banish the darkness,
for the only light that can penetrate here
is the lovely glow of your own warm and courageous soul.
I cannot even walk before you,
to find and face the dangers,
for this is not my journey, but yours.
But that is all right, and as it should be;
for the steps we take on life’s journey
are both determined by, and formative of,
our own souls.
And sometimes, you must take the steps yourself
Brave the darkness
Learn the road
And by learning it, change it, and make it yours.
And you do not need a light,
Or a map to follow
Or someone to clear your path.
Sometimes, all you need is a hand in the darkness
To tell you that you are not alone, and that while you are afraid,
fear is not debilitating — it need not stop you from taking the steps you must take
And that you will not become lost in the darkness,
For someone is there with you, holding your hand.
So know this, child of my heart:
That though this darkness is your own
And I can neither banish it, nor lead you through –
Still I will be there with you, always, if you will let me…
And I will always hold your hand.
I have been thinking a lot about love lately. We all know there are a lot of different kinds of love. For me, it’s fairly simple…I love my husband in a particular way. Then there is another way in which I love my children…a way in which I love my mother…and a way in which I love my siblings and extended family. Finally, there is a way in which I love my true, dear friends.
These are all completely valid and powerful forms of love, but they are all so very different. The type of love I am dwelling on today is my love for my husband.
I’m not going to kid anybody, marriage is HARD. After 13 years and more ups-and-downs than an elevator factory, I have learned that, if nothing else. There have been times when I knew I loved him more than life and would do anything at all for him. There have been times when I felt that I only loved him because I was so accustomed to doing so. There have been times when I did not love him at all, not a bit, not for a second.
The crazy thing is, love is fluid. It is never stable or stagnant; I think that would be contrary to its nature. Love on Friday will not, cannot, be the same thing that love was on Monday. Perhaps it is due to the changing nature of our own souls, our own psyches…perhaps it is influenced by the moon and the stars and the tides and the prevailing winds. Who knows? But it changes, always.
Over 13 years, I have found that there is an ebb and flow. I am always frightened and unsure during the ebb periods – what if he doesn’t love me anymore? What if I don’t love him? Is it over? Is our relationship dying? There is an element of panic…of uncertainty…a feel of shifting sands beneath my terrified feet.
The flow periods, however, are exhilirating. The world is mine, I can do no wrong, the stars are not only within my reach but clasped firmly in my hands and shedding their radiance in the form of joy through my entire being. These times are the essence of happiness.
But they always end. Fortunately, so do the ebb periods…but I am left with the overall feeling of instability. I wonder – is it like this for everyone? Is every relationship like this, or is mine simply inherently unstable? Does life waver and shimmer like this for everyone, or is it just me?
I do love my husband. I can cling to this, no matter what happens, because I know that we have been through fire together and even on the days I hated him, I still felt that unbreakable bond. I do not always like him. I frequently want to throttle him, chuck the body and tell God he died. Yet at no point do I cease to crave his touch – in the simple form of a pat on the back – or actively seek his smile. It reassures me that it’s okay – the world is all right – things are normal. I do not know what I would do, if I knew that I would never see his smile again.
But I am bound to a man who does not understand me, who does not grasp or wish to grasp who I am or what I am about, who will never appreciate my good points sufficiently for them to outweigh my bad. I do love him…I believe he does love me…but he will never understand me. We will never be on the same page; we will never want the same things from life or value and cherish the same moments. We are eternal opposites, and this makes me afraid. Can we survive? Can love survive when it is continually subjected to such profound and powerful stressors? Are we doomed to end the way so many couples do, simply because we are too different?
My other fear is worse. Will I change? Will I stop being who I am, because it is the only way to keep our love alive? I have found myself doing this, and that, too, has an ebb and flow – when I realize it is happening, I rebel, I pull back, and we struggle. Then, when things are better, I drift back into the habit of being who I think he wants me to be, in order to KEEP things better. And the cycle repeats.
I don’t know. It’s a question that doesn’t have an answer, I think. But as long as I keep asking it, I know that I’m not subsumed by love and my own desire for peace and tranquility. That is important to me. I am not, by nature, a peacemaker. I don’t want to lose that nature. I don’t want to end up timid. Timidity is, to me, a fairly intense character flaw. I hope that my desire for love and peace do not eclipse my desire to be who I was made, who I am.
