Moments of Honesty

I have been thinking about the number of times I have written about my realizations and determination to get with and stay with God. I have been feeling ashamed that I once again had the same realization meaning that I had lost my connection to Him again. It begs the question for me are my realizations sincere, because if they are how can I allow myself to get so far from Him again and again, if I know I really need Him. 

I don’t know. 

I honestly do know that with God I feel a peace that never exists outside of Him. I do know that life is just better with Him. In that sense I know those realizations are truthful because they prove to be a constant everytime I return to Him. 

The realizations that I am ashamed of are when I say I won’t allow people to get between me and God. 😞 Those realizations have not proven to be true. Instead it happens so naturally that it takes me a while to even realize that I have been distant from God because of a hell of a whole lot of suppressed anger towards Him for allowing my relationship to pan out the way it did with my ex attachment figure. 

Two months ago I told her I didn’t want us to speak to one another for a year because I felt like I needed her to not be an option for a very long time so that I could stop using her as a crutch and force myself to devote myself to this therapy process. At the time, my decision was fueled by a whole lot of resentment towards her for how I felt about myself in a relationship with her. I was chasing after someone who didn’t want me, and I got to the point of feeling ultra low that I could keep selling myself to someone who made a million and one excuses over the course of 8 months for why they are unable to have one phone call with me. At the end of the day I wasn’t mad at her for treating me like that, I was mad at myself for allowing myself to stay where I was clearly not welcomed anymore. 

However, I am ashamed to say that since i’ve made that decision, despite knowing how it made me feel, I still wish she was in my life. I wish she would love me and mean it. I wish I could love her without needing her to be more than a friend. I am very selfish in that I still mostly see her as a cure for my emptiness. She played a role and I just wasn’t ready nor accepting of when she realized she couldn’t play that role no more. And I feel like im constantly bleeding on the inside because I choose to not accept reality and instead keep a gaping hole inside of me empty for someone who had made it explicitly clear that they are not coming back to me in that way. My therapist pointed out to me the numerous ways I cocnciously carry that hole with me and refuse to fill it, because of my denial that she’s gone. 

I am in denial, and my denial gets in the way of God and I. And i’m honestly just not ready to accept reality. I’m not and i’m sorry God. I’m sorry for dissappointing those who think I am stronger than this. I am sorry for the people I hold at a distance because of my denial. I’m not willing to accept that she is gone yet. To some I may be disgusting and a very shameful creature with no respect for herself (well at least thats how I see myself) but I’m ok with that for now. I still maintain my no contact from her, mostly out of not wanting to continuously burden her with me, and finally respecting her desire to not be with me, but if she were to text me today and say she wants me i’m 65% sure i’d jump on the opportunity. 

Back in August I was 99% sure so I guess thats progress. 

Things I am Learning

1. While healing there is going to be pain, but absolutely no one is responsible for alleviating the pain. The pain is part of the process and learning how to carry it fosters growth. There is also a tremendous amount of inner beauty felt when another day goes by and you have carried the pain gracefully, and in a way that makes you proud. 

2. Forgiving yourself for the times you didn’t know how to carry the pain is crucial. The people affected by those moments are entitled to their thoughts of you, and have the right to resent, dislike, and not forgive you. All you can do is sincerely apologize and release the guilt. Guilt won’t help either of you, and you have the right to change and move on. 

3. Boundaries are SUPER important. They really do keep both parties safe. Create boundaries, and ALWAYS respect the boundaries of others, no matter how close you feel you are. We are all separate people. SB: I think with the fall of man came the imperfect union of “being one flesh.” Yet we’re still created with that hole, maybe God is the only one we can enmesh ourselves with to fill it. So respect the boundaries as time, patience, love, naturally renogotiates those boundaries, not your forcing it. 

4. Your mom has boundaries too that also need to be respected. 

5. Cry a lot when no one can hear you or see you. Crying breaks the heart of those who care about you. It’s ok to cry in front of people and sometimes ask help from people to help carry the pain even if for a minute. But when time and personal growth is the last remedy to the pain, cry the tears that are always threatening to fall, and create joyful memories with all the ones around you who care about you. 

6. Don’t make people pay for others mistakes.

7. Lastly, be ok in the in between of no longer wanting to die, but not yet knowing how to live. As you can see, you got to the point where Suicide stopped being an answer so more growth awaits if you just stick it out. And when suicide does fleetingly pass, breathe, your hurting and your body is telling you it needs you, listen. 

Accepting The Past’s Trauma for a Better Tomorrow

Yesterday I woke up knowing it would be a hard day. After work I found my strength wavering and tears falling as I rode the train home and texted a friend to ask for 45 undivided minutes because I felt a surge of things needing to be poured out. Immediately she called, she didn’t know I was crying or that I was feeling so low, but i’m thankful for friends that don’t need for me to be dying in order to be present. I sat in a park and poured my heart out, mostly in tears, explaining that I just don’t understand why a part of me can’t let go. I wake up every day and do what i’m suppose too, but I always feel like i’m just living to push through instead of actually living, which always leaves me questioning what’s the point.
At the end of our talk, I realized and decided that if I want to see even more improvement then I need to push myself to do even more than just the bare minimum. Living for the minimum is empty and I will always feel purposeless, so I need to push myself to do more, and I left the park determined to do so. 

Then just like that I stumbled upon a picture of the person i’ve been actively avoiding on my instagram explore page. A rush of pain just consumed me. My stomach went numb and I could feel the tingling. My legs began shaking uncontrollably. Alligator tears were just falling unprovoked. My mind felt like it was drowning and the only thoughts coming to the surface were, hurt yourself. Before, these thoughts were immediately acted upon before I even had time to register what was happening. However, I have grown better through continued therapy, so I texted my therapist and did the best thing I knew to calm me while I waited for her to call me, I rocked as I sung “Jesus be the center of my life.” As I waited, God was with me reminding me that we are a team, that I just have to ride it out, keep breathing, keep rocking, keep circling the scrunchie through my hands (repetitive motions are extremely comforting for me idk why). 

My therapist called and my main question was why does seeing her with people she loves instantaneously drive me to this point? And she eloquently and accurately explained to me that simply put it makes me feel rejected, abandoned, and betrayed. I see her with all this love that she can dole out to others and feel betrayed that none of that love can be doled out to me anymore. Then she continued to say that, “whether you agree or not, you were traumatized and you just never built any tolerance to handling abandonment, or rejection in that form. The tolerance is just not there sweetie, and wanting it to not be so won’t change it.”

I calmed and this got me thinking about trauma. Out of I guess pride and desire to always NOT be a statistic, I NEVER allowed myself to believe that my dad’s passing affected me. I thought it shameful and disgusting to call myself traumatized when people experience “real” traumas daily. But what if the shameful and disgusting thing is my pride that keeps me from accepting this reality as my own? That i’m not as resilient or strong or better than the “statistics.” 

In an effort to do things differently in order to begin to see different results, I am going to accept the reality that I experienced something that I never understood or learned to process, and that is why I can’t understand or process it now. If any of the nine year olds I work with experienced what I did, I would immediately feel heartbroken for them out of sheer intuitive understanding that a loss like that is devastating. I watch my kids, especially the girls, run to their fathers during dismissal. I listen as they recount stories of where their dad brought them for their birthday, or the gifts they bring back from traveling. Now that I think about it they don’t talk about their moms. I know the occupations of some of their fathers through the awe insipred retelling of a child. And when they run to their dad, I think, that was me. 

My memories are all but obliterated of me and my dad. Up until recently i thought i barely knew the man. But thats trauma. My sisters and mother tell me about how he was the only person I was close to. The only one I wanted to spend time with. The only one i’d eat dinner with, and sometimes I think I feel certain memories coming back. 

But they must be right because the memory that never goes away was how on August 17th we had a bbq and I was sitting at my dads feet waiting for him to give me the rest of his champagne cola. My mother was telling me to let him drink and get another one but I ignored her, patiently waiting for the drink that always came. Then on August 18th I stood and watched him struggle to breathe. Front row and center, everyone panicking too much to notice I was there and maybe remove me. He struggled and struggled as my mom tried to get the asthma machine down his throat. He was making noises and grabbing at his throat, he began to defecate himself, and I just stood there glued to the ground. Slowly his color changed, and then supported by my mom his lifeless body fell off the chair to the ground. He layed there until the morgue people came, zipped him in his black bag then took him away. I next saw him in the open casket in his suit and tie, then finally sealed away in his tomb. 

I can’t conjure up feelings where they don’t exist. I didn’t mourn then and i’m not mourning now. I simply exist with this as my reality. But it’s a reality that I have to give its credit for who I am now if I have any hope of a different future. Maybe just maybe my therapist is right, “My psyche finds strangers to turn into surrogate parents, knowing they will fail, to recreate the trauma and allow me to mourn safely.” I’m not a therapist, I don’t know why the heck a psyche would want to recreate trauma, but looking over the course of my life it looks like thats been my ONLY purpose in life, recreating trauma. Heaping impossible demands on people so they can fail and I can try to “fix it” so that they don’t fail and they don’t leave, because I couldn’t fix what happened when i was nine. But they always fail. 

I hope that by accepting this my psyche can start to heal. 

Speechless