It takes me a long time anymore to write these, especially when my autoimmune disorders flare but, even so, after two hours working on it, I scrapped it
I have to be honest with myself and need to use this blog as I started to do way back when it was my online journal. I need to do that because I'm hurting right now.
When I tell young women to be patient and take time for themselves in healing I do so from a place of knowing what happens when you don't. I used to be one of those people who would eat up every book I found on self help thinking that was all I needed to do, read it and then I shall be healed. Obviously, that didn't work. It took almost 4 decades of life and almost losing my life before I realized the road to healing starts within.
It is within all of us and it means you must take an honest inventory of your life and work through all the emotions you spent so long running from. You must revisit those steps you walked in your life. Right now, I need to revisit those steps so I stop beating myself up for feeling like a fool, feeling useless in life right now, and also, for feeling used.
Sometimes I write this all out, all those deep thoughts and vulnerabilities, because a part of me wants any future descendants to know not only the steps I took in life but also the emotions I experienced during them. I grew up with the constant message that being sensitive or showing "bad" emotions was a flaw. In reality they are a strength, all of them, that is if you can identify and understand them - own them. It took me too long to figure that one out. If there is one thing I hold dear and want passed on is that they should never feel ashamed for being human - mistakes will happen, sometimes it is just life that happens and you're entitled to feel however you do about it all.
Sometimes I empathize too much with others and not share that same compassion for myself. It has been the absolute toughest habit to break. I've been told that I am a healer. I know I have strong intuition and some other abilities, along with a firsthand education on how to be co-dependent. It is a fine line, being empathetic and also a co-dependent in recovery and that is mainly because I still fight some insecurities. In a heartbeat it is those damn insecurities that will drag you over the line.
Can you be confident and still have insecure tendencies, yes, I think you can. The question is how do you work on them when everyone else views you as strong? Maybe the most confidence building thing you can do for yourself is to admit and own your shortcomings, realize that they do not dictate how others see you, just how you see - feel about - yourself.
You ever notice that most the of people working in social and mental health fields have some of the most harrowing stories of life? I don't know about any of you reading this, but when I would go to counseling I used to be very skilled at sabotaging the session and turning it around, leaving knowing more about the counselor than they did me. I think a lot of survivors could identify with that because a session requires you to let down your guard and until you're ready to be real, that guard..the wall you built, is in charge.
So, right now my wall is down. I am dealing with quite a few emotions, they've been swirling for days. I'm sad, I'm grieving the loss of someone I called one of my best friends ..family- there's a part of me that feels guilty and pissed off at myself for allowing the games that were played to go on too long.
I just spent my evening going over a decade of emails and messages - in them were some arguments where I confronted the person that I knew something was being withheld from me but really, it is something that doesn't impact my life other than to the extent that people have gone through to keep the secret, playing games. In those old emails I demanded truths...strongly. I was quite proud of myself while reading them ;) . The problem was boundaries - I didn't hold to them. I started empathizing too much, that's on me. I can't place blame for that on anyone else.
So, now I need to figure out why I couldn't stick to certain boundaries with this person but can with others. Right now that is the million dollar question that needs to be answered. I have no problem telling others when they've stepped over a boundary and, if needed, cutting that person out of my life but this one is hard. Harder than my ex-husband who I spent almost two decades with, harder than some other family I needed to and have cut ties with because of toxicity.
Grieving is tough stuff, and I think that is where at this moment I am at - I'm grieving. This person was the one person I could count on to be there during the darkest nights of my life, always a phone call away and I always felt a little safer in the world for it, for them.
I'll get through this all, this I know - it just really sucks to have to feel this loss. Especially right now, during this stupid global pandemic, dealing with health issues and unable to make a regular and steady income - there's a lot of time being spent just thinking to override emotions.
I do know that I have to embrace these emotions and work through them before pushing ahead too quickly, life has taught me that. If I don't take heed to that lesson I know the pattern will continue. Survivors are plagued by that slippery slope and always need to be mindful not to fall back into the rut of pushing emotions aside to please everyone else but themselves. For most of us our childhoods taught us to be silent, deal, and think of others first.
Time for the healer to heal herself -
Remember, Dorothy always held the power within...
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