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31 August Okay with not "Perfect"I was amazed to see that I had comments on my page and am humbly so grateful for the visits. I can't begin to tell you what an amazing gift to the spirit these pages have brought. Your friendship and kindness are still there even when I admit my faults and downfalls. It seems a safe place to admit to things and yet vulnerable and when you are there it is amazing. I read your words and find so much comfort and wisdom. In life it is easy to feel a sense of disconnect and a desire to feel connected - I see it so often in the bars that I visit but it wasn't until last night on an assignment that I had the compassion to look outside of my own hurt and see a similiar hurting in others despite varying forms of reason for discontent, the ultimate sadness seemed to stem from a sense that people feel alone and struggling to feel a part of things - or to forget in a bottle.
I am so grateful that my eye-sight from the accident recovered and I can read and follow the lines. I had trouble with tracking and reading was at first very hard and then even when I could read, it was hard to read for content. After much practice and a love for books, I have gotten better and find so much wisdom in reading. Sometimes I read lots of novels as a sort of escape and distraction in order to feel relaxed, but occasionally I do read "self-help" and spiritual books that help me to see things in a new light.
Recently I found this majestic little book store! I have always dreamed of having a little book store near the coast -- And as I wrote about it in my journal I was shocked to come across a new little place the very next day right here in my town. They serve tea and have books about eastern and western philosophy and healing. Gosh it was tempting to simply want to buy every book in the place! But I found this one little book by Cheri Huber on Self-hate grabbed it simply and sat down to start to read the other night.
An amazing shift happened. With therapists and doctors all my attention has been on my injury and my response to it. Like any life-changing event, be it divorce or whatever, therapists seem sometimes to begin there at the event where things changed and start to emotionally "rebuild" shall we say a "new self" - the thing is is that in reading this book I noted patterns of thinking that I have had my whole life about perfection and guilt and a general dis-ease with myself. The event of my injury only compounded these issues regarding my self-esteem.
There are so many aspects of life that seem to request our perfection - be it in a sport and wanting the perfect routine, parenting, work, friendships, housekeeping, academics, everything really - society and the lessons we are taught sometimes as children seem to instill that one be the best and strive for being really "good" and if possible "perfect" at so many things. Obviously this perfection is just a perception really, and since it is human I think to want to be your best at things, when things don't go well, guilt becomes an eroding little voice in my head.
I was the last child in my family and had more opportunities than my siblings due to more monetary means as my father worked long hours. Somehow I developed the thinking that if I wasn't happy and peppy all the time, in adddition to doing the best I possibly could at every opportunity, that I was being ungrateful. There was no place to be down, sad, angry, upset, disappointed, etc. I began to also see that being a happy kid pleased people and being a determined athelete and good at academics was also a way to make others pleased. I was friends with most and felt dismal when someone didn't like me. Critics were my favorite - they pushed me to prove myself and the reward of their friendship or compliments seemed paramount to who I was - a critic or someone who was hard on me seemed to be a lesson in disliking myself in my current state and working towards their acceptance and approval. I've always known this about myself but I rarely look at the effects it had on me as a person - or more importantly I never understood why I always felt so guilty. So guilty about everything. As a child and adult, my apologies are frequent and I have to say that if someone asked me my most common phrase it would be "I'm sorry." And I mean it. I am sorry. I feel sorry about so many things that if I think about how bad I feel I can barely breathe.
I treat other people far better than I would ever treat myself in every way. If someone says sorry to me I immediately tell them to absolutely not worry about it and I mean it. I don't want anyone else to be sorry. And yet I make myself feel sorry about everything FOREVER. We all make mistakes and honestly when others make mistakes I see it as just that ... a mistake - but when I make a mistake I will dwell on it for a very long time. I will learn from it, as is the lesson of mistakes, but this constant barrage of guilt is not some score card - if anything it just makes me more self-consumed and more apt to continue feeling bad and not having energy to live fully in the moment. In some ways maybe I have just gotten so used to feeling guilty that it is weird not to feel guilty about something. I have had times of happiness where I actually look for the next thing that needs "fixed" or something that is "wrong". Additionally there is a tendency to blame good things on luck and bad things as some type of thing that I deserve.
Ironically, kids flock to me and I think it is because I never want them to feel the way that I do sometimes. If they do something that they feel bad about, I am very aware of the look that flashes across their faces and make them feel okay about it. I note their relief. There are journals from my childhood that say, "I just want to be" or "I just want to be okay" or a combination of both. A deep seated longing in wanting to relax and be loved.
in some ways the book I am reading on this feels like a fresh breath of that love. It talks about being okay not feeling like one needs to "fix" themselves. That one is "okay" just as they are even if they are in the throws of behaving badly. My recent drinking for the last six months and messing up just about everything could be something I should or could beat myself up over for a long period of time. I started to somewhere in the middle and it just seemed to down swirl into more self-distructive behavior. My place was a wreck, laundry everywhere, trash everywhere, work scattered, I gained weight, felt terrible, felt like a bullet hit with every rude or mean comment a person would make - believing them full heartedly and feeling despair. As I tried to "fix" it I felt misunderstood, yearning for comfort and most of all I felt so alone. But quite frankly my behavior was also so self-demeaning in getting sloppy drunk that I truly didn't like myself at all. So the cycle continued. I felt and still do feel quite lost.
The beauty of being lost however is that really if you calm down it isn't that bad. You see new things. Feel new things, possibly find a little bookstore in the woods and miraculously come across a book that has things in it that you might have needed to hear since childhood!
Suddenly a few pages later and a day of "just being," the bottle doesn't seem quite so necessary. In fact, not at all appealing. Not because I feel bad about it but because someone writing those pages just sort of said, "hey, you are okay - you don't need "fixed" or to be perfect - just be." I washed some clothes and listened to the calming sound of the dryer. I picked up some trash merely because it was trash day. I combed my hair and took a shower because it felt good. I went to my assignment and ran into some people from the bar there and when I met a drunk woman who someone was making fun of because she was drunk - I said simply "hey I've been there" and helped her get into a cab with compassion and understanding. I didn't care what the people thought of me for admitting that I too had displayed such drunkness rather I just felt a sense of complete compassion for the woman. I didn't do it because it was the "right" or nice thing to do - it just simply poured out of my heart. My heart felt loving and kind. I felt free and yet acutely aware of how easy it is to want to escape and how so many people are trying to feel loved too. I looked at the people who had made rude comments to me over the past several months and sort of felt immune, yet not wanting to prove myself either. in some ways I bagan to wonder if their unkindness was a reflection instead of them and how they felt about themselves and I felt some compassion for them too - not a ton but a little - (hey I'm not perfect!)
For the past two days, I have just simply been myself. And I am learning finally that maybe that is just okay. 28 August Time Passed QuicklyIt has been a long while since I have written here. I had lost some hope and faith. I was commissioned to write about life as a 37 year old woman. It put me in a complete funk. It is hard to explain really. I wasn't really to write about my brain injury or its impact on my life, meaning that I was to write about just being my age and female and my perspectives, and I found the assignments hard and frustrating. At 37 years of age I was asked to write about things like marriage and kids/no kids and many other facets. I was forced to look at the fact that the brain injury has and does have an impact on many of my life choices, decisions and perspectives. Beginning to see the things that the therapist I ditched had some points that I was in denial about certain aspects of the changes that the brain injury had on my life was annoying and overwhelming. I don't believe that I can't progress - that this brain injury is WHO I am - it is just a part of things - and I can work towards different types of goals and happiness. But they are different than what I had intended and coming to terms with the differences and choices that were and are not in my control is a difficult thing. For instance children - I probably will miss the window of fertility and will also not be eligible either for adoption. Sitting down to write a piece on this and act like the brain injury wasn't a factor and that I had made this decision was a lie that I couldn't write. I found myself furious and felt somewhat crazy at its intensity.
In regards to relationships with men it is also a factor. I push people away from my intimate circle because I personally like people not knowing the quirky little things that I need to do just to get by on a daily basis. My relationships with men seem to turn into someone constantly asking me why I do something a certain way and "can I change?". Yes, I know that maybe I just haven't found the right person, but quite frankly I am not sure that I am in a position to share the way I live because it has to be structured but I like to occasionally ignore the routine - I am inconsistant in the way I approach things. I guess it is a bit like being an artist and creating life each day slightly differently but adapted in ways. I realize that everyone does this. I am constantly reminding myself about people who don't have an injury and trying to see it with clear perspective. I think my friends and family feel frustrated when I seemingly make up "excuses" - they aren't excuses to me rather more "frustrations"- to me it is sort of a reality that I am adjusting to and hopefully can find peace and happinesss regardless - ignoring the obvious challenges that wouldn't be there without the injury makes me feel crazy. I have been trying to not look at the injury changes ever since the injury. This has done me a lot of good - I have surpassed certain limitations and will continue to do so. But there are certain things that even I can't deny. And I feel weak for that.
The writing assignment really did make me try to present it from the angle of a normal girl and her decisions and choices. I wrote what I thought would sound like me and a person who had chosen a lifestyle and was living it. In some ways I am but for the most part I saw and felt every lie I was writing. It shocked and frightened me. And then I could barely move from frustrated depression and anger. I can't say that this alone was the reason for me to start drinking heavily and to lose interest in the things I love. Honestly it was laziness and a sense of exhaustion. A desire to find comfort. Maybe even a desire to do something normal like go hang out with other people and drink and chat.
The bar became an interesting place. I am surprised by how things change in the dating world as one gets older and long for the romance of my grade school sweatheart. At least he didn't openly admit to just wanting to get laid! I am shocked by the lack of respect between people these days in general. I remember when it was rude to ask a woman her age and to find men know asking people their weight seems strikingly questionable - I mean are you kidding me? I ponder if I should even mention the fact that I was asked about brazilian waxing from a near complete stranger. I double checked the sign and no I was not in a brothel. One day after working I stopped in exhausted and looking haggard and a guy actually asked me if I TRIED to look unattractive?!!! No I didn't punch him - I was trying to stop blinking and waiting for him to laugh like it was a joke. By the time I got my hand into a fist he had gone to the restroom. Was tempted to follow and do some damage but refrained from impulsivity. Thank God.
I feel a bit wacked out lately. Just barely on the edge of sanity. I'll get better. |
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