Bringing to Light

If I could sum everything up to live in a moment of freedom, I would say, “do it.” Do it. Even if it means sitting in a moment of despair find the silver lining.

Today my silver lining is growth. And the sharing of growth. The documentation of the ups and down of self recovery.

I thought today about the blunders of not feeling good enough. Not good enough for someone else. I am proud today to say to myself, “Sure. We are not in the same spot, and he has made a beautiful name and life for himself. And where I may not be at his “level” yet, or maybe never will be according to timing or whatever comparison sounds the healthiest, I am doing my better. And that is what is amazing. With what has been given to me, I am doing my personal best.” And to me that outshines the comparison.

Yesterday was a full blown anxiety attack. That self-demeaning terrifying “I can’t do anything” pulsating and screaming through any chance of even getting ready that day.

“How am I supposed to talk to people? Or drive? How am I supposed to do anything worldly when my most powerful tool has taken a trip to personal hell?”

It hurt, god dammit. It fucking hurt me. It made me feel like a paralyzed fetus. (Not to offend any paralyzed fetuses out there) It made my eye movement shifty and my perception of safety was nonexistent. As if I’d slipped into a night terror in my waking life.

“What could be so bad?” I would ask myself. In a very demeaning sort of way. It wasn’t as if my life was in danger. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have everything I needed. So what was this? An old brain pattern returning for another hurrah? I couldn’t even speak. I couldn’t formulate a sentence. And how disappointing that I should work so hard to have this creep up unannounced. I had a life to live. I had people, including myself, to cheer up. I had things to learn! Music to appreciate. Things to write, I didn’t have time to spend a couple hours, or perhaps the rest of my life, in this choke hold.

One thing I remember hearing in therapy is that these brain patterns don’t ever really leave us. And where that isn’t exactly a comforting thing to hear in therapy, the second part of that is that these downward spirals eventually start to diminish. They are fewer and far between. They last for shorter amounts of time. And as a human that highly believes in the power of therapy (the right personal kind for your character) I back this up 100%. I still have moments where I don’t believe any of that. and that this time its going to last forever, but alas, here I am sipping a joyous cup of coffee at 7 am at a beautiful outdoor café making silly anecdotes to friends and feeling like a fucking harmony. Ups and downs have been rampaging in my current life but it is a hell of a lot better than a steady flow of down.

Sometimes it takes an extreme jolt to wake you up to the idea that life can be happier and brighter and more meaningful. Sometimes it takes a heavy portion of your life to sit in and wait for a shiny opportunity. But like a dear friend of mine once said to me and a group, opportunities are everywhere and they are endless. There can never be one missed, only another one to take a moment later. We must embrace all of these opportunities. And that is what I am proudly taking these down moments to be. Opportunities. And though they may cause a harsh shift in my body I am going to get up again and work it out. So that the far between moments can be experienced fully and appreciated for what they are. Earned and endless.

Just Some of My Thoughts and a Story

Understanding and learning your emotions and physical symptoms are so vital to growth. I tell you now that I am able to own my story and tell people that I trust what is going on with me it allows me to bring humor to my vampire days (menstruating) energy to my werewolf days (manic) and sweet forgiveness on my days of sorrow (days I want to ocean to sweep me away and become nothing.) Not to sum up dips and hurdles of the human capacity to feel. I am honored to have been given a body and heart that feel so deeply. It allows me then to research and develop more love in to it as well. I realize after being open felt and heard that I require more love and that I have more to give as well. And I do not care what that means. I do not care what media or sitcoms have warped that into. Women are emotional. And its the sweetest gift one can receive. Truly a man, whether that be partner or lover or friend or acquaintance, that accepts and has true interest in this will receive it in its entirety.
One way in which I know I have been gifted this back is that in the winter of 2014 I held two men as they surrendered and poured out. Their tears both shed from the loss of a lover through breakup. One from a man, and one from a woman. And I tell you that the hurt was at the same capacity. It was with the same loss and regret and abandonment. Emotions that had been so trapped with in them. And they were able to be seen and acknowledged. And as I write this I am filled with hope because truly this means love is love. In whatever form. There is no separation therefore there is no need for group debate. I held them until they felt new. And to have connected in this way is beyond the level of typing words or saying or reading. It was truth in its essence and it was felt through the heart. I am grateful to them for teaching me this and seeing me too, then, as safe. This means they felt my heart as well.

I feel compelled as well to speak of one more topic of love. The love of self. The utter importance to self nurture. To hold yourself as that friend as the person in need as you would a child or lover or person in need. I remember as I sat in confusion, being a person that finds it debilitating at times to make a decision, sometimes as simple as dinner and sometimes as devastating as deciding how I feel about an individual. In this situation I was trapped with the uncertainty of personal growth and my hindrance to do so. That is, what did I need to do to make the situation I was in better, or, do I leave because I knew that it would be unfitting for me in my growth? The problem being here that it involved people I loved and a dwindling of self love. I was drowning myself in a way. Snuffing out my spirit which is something many of us do on different levels because we think we "should" be something else. We "should" know better by now. I was contorting myself, subconsciously, and sadly I knew a little too, to fit a culture unfitting for me. And I was going to let it happen because I felt I should know how to fix it. I should just "be" better.
It wasn't until I broke down completely and snapped that I was able to find the courage to ask for time alone. To not be influenced by that heart connection holding me so strongly (to this fellow, this man that I loved. I realize my terms are a little too vague for this story.)  I was able to allow myself to go a little crazy, fill an entire notebook with thoughts, talk to some safe people (my therapist being one of them,) and come to a real true gut decision. A wise mind decision as they say in DBT therapy. I needed to remove myself from this place be strong and say goodbye to someone I loved. I felt relieved and devastated at the same time and this was okay. Because I no longer lived in that place of purgatory. Not to be overly dramatic but if I were to draw that emotion on paper it would involve lava and look similar to Mordor.
It would be a few days until I had to confront the heart space again. To have that person next to me and have to deny the love I felt and it threw me into sorrow. I looked down at all I had done and I looked at my own hands. I thought of these hands that have been used so many times to give care in  and all the love I desperately wanted OTHER people to feel from me, and I gave myself the biggest damn hug and cried and cried and still felt so shitty but I cried some more and I continued to love me. I continued to acknowledge myself and feel it truly from the heart, like the energy was coursing through me like a river of friends, yes I am going that lame with it.
When I saw John and spoke to him it was different. we had an understanding. He cared enough to let me go without any added pressure, and I am very grateful for him in this way. If he had asked me to stay I would probably still be there until my next episode, but we taught each other something huge. That you can still love someone and do what's best for them and let them go. And I didn't feel this guilt that I have felt in the past for leaving a self damaging situation. I felt good about it. We still talk now, but its different. We shared a very special growing lesson and we are forever connected in that way, which to me is just as beautiful as finding a partner for life, in the traditional sense. We had both never experienced someone so willing to allow the other person to be happy and free. We learned to love ourselves regardless. It was a gift. And I am forever grateful for that experience.

I enjoy sharing my stories. I enjoy hearing stories. This is the reason I write. They also bring meaning to the experiences to express them so that they don't stay so tightly within me. I encourage all of us to own our stories and share them and be receptive to others as well.