Finding healing through telling my story

I would explain the journey to consciousness and self awareness as a process of getting all the "gunk" out. As adults, all of ones childhood traumas and emotional baggage that we carry seems to come to the fore at some stage in our lives, so that we can work through it and let it go. Some of us go through it in our twenties or thirties and others later on and this is what people call the "Mid Life Crisis''. Where we begin to question everything about life and who we are.

This ''gunk'' as I would like to call it comes in batches. Sometimes it’s not so big, sometimes it’s enormous and other times, it feels life threatening and you are left wondering if you will ever be able to move past it. We are then faced with two options, we can explore it or put it on the shelf. The second option works, for a while, but unfortunately the issue just comes back.

We all have our story but we often to ashamed to talk about our pasts or we think that because it's in the past then its best left there. But this is similar to keeping a secret , it can eat us up even if we are not aware of it. So I have decided to share something about myself, about my past because I have carried the shame for far too long now and it is time to acknowledge it and hopefully finally move on from it. 

One of the most painful processes and difficult issues in my life is that I have always felt that I have to give of myself in order to receive. Even when I feel that I have nothing left to give I will find it somewhere within me for the other. I do this so that I feel deserving enough for others to give to me. And even then I don't feel deserving.

Growing up was just like this. My parents were not givers of the emotional or supportive kind. They gave me an education yes, and good sound advice, yes, but a child does not feel love and support from a good education or advice of any kind.

So I learnt quickly that to get the emotional support I needed, I needed to be supportive, Psychology refers to this as 'Parentified Children'. I took it upon myself to be there for my parents so that maybe then they would be there for me. I was like a 7 year old therapist. The only problem was that as a child I had nothing to give but somehow still managed to give all of me. It then became apparent that the need to feel support and love from my parents was selfish of me, because if they were not giving it to me, then it must be my fault for wanting it because it’s unnatural to want something that felt so natural to want, to need. So that's when I became the rescuer, the giver, the person my parents could depend on.

I don't ever remember feeling happy as a child. I felt burdened constantly from the responsibility I felt towards my parents. I always felt different from the children at school. They always looked so happy and care free but I was carrying around a secret.

I was trying to save my Father from his drug addiction and trying to be there for my Mother who was slowly falling apart. I used to watch her flush his pills down the toilet in desperation. But because my parents were both Doctors,  he literally had pills on tap. My parents got divorced eventually because after 4 rehab clinics my Father didn't get better, he just got worse. He moved 2 hours away from my sister's and I and we would only see him during the school holidays and that is if he remembered to pick us up.

There are things that will always haunt us, memories that become in grained. For me, and possibly the most terrifying thing I ever saw as a child was waking up one morning to find drops of blood on the carpet in our passage, I remember thinking it looked like someone had spilt paint. The night before my Father in desperation had broken into my mother’s medicine cupboard and injected himself with whatever he could find. I remember wondering why he needed to do that, wasn’t I enough. Wasn’t I enough to make him happy?

Or the day that he collected us to take us back to his house and he had to keep stopping the car so he could vomit. I knew the cause was that he had taken too many pills again. There was a mixture of fear for my life and the responsibility I felt towards my sisters. They needed protection and I had to be the one to protect them, but I just didn't know how, because I also needed protecting.

His behaviour just got worse each time we went to visit him, to the point where he would buy my 5 year old sister at the time, a six pack of ciders, or he would let me drive at the age of 12. I thought he was the best Father, the cool parent but at the same time I was terribly worried. Worried about him, and worried about my sisters.  Each and every time I would leave to go back to my Mom’s, he would tell me that he is going to be so lonely again and that used to send me off the rails. I would cry for days after the visit because I felt so guilty for leaving because he was going to be lonely and I had to save him. I would beg my Mother to go and live with him. My Mother always said she dreaded the day I would return home from visiting him because it would take me weeks to recover. I would literally go into a depression. I missed him so badly and I yearned for him every day but above all, I wanted to be there for him, I was his knight in shining armour. I was the one that was going save him from himself. Living with my Mother was no better. I felt that I had to be her confidant. I would listen to her vent about her financial worries and her marriage to my step father that was going down the tubes. I wondered why I wasn’t good enough for my parents to ask me how I am once in a while or check on me.

 The rescuer and people pleasing role I fell into began to filter into my friendships, and I attracted friends who needed fixing, just like my Father. But I was ok with it and when I felt like I helped them, the void inside me would be filled for a certain period of time, like a temporary high. I began to live for those moments and now I look back and wonder how I had the energy to do it. I had nothing to give but still gave everything I had. When you have nothing to give and you are not really giving or helping anyone. A shell of a person cannot give to others.

 I was never able to fix my Father and that has always been extremely painful for me. He eventually died, which made my mission to fix all the people in the world even more important. But it didn’t work and I am left feeling chronically fatigued in every sense of the word. And the question I have been asking myself lately is “who am I if I have nothing to give and who will love me now?”  This dysfunctional pattern in my life has led to on going health issues and various Doctor's diagnosis. This seems to have had the same impact on physically as it has emotionally.

 The painful reality that I had to come to terms with was that rescuing my parents didn’t make them love me more; it just made them more dependent on me when I should have been the one depending on them.

 Not a day goes by where I don’t yearn for the parents I always longed for, for the love and support I desperately needed. I often wish I could start again, go back to being a child but this time my parents would be different and that void I wake up every day with would be filled.

Getting rid of the heart ache and the baggage is helping me to see that it's ok to start being myself. From a young age I could see things and understand things about people that I never shared with anyone else. I knew things about someone just by looking at them. Back then I was perceived as quiet and shy and it was because I was listening to what I heard in my head. I spent forever wondering why I knew these things and how I knew that things would happen ,before they did. I knew that I was different, different from everyone else around me. Psychic? Maybe. Ill just call it intuitive. But I completely shut this side of me off because I so badly wanted to fit in and be “normal”.

 Perhaps it’s time to be myself and not feel ashamed of it, to give, myself permission to live my life for me and no one else. But also it's time to move beyond the story because who I am is not what happened to me.

Through this journey I have realised that having a baby would have been a perfect distraction to all of this. I would have been able to once again focus on something else, or rather someone else and not myself. But it did not happen that way... So now its almost like I am have to put myself back together and be the parent that I never had, to myself. To take a leap, move beyond fear and be fully who I am without shame or guilt.

 Just another step towards the beginning of this new path my life is moving towards.

 

It was that last roller coaster ride

Its been a week unlike any other and the smallest things have turned out to be the biggest.

My Husband started singing to himself again. I really can't remember the last time he just hummed a tune to himself, at least not since his Father's cancer diagnosis. In fact, he took it to another level and was singing at the top of his lungs in the car today. I always joke with him about his voice, but today it was just music to my ears because to me it was the sound of happiness. And at the dinner table this week, where there were just moments when he would be smiling to himself and when I eventually asked him what he was smiling about he looked at me and said "I am just really enjoying this dinner''.

Or when I catch him looking at me with that old familiar (or perhaps new found) sparkle in his eyes and there is that quiet, unspoken language between us that says ''maybe the dark days are coming to an end, maybe our time has finally arrived''.

To be frank, I have always struggled with the concept of "living in the now", but I am starting to get it, because I have realised it is all we have, or rather, it is all I have. This week being in the now was about the little things like drinking a cup of tea, or watching my dogs play together. It was in those moments that I noticed that when I can truly be in the present moment, my anxiety dissipates, my worries seem to disappear and even my health issues seem conquerable.

Today, my Husband and I decided to let our inner children come out to play and so we took a trip to the theme park. We rode roller coasters, screamed our heads off (I might have shed a tear or two out of pure fear) and laughed, laughed loudly.

I must say, as a child, I was fearless and I didn't think twice before getting onto any kind of roller coaster ride but today I was terrified. I was terrified that the "life threatening" roller coaster would break at the hinges because I was getting on it. Its my same old thought pattern; 'something bad is definitely going to happen to me'. Well it obviously did not because I am sitting in the comfort of my home blogging about it right now. But the roller coaster is really just an analogy of one of my biggest life lessons thus far, which is "I AM NOT IN CONTROL".

So the lesson is that it is ok to trust the unknown because really, the only other option is to choose fear and fear has ruled me for far too long. I have given fear permission to completely control my entire being.  So yes, the first roller coaster ride was awful and I said to myself that I was done with it, but I got onto the next one, and the next one and by the last one I did not need to hold on for dear life and I threw my hands in the air, closed my eyes and enjoyed the ride, a hundred percent fully, in the now.

Here I am

I had some sort of revelation in my last post but in saying that, I was still left feeling unsure of how to start living my life, unsure of where to find this joy I so badly yearn for for.

I always thought that the next biggest shift in my life would be falling pregnant, but I have come to realise that the great shift in my life has already began.
 
I know that perhaps the time has come to be honest with myself, because If I really look at who I am right now, it is clear that I don't know myself at all. I have been feeling lost this year especially and have been pinning it down to the fact that it is because I have not been able to fall pregnant yet. But the truth is that I have felt lost my whole life...and now I want to be found. But this isn't a fairy tale and no one is going to come riding up on their horse. No, I have to be my own knight in shining armour.

To find myself I must first acknowledge how lost I have been. Not just lost in the big woods, but lost, alone, without sight, delirious, in the pouring rain kind of lost (yes that kind of dramatic) and as strange as this is going to sound, there is some kind of relief in this acknowledgement. And as lost as I have felt, I have still somehow managed to be a sounding board for other people and their problems.

Perhaps I have been surrounding myself with the wrong people. People who are completely oblivious because they are so preoccupied with themselves and with their problems. But I must take responsibility for this too, because I have a great way of  not only taking the rescuer role upon myself, I tend to self sabotage by being less than I am to make others feel better about themselves. I lower my standards so I don't step on any one else's toes.

I want my child to one day be born to a mother who can be completely in her power no matter who feels uncomfortable. If I ever have a daughter one day  I want to be able to teach her that as a woman she need not be ashamed of the power she owns, that she never has to explain herself to anybody. And as God as my witness I will make damn sure of this. But for now I need to find that within myself and I am not quite there yet.

I am not quite there emotionally, and nor am I there physically, so perhaps I am not quite ready to have a baby. So dare I say this? Maybe I choose myself for now. I choose to find the joy I seek, I choose to find my peace, freedom, and love for myself so that I can one day give that to my child. I know that right now I would not be able to do that. Right now I am living a life for other people, not for myself. Right now I am not happy with the person I see in the mirror.

I am beginning to realise that my path is different from the many other people, different from other women, but then again I am a different kind of woman. My journey is different, I have always known this, and I am going to change the world. And when I do eventually become a Mother I will be the best damn mother because I would have risen out of my ashes like the Phoenix, and I will be able to teach my child about self love, self acceptance, strength, spirituality and above all else, unconditional love, because I will finally feel that towards myself. I will be able to teach my child about the divine connection with God and the universe because I will have finally found  it within. And I won't just be a mother to child, I will be a guide in every sense of the word.

I know in the essence of my being that there is something so powerful in this lesson of trying to conceive, something powerful in all the heartache in my life thus far, more powerful than I ever imagined and it is bringing major transformation to my life. I am going from being the scared little girl who is lost in the woods to the powerful woman that I seldomly let myself be. The only difference is that I will be that powerful woman every single second of everyday.

And so the little soul will have to wait just a little while longer, and perhaps she or he has known all of this all along. If so then my child, you already know how deeply I feel for you and what a wonderful, fulfilled life I will one day be able to give you.  

And so it is.

When death brings new life

I had a difficult conversation with my Husband this evening. I told him that I needed some feedback. I wanted to know how it has been to live with me lately and I know ‘easy’ would not be the word he would use to describe it. Yes, things have just been so difficult lately, but I just know I can't carry on this way.

He was lovingly honest and every time I would respond with “I can’t believe you feel this way, he would look horrified that he may have said something to hurt me and say “wait this isn’t coming out right, let me say it better” when the truth is he could have said it in a million different ways and with a bag of sugar in his mouth and it wouldn’t have made a difference, because he was right.

He even seemed to be a bit frustrated which is a state I rarely see him in. He wants me to be happy and I actually wish that his wish would be my command. He is always so positive and he says things like what keeps him going is focusing on everything that we have. Sometimes I just want to punch him when he says things like that. Not because it’s not true but because I’m envious that he is able to be that way, even after loosing his father just a few short months ago.

It is now past mid night and I am wide awake mulling over the conversation. A part of me wants to be really mad at him so I don’t have to take any responsibility but I can’t because first of all I asked for the feedback and second of all he always lets me be me. He lets me feel my pain and always listens intently, quietly and never tells me what to do or gives me advise if I don't ask for it. But too often lately I catch him staring at me with a deep look of concern in his eyes.

I haven’t spoken about my late Father for a while now and it came up in the conversation this evening. He was a man with great potential but gave up on life at an early age. He was a brilliant, well respected Doctor but could not get past his addiction to prescription meds. He never coped very well with life’s challenges, and he never showed up to life and in the end he gave up completely. Carl Jung said it best "Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent".

So between sobs I am explaining this to my Husband and it suddenly occurs to me that that is exactly what I have been doing, my whole entire life.  I have been so unhappy  for so long and I haven’t wanted to do life, at all. I have been my father’s child. And suddenly I am looking at the look of distress on my Husband’s face and having a flash forward, imagining my own children one day having to go through what I went through, witnessing a parent just give up on life like he did, give up on his children. And then I realise something big, something huge...I realise that I do want to live life, I want to be present, and I want to experience joy and happiness. I no longer want to identify with my Father through pain. I don't know if I know how just yet and I am petrified at the thought but I am aching to.

This year has brought me to my knees. From loosing my dearest Father in law to not being able to fall pregnant I have had to re evaluate everything in my life. It was either that or live a non-existent life., which isn't living at all. I want to do things differently now, I want to move past this depression I have been in for too long. This feels like it could finally be the death of the pain in my life and the birth of joy.

And in all of this I realise that I have been missing out all this time, missing out on the happy moments because I haven’t been able to see them and I am suddenly desperate to get these 29 years back.

And then it came to me, a voice in my head.  It said; ”Perhaps it’s not a baby that you have been yearning for for sixteen months, perhaps it’s your life”.