It's a Start

Anyway, I'm just been tired.
Still not sleeping well.
Still feel on guard at night.
Even though I've been safe thus far....
But I still feel safer with the light on.
And still keep checking my doorway.
And it sounds stupid. And is.
Because I've been okay, but still wake up to check.
Several times a night.... Every night.
Just to "make sure"
because I don't want to be caught unaware or something....

I'd probably not sleep well in a ghost town.
If I'm alone there, it'd probably put me on guard.
Even if I'm okay, I'd want to "make sure."
Because I'd keep expecting the unexpected. 
And that's what I've been doing.

Because I've been caught off guard.
I've been caught unaware.

And that put me on edge.
And I feel like I'm about to go off the deep end....
At like any given time.... Still.
And it's been months now.

And I can't just tell anyone 
"I'm going crazy."
Most people already think that I am. 
And it feels like I am.

And it's easy for people to think I am a certain way
that I'm not. Very easy to make assumptions about me
and treat me according to the assumptions that they make....
And nothing I can do about the assumptions they make.
I have to just let them be wrong about me.
I have to let them misunderstand me.
And resent me etc.
For everything they think and thought I am, that I actually wasn't.

But I am what I am. 
It seems that I have different personalities.
And there are sides of me that others weren't expecting, either.
I haven't always been a good person. 
But haven't always been a bad person. 
And times I didn't want to be the way that I was being. 
And times I felt selfish and stupid. 
For being the way I was being.
I've had a lot to learn. 
And others do, too. 
And some things that they need to learn
are things that I can't teach them. 
And some things that I have to learn
are things that they can't teach me....

I've had to learn from other experiences I had.
And reflecting on that.
A lot of people don't reflect on things.
And they might never learn. 
And it isn't up to me if they do or not.
I wish it was, but it's not. 
And that would be a big responsibility.
If it was up to me to teach everyone everything. 
And if it was up to everyone to teach me everything. 
But I can and have learned from reflecting on things. 

Some reflections I share on here.
Some I don't because the lesson was too painful.

And I do try to keep some things to myself. 
Some embarrassing things. 
Some things that make me weak
and feel too vulnerable.
I share enough on here as it is.
And some things that I probably shouldn't. 

I'm still really tired... 
Like I don't really want to go backwards, 
but I have been.
Because there's a lot that I can't back
and a lot that I can't seem to have.

And been making things harder for myself. 
And haven't been able to make peace
about a lot of things. 
Even about myself. 
The mistakes I made.... Will I ever?
Will I ever feel at peace with myself?
Or will I keep fighting myself?
Doing things that I know aren't right
and letting them tell me that I did the right thing?
Idk... I feel like what I do is useless. 
And I just spin my wheels.
Time and time again. Going around in circles.
And can't get time back....

And I hate myself for being useless. 
Wasting my time and energy.
And having wasted others' time and energy
when I wasn't ready to have anything with them.
Even when that was what I wanted.

And others did that to me.
When they were not ready for me. 
Even if they wanted me or thought they did, at the time. 

When I was trying... When I was falling for someone....
And I was giving someone my love or was trying to....
All I wanted was their love.
And respect, too. That's it. 
Never asked them for money.
Never asked them for much. 
Maybe wanted affection, recognition.... Attention. 
But I didn't ask for a lot. 
And didn't get what I wanted.

And I just stopped trying. Because I can't. 
I can't give my all to something or someone
and fail... And keep failing. 
So I guess I'm supressing the love I ever felt for anyone.
I'm not even directing it to myself. 
I'm just supressing everything I ever felt.

And when you supress stuff, you can't express it. 
I giess writing about things on here
is about expressing what I haven't supressed....
If that makes any sense.
Because I've been a big ball of emotions.
Especially lately.... 

Supressing what I can't express.
What I can't put into words 
and what's not coming to the surface.... Yet.

There is a part in this book that says:
"You must acknowledge your emotion
and understanding what the trigger for it is, 
otherwise, you will stay paralysed by the emotion."

Just like my mother and the stupid sh*t she did to me
and said to me in the past has been a trigger for me
and for certain feelings about myself etc....
I am a trigger for my son and certain things I did
and didn't do etc.
Trigger feelings about himself, for him, too.

And he has buried feelings of abandonment. 
When it was never my choice for him to live with his father. 
It was something that was chosen for me and I had to accept that.
And that was a hard thing for me to accept. 
And I did fight for him, just not hard enough.
And I didn't have any help to get him back. 
So I never did. And that wasn't his fault. 
It had nothing to do with him. 
And I wish that he'd see that. One day.
That I did try my best. 
And my best was just never f*cking good enough for anyone. 
And isn't good enough for myself. 
And thought he'd be okay. 
But things didn't work out the way I'd hoped.
For a lot of reasons.
And that has been hard to accept, too. 

Part of the book says....
"Healing is about acceptance of some things, 
a realization of some things, 
and an ability to not let negative emotions control us."
I'll add a couple things to this.
The ability to accept things.... 
The ability to realize things.... 
The ability to not let negative emotions control us...
All these abilities need to be DEVELOPED.
And when we let negative emotions CONTROL us....
They have the power to destroy us.
From the inside out.

And that is something that a lot of people don't realize.
Either they don't have the ability to realize it, 
or are not developing their abilities.... 
Or whatever.... 

But the things we don't know
are things that we haven't been taught, 
and haven't realized, yet. 
And people can go an entire lifetime not realizing
some pretty powerful and important things. 
There's a lot I didn't realize, either.
And realized a little too late.... 

And maybe I've been abandoned so many times
that I don't want to get involved with anyone
because I don't want to be abandoned again....
And if I'm alone, nobody can abandon me.

And I don't need to involve myself in everyone's life.
And they don't need to involve themselves in mine.

I have to work on feeling okay, on my own. 
Regardless what others think. Because they don't know. 
What I've been through, gone through, and am going through.
They don't f*cking know and they may never know. 
And why should they? So they can talk about me
as if they do know when they f*cking don't?

And I have to just work on feeling okay. 
Because my life isn't all about them. 
And all about what they think. 
And all about what they think they know. 
About me and about my life. 

They won't know unless they hear it from me. 
They might think they do if they hear it from someone else.... 
And even when I tell people some things
they might not understand. 
If they can't, they can't. 
If they can't, they won't and I have to accept that. 
Even if it's f*cking hard to accept. 
At least I realized that they won't if they can't. 
And how long did that take?
For me to realize that?
And you'd think that would be easy to realize. 
Maybe easier to realize some things than to accept them.... 
Two different things. 
Just because I realized some things
doesn't mean that they are easy to accept.
But the choice is: Either I do or I don't. 
Either I can or I can't.
If I can, I will. If I can't, I won't. 
And accepting some things makes it a bit easier. At least for me.

The book says: "When we don't allow ourselves to feel our feelings, 
we end up being passive, which leads to us
not living our lives to its potential."

We can supress feelings until we explode.
If we allow ourselves to explode.....

I mean, I get upset sometimes and I keep it in
until I can't anymore and I end up writing to let it out.
But there is a such thing as a controlled demolition. 
Like maybe emotions can cancel themselves out.
And maybe it doesn't work that way.

And yes, I let my anger get the best of me, at times. 
I let my fear get the best of me, at times. 
Like I said, if we let emotions control us, 
they have the power to destroy us.

And here's something else:
"The more complex the grief, the more the cognitive decline."
And what did I say about getting sober?
Or any big change in my life?
That it felt like grieving. 
Grieving how things used to be. 
Even if how things used to be weren't always good.
And grieving people who are still alive.... Is hard.
Because I still want to have hope to talk to them, or see them, 
but I can't hang my life on that hope.

And sometimes I wish I could forget some things, 
the painful things, 
but I end up forgetting some of the happy things. 
The times I was actually happy. 
And sometimes remembering those times is painful
because I can't get or have that back. 

Times change, people change, life changes.
And we change along with it and with them. 
I don't feel like myself or how I used to be, anymore.
I'm going through deep sadness.
Even recognizing these things and realizing it is painful. 
And it's like the more painful it is, 
the harder it is, for me, to accept it, as it is.

And in the book it says that the reactions to trauma
manifest in different ways.
Mental disorders, interpersonal problems, 
low self-esteem, trust issues, addiction, self-destruction etc.

"Not until recovery starts do we see the connection
between trauma and the current issues."

I still have an issue with the word recovery. 
Because we can't recover what we haven't discovered.

And yes, most likely, the issues I have 
are connected to trauma.
Pain, and loss I've experienced in my life.
I've caused myself pain, too. 
I can't blame everything on everyone, here.
Blaming everything on everyone isn't going to help me.
It only "saves" me from taking responsibility
for my own mistakes and sh*t that I did to myself and to others.
Whether I meant to do it or not.
It only "saves" me from guilt, regret, blame, shame
for those things.... 
That I need to work on forgiving myself for.
Even if it takes the rest of my life.... 

As much as I've been traumatised by others, 
I have caused trauma, too. 
I have to be willing to admit that, recognize it, 
deal with it. The thoughts and feelings that come from it. 
About myself and about my life. 
I'm not just the "victim" of other people's sh*tty behavior. 
I also behaved sh*ttily, too.
I am not a saint casting the stones at all the sinners.

I have to heal from some things, yes. 
But there are some things that I may never be able to heal. 
Or "make right." I may never be able to. 
And those are things that I have to forgive myself for. 
Because we don't always know how something
can and will affect someone else. 
Nor do we always think about it. At the time, or after that.

The book goes on to talk about addiction being a result of trauma.
An escape from painful feelings. Etc.
But like things got worse with other traumas.
On top of the initial trauma
and if it's not being addressed, 
then the roots are still going to be there....
Like with weeds... If we pick them, instead of getting them 
by their roots, they'll just come back.

And that is what the issue is.
Not the results of the issue, it's the issue.
Like I quit drinking for 7 years now.
I feel good about it. But it was a coping method
for other things. A way of supressing things.
So when I don't have one way, anymore, I have other ways.
Of coping and supressing and I do both.
I don't cope so well, so I supress and supress and supress.
And often, I'm not doing it consciously....
I do it automatically. Because that is a coping method,
but it is dangerous when I do it automatically, 
because I'm not learning to express some things.
And some things stay bottled up inside. For years and years.

For me, it's mostly emotions.
That get trapped. Where I can't really express them.
Either I can't put some things into words....
(What writing is for, for me)
or I can't find the words
to say what I need to or want to say, 
or don't say it in a way that's even adequate.

Drinking, was a way to try to bury feelings.
Of my father's suicide.... Of so much rejection....
Of a lot of stuff.... Very painful stuff.
A lot that did actually manifest as mental disorders...
Like Borderline Personality Disorder.
As an example.
Or Oppositional Definance Disorder.
Or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder....
Whatever....

Anyway, I have a bunch of stuff to get done...
It's a slow start, but it's a start.