I Am Finally Choosing Me

I started writing this blog thinking I would be telling everyone about the great adventures Bake and I were having. About how wonderful things had gotten for me because I finally had an official service dog to help me. How I would be so much more free to go out and do things without my mental illnesses holding me back; keeping me caged, not only inside of my head but also inside of my house! I never imagined I would be talking about trauma and mental illness…let alone my own! But this blog has evolved into something more, something I didn’t realize I needed. It has evolved into an instrument for me to tell others how trauma and mental illness affect and effect people. Not people who “look crazy” (I looaathe that term by the way!), but normal every day humans like me and many others. I feel it is important to talk about mental illness and normalize it; keeping it a “private” matter or hiding it like a deep dark secret is no longer an option for me. I understand we are all on different journeys and I would never compare my traumas with anyone else’s trauma! As a matter of fact, that is a huuuuuge no-no for me; comparing trauma is always unacceptable, period! I also understand not all those who suffer from mental illness feel the way I do, and that is ok. But I hope some will find the strength and courage to, one day, be able to speak up and help others fight their daily battles as well.

Today I want to talk about one of my “stuck points”. For those of you who have not been through Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), a “stuck point” is a belief you have that is holding you back from being able to be happy and having healthy relationships. However, that is an extremely simplistic interpretation of a very complicated term. Stuck points are often formulated and or caused by a form of trauma experienced by a person. I personally have had multiple traumas as well as prolonged traumas within my life. It is very hard to pinpoint exactly how or when some of my stuck points were formed, while others it’s very obvious; and some of my stuck points began to form during one trauma but were reinforced by subsequent traumas.

The stuck point I want to talk about today is: everyone eventually leaves me, so something must be wrong with me or I must not be good enough. (A long one I know! Ugh) For as long as I can remember, I never felt like I was good enough for anyone. Like something was wrong with me and whenever someone in my life would figure that out, they would leave. For example: my biological father never wanted to be a part of my life. When I was less than two years old, he told my mom to stop coming around and trying to make him be a dad, that he would come visit me when he wanted to be a part of my life; many years went by and he moved on without me. He eventually got married and had another child. When I was a teenager his wife tried to get him to be a part of my life because she wanted me to be a part of my half-brother’s life. That didn’t last long! He was in and out of my life, until a few years ago, when I decided a relationship with him was not healthy for me. It only validated my stuck point; I wasn’t good enough, even for my own father. I’ve had failed relationship after failed relationship, I just wanted someone to show me I was enough; show me I was worth fighting for, respecting my boundaries and working through the hard times within a relationship. While I have found that in a handful of extremely close friends that I consider family, I have yet to find that in a romantic partner.

When I say I was “choosing” someone else over me, I am talking specifically about relationships I was in that were unhealthy, codependent, or abusive not healthy ones; which I had very few of. Having so many different and prolonged traumas, I was never taught how to have a healthy relationship, how to set healthy boundaries. I was only taught how to have unhealthy relationships with no boundaries. I was taught my life was only good enough to serve someone else and everyone else’s life was worth more than mine. My wants and needs did not matter and were only relevant if they improved the quality of life of someone else. My traumas taught me my only purpose was to serve others and make others happy; my happiness was secondary and at times, irrelevant and not necessary.

I’m not making myself vulnerable with friends, family, and hell…strangers to make you feel bad or sorry for me. However, I’m writing this because I spent almost the entire year of 2020 in some form of intense therapy. I worked soooo very hard to understand my traumas and how they effect and affect me. How my traumas are still controlling my life TO-THIS-DAY! While I was in some sort of therapy off and on throughout my 20s and 30s, I didn’t start intensive therapy until I was 47; until that point I felt like I was just treading through life, lying to myself, and I would never be truly happy. I was unkind to myself, said and believed hateful things about myself, and even blamed myself for many of my traumas. In my mind, I was required to be perfect. If I was perfect, then no one would know anything was wrong with me and they would always choose me, they would always like me and want to be my friend or partner. If they knew the anxious, depressed, suicidal, scared, and broken little girl I was inside, then more people would hurt me, take advantage of me in some way, not like me, or even leave me.

I am learning that it took 40+ years of trauma to create the person I am today so it will take time….a lot of time, to learn how to be the the person I want to be without trauma controlling my life. I am learning to be kind and patient with myself. I am learning to set healthy boundaries within all relationships for once; with my friends, family, and romantic relationships. I’m learning everything is not all or nothing, black and white; life is almost completely gray for me now. My relationships are now of differing degrees of closeness (ie, acquaintances, somewhat friends, best friends, etc.). I stumble….I stumble a lot! But I am learning each day is a new day to start over and begin anew; I am learning to be in and appreciate the present. Yesterday may have been a bad day but that doesn’t mean today needs to be. I may not do everything I want tomorrow but that doesn’t mean I cannot pick up where I left off and continue the following day. I need to take my own advice and recognize my accomplishments and be proud and celebrate them, not focus on what I did not accomplish. NO MORE NEGATIVE SELF TALK! Some days getting out of bed and feeding myself is good enough, while other days actually going somewhere without my service dog is a HUGE success! I must celebrate both equally because they are both successful days.

I am learning that I am enough for me. I need to stop wanting someone else to choose me; especially if that person is not healthy for me. Choosing myself over someone else can be very difficult; heartbreaking at times, particularly when they are close friends or family members. Not everyone is going to like it when I choose my own needs over theirs; especially if I have always put their needs first. However, those relationships can be re-established and healthy boundaries can be created, for both parties involved. There have been, and will continue to be, people who do not respect the boundaries I create for myself. I will carefully evaluate each relationship and decide for myself how I want to continue with that relationship; if I decide to continue at all.

At the end of the day the only person who needs to be choosing me is me and I am finally doing that! Life is too short to be living it unhappy.