Comfort in my life… yes, that has been lacking – except for bubble baths, candles and music. I’ve been indulging in them a few times a week. Ahhh. But much of the comfort stuff has been pushed behind the work and the activity which are helping me stay afloat so I don’t sink back into that place of depression where I lived for so long.

Actually the other day I found a post in an old journal (I started journaling again…ah) and I thought maybe I would share what poured out of me as I looked BACK upon my decade of depression…..
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December 12, 2006 – Thinking back, back, back…..

After having spent a decade in the cold shadows of a dark alley in my mind, I know many things. I am intimately connected with each and every aspect of my unwanted and unworthy self. Few people will openly admit, without a victim’s tale, all the ways and manners in which they so skillfully turned a life of great potential into a vast desert – where almost nothing could grow, save a few gnarled and twisted roots too stubborn to die.

Those roots are the core of my story now – the basis of my foundation – and the aspects of my ego most familiar to me.

I know terror at dusk and terror at dawn. The kind of fear which grips your heart, no, not just your heart, but the deepest and coldest part of your chest – it grips it with a steel claw so lacking in mercy that even instinctive pleas fall silent before fully formed. The sun’s retreat opens avenues for death’s dreams which come unbidden more nights than not. There isn’t a manner of death or torture that I have not endured under the sword of my own sick mind. All manners of pain have I witnessed, nay, created in my self loathing, unconscious mind in my attempts to eradicate the world of my wasteful existence.

Dawn, with its customary promise of a new day, brings its own version of dusk’s terrible twin. Avalanches of pressure to be other than that which I am descend as darkness lifts. A multitude of masks lay before me — each so thick and tight suffocation seems inescapable. Questions pelt my mind – how can I face the day? The climb before me seems too steep – too slippery – I see only failure and humiliation as my destiny.

December 13, 2006

After having spent more than a decade in the dark shadows of my mind I know the weight of hopelessness. I know its deceitful choices, slithering into an otherwise normal life and wrapping itself around my core. As dreams and passion are choked off, and circulation slows, the world within my mind spins. Tunnel vision is the best I can muster, and concentration is required for even the most automatic of reflexes. Simply breathing drains all energy and attempts to see further into a future than mere hours are futile.

Slowly the envelope of despair curls around my consciousness, altering my vision as light’s attempts to reach my seeking eyes are blocked. Somehow within moments, spanning months, I recognize the home into which I have retreated.

Hopelessness and despair are but twin pillars guarding the entrance to the abandoned well in which I dwell. Waking hours are spent treading water, the only task I can’t refuse. Exhaustion comes in waves, lapping at my face as I struggle to find a foothold against the slimy, moss covered walls of my prison.

Silent pleas ring forth, “Let it end, let me slip beneath the surface – please let the darkness come and cover me as dirt would upon my grave.”

Such mercy is too kind to enter – held at bay by a calling I cannot hear.

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In the years since those feelings were a part of my everyday existance I have certainly confronted huge challenges, tackled big issues, helped hundreds of people, loved deeply, laughed until my face hurt and embraced life in more ways than I can count.

This next challenge is just another step on the ladder and it was good to read those words… it helped me see how far I have come and appreciate all that I have.

While that isn’t warm and comforting like a hot bath… it does soothe my soul….

Uncovering emotions and feeling them more and more (especially anger) can be scary.

Have you ever talked to your inner child by chance? The little girl inside of you that gets scared and nervous and worried when the emotions seem to burst out?

You’re doing such a good job of taking care of yourself and using the resources available to you. And from what I read it sounds like maybe you could use some extra comfort in your life.

In what ways could you soothe that part of you and wrap her up and help her feel loved and safe?

xoxo

I made a wonderful dinner Friday night… prime rib, backed potato and broiled vine ripened tomoatoes with herbs and parmesan cheese. ahhh. That was fun.

I cleaned part of my apartment today (while melting down oddly enough). I have found cleaning my environment helps me put my head in order sometimes. Now I know that doesn’t sound like “fun”… but I LOVE throwing things out, clearing clutter and seeing what all I have that I have forgotten I have. So, in some strange ways that was fun too.

I made semi-solid plans to go and shoot IPSC in two weeks. So, I am looking forward to that.

I am going riding tomorrow… and really looking forward to being with my horses. They are good for my soul.

I am on track for my trapeze lesson next Thursday and I am taking the WHOLE day off to just enjoy myself and share some good quality time with my friend.

And then on Friday my sister in law arrives for a weekend and I am hoping that we eat some great food, enjoy some of the sights in Fort Lauderdale, go to the beach, do an airboat ride through the everglades and who knows what else…

So, that’s the fun report…. which seems to fly in sharp opposition to the previous post. Obviously my life is feeling rather ah… conflicted… or full… or something… ha ha

And I’d love to read your list…. honestly. I hope you give yourself the gift of this oppportunity and take an honest look. As good old “love him or hate him” Dr. Phil says…. You can’t change that which you don’t acknowledge. So go baby… go.

As for me…. life really felt like it fell apart in the last 24 hours…. to the point that I had my guns removed from my place. The higher part of me doesn’t THINK that the lower part of me would be stupid… but it’s best to just eliminate the possibility.

And in an odd way that was empowering – because it gave me the opportunity to ask for help – and get the gift of feeling worth receiving it.

The situation…. well, I have these “emotional explosions” that happen every month or two or three. I did some EMDR in November and that seemed to help, but … well… there is still some “monster” that lurks within me.

As Joe and I have been going through this breakup/distancing/being honest thing (not sure where we are right now to be honest) he has reached out to a therapist he worked with years ago.

In his coversations with the man they discussed Joe’s pain regarding our relationship. Joe described my explosive behaviors, my adoptee status, and my general character. The therapist immediately pin pointed my abandonment issues (duh) and then said that it sounded like “Borderline Personality Disorder”.

So, for the last two weeks Joe has been reading about this and last night came clean with me that he really thinks this fits and explains some of the missing pieces about what happens.

So, armed with a whopping 4 hours of sleep this morning I did some research. And, yes, it seems to fit.

Now I realize that this is NOT a professional opinion, since I haven’t talked to this therapist myself… but, well…… he could be onto something.

Which led to a huge meltdown this morning, Joe coming over and us spending most of the day peeling layers in regard to my adoption issues/wounds and why the hell I harbor such a deep root of anger (seemingly undirected until it erupts).

Now, as to the Self Love Game and this week’s card….. in claiming my power I need to acknowledge where I am powerless. And in regard to these explosions I seem to be just that – powerless. In order to claim my power I need to address the core issue here. I need to stop sweeping up the leaves and instead cut down the damn tree.

And so, I guess I am going to enter therapy again. I think The Work would help me here, but honestly I am not sure how to start on my own (God that’s hard to admit)… so maybe I just need to work on writing some worksheets and see what comes up. Hum.. good idea.

And so… here I sit, feeling as though I have somehow hit my next big personal challenge and find myself truly feeling as though the only way through it is to quite simply… go directly into the fire.

Sigh… sometimes I really hate this whole personal evolution thing. Why can’t I just be happy going to the mall like “normal” people?

I don’t like the activity for the week. I don’t like to look at situations in which I’m unhappy and feel like a failure. So I haven’t been.

Truth is, I’d have trouble naming an area in my life in which I feel empowered.

In the relationship with grandson Nick, I feel particularly enfeebled and victimized. I’ve been reaffirming a few boundaries this week, though I’m not at all sure it’s enough to merit 100 points.

At the same time, my TMS (tension myositis syndome, in which the subconscious mind uses bodily pain to distract onesself from uncomfortable emotional issues) has become a flaring conflagration again. It was using blinding, nauseating, non-migraine headaches to distract me from life, until my doctor said, “We’re going to have to do an MRI if these persist.”

“Oops, don’t want that,” said the TMS, and switched to debilitating neck aches, stiff neck, pain-in-the-neck symptoms.

You’d certainly think it’d be easier to make the damn list of “all the situations, circumstances, or relationshps where you don’t feel powerful,” as the card says. Matter of fact, that’d probably be a great thing to do this Saturday afternoon, as a matter of fact. It’d probably also qualify as writing about my issues, which is one of the primary ways of treating TMS.

I’m going to try not to be such a stranger here on the blog, Christi.

And how are your fun assignments going for the month?

I filed the corrected W-2/W-3 for a client.

I mailed in my Sprint rebate for my new phone.

I finally got gas (before I ran out!)

I got to the bank to deposit the last 2 weeks of checks! Yippee!!

I went to the grocery store and got some healthy food.

I cooked myself a “real” dinner (instead of eating cereal)

I chose NOT to answer the phone twice tonight, but I did once – and that led to a wonderful conversation with someone I had never spoken to who praised my website and told me how much it helped her. Hearing that REALLY made me feel good.

So, oddly enough my week of reclaiming my power has large pockets of feeling weak and vulnerable. And perhaps within the willingness to be so, I am, in fact, stepping into my power.

And, right now in order to TAKE BACK MY POWER, I feel like I need to do those things on my own. I am not sure how that works…but on this day I moved in the right direction.

1. I worked hard all day and did a good job.

2. I asked for a couple of hugs when I needed them.

3. I fought the urge to hide in the company of another at the end of the work day.

4. I came home and followed my inner voice which told me to exercise… and my heart which told me “at the beach”. So I rode my bike to and along the beach.

5. When I got home I noticed that the sliding door to the apartment next to me (where someone new just moved in) was open. So I went over to introduce myself.

6. And I had a wonderful time with my new neighbor, Valerie. :)

In fact… I would have to classify this evening as definately falling into the “FUN” category (per our April Call)… and one that helped me reclaim my power, on my own.

“I think I failed in that I left him feeling hopeful for a reconciliation… even though my words conveyed the opposite – but that was, if it did in fact happen, a result of part of me “allowing myself to let go emotionally” and so my love for him showed. I am trying to stay in my business and remember that it is my job to be honest and it is his job to follow his path.”

I find it amazing that in reading this weeks card the instructions are to “to trust ourselves enough to follow our hearts and listen to what we know to be in our highest and best interests. Standing in all of our power means that we love ourselves enough to tell the truth about who we are and what we want, even if that disappoints someone else”.

and God, if that isn’t what I tried, my very best, to do today. And I tried to do it gently… and with compassion and honor and all the love that I have allowed myself to feel.

May God Bless us all….as do our best to reach, and stretch and grow into his highest image of all that we can be.