A Letter from my 2007 Self Tearing me Open.

It’s time to break the silence. My silence. My stopped up pain. The red ears and head that feels like it will explode from swallowing it all down. Sometimes recovery feels like it will kill me.

I’m seeing a lot of clients right now and I grow as a result, exponentially every single day.

I often can’t capture my many selves or feelings or experiences and that frustrates me. It’s a sneeze that doesn’t come, and it itch I cannot reach. It plagues me really.

The song A Million Dreams is on, from The Greatest Showman. That movie is powerful for me in so many ways. I was that little boy in so many ways, and the older one. Desperate to be seen as good, worth something, enough. All sorts of ideas, but all of that getting away from me, as well as everything I already had.

Whatever that even is because right now I’m just plagued with uncertainty and it’s nearly intolerable. Becoming able to tolerate and to stay with my own experience and develop a self is the necessary component.

Can’t meet my needs outside, uncomfortable in. Anxiety, loss, doubt, scarcity creating a Black Plague that eats possibilities and joy. It’s so painful. Like burning in an eternal hell. Hell is definitely a creation of the mind, a mind trap versus some place you can end up.

The world is on fire…. People are scared and hurting, and no amount of wanting to be a warrior to help can distract me from that being my ultimate deflection of saving myself. I want like heroine to save everyone and everything else, and then need to resist that.

I keep coming across people who tell me so emphatically how good it feels to be around me, they feel they become better around me: what an honor and what a burden. I need a space where I can feel better too, and the consistent message is that needs to be with me.

It’s so hard to say no and not be afraid I’m isolating or depressed or letting someone down or this or that thing. It’s so much work to know myself and it’s so fucking painful in here. Let me out! Can’t I just do what I’m so good at and have that be it? “They learn to be loved for what they do rather than who they are.” Dr. Ramani Don’t you Know Who I Am?!

God it hurts. No wonder we hate change so much. It takes so much less bandwidth to adapt and survive, being mindful to undo this whole process is excruciating and right now there is no relief, because my patterns of that cannot be trusted, and if I cannot trust myself that is an agonizing existence.

So one step at a time we build consistency and security on a new foundation. So many times I lose sight of the architecture and throw my fucking hammer. I want to cry out.

And then there’s that breakthrough moment when I feel like Lady Gaga in A Star is Born where amidst all her self doubt and fear, she discovers herself. Goosebumps. I get a glimpse and then back to the pits of hell for another round of lessons. I’m pretty sure this is what recovery looks and feels like.

I hate it!

Can’t I just go back to not knowing. Life felt better then. But did it? Did it really? If it did I wouldn’t be here now.

We are on to Skylar Grey Everything I need and I got the love vibes.

I’ve been in the bath for hours. Today was a hard one. I got very lost inside myself, in shame spirals and triggers. I had a ptsd episode yesterday driving my daughter and that set off a shame spiral. 🙁 I’m ashamed of my triggers and my coping and so many of my actions. How does anyone actually forgive themselves. I want to lash out, cry, isolate, get into bed, but the world pulls me back out because I am needed.

My coping, but also my co dependence. How do I separate them? I just keep returning to path, truth, and me. But I’m so tired and so lonely some days. Not all, but some I am.

I went to a Coda meeting yesterday. I will be attending regularly and I couldn’t speak. I lost my voice because I was afraid I was going to do it wrong, afraid I’d make others uncomfortable with the breakdown I choked back. In a fucking meeting where that’s supposed to be allowed. I actually sat there and contemplated getting someone else a tissue, and then realized the very act of being there was to get my own tissue and allow my own tears.

Not speaking or expressing emotion made me even more hard on myself. Like a scared wild animal I just wanted to run, but I didn’t. I resolved to do better, strike that, to be kinder to me next meeting and try again to open up. The question staring at me was something about Gods will for me and all I could do was be locked down in my own will is all there is. There is only zuul:p Ugh.! Will I ever feel better consistently? Ever ?! Or rise and falls that are exhausting.

Will it ever be more than circling the drain and getting back up. These episodes of ugly crying break downs. This is such bullshit. Christina you’re just feeling shitty and that’s ok. You’re so much farther than you’re giving yourself credit for. Stop hurting yourself and allowing others to hurt you.

Just stay baby ….. I’m right here. I have your back. We don’t need the story or narrative or shame or anything else to stay removed from emotions because they are no longer not being responded to. You can do this. You’re right here. All the good parts that always were. You’re right here.

We are becoming whole. Just hold on through the pain. ….. just stay.

I forgot to mention I found a letter I wrote to my very first therapist from 2007. At the beginning of my first divorce and school. I broke into so many tears. My heart breaks for that scared lonely girl and is also learning to love her. I’ve been doing this work so long and have never left. That is security. 💜

I’m getting ink this week. I got scared again last time but I’m going to keep going and I’m beginning to fall in love with the process, not worry about the outcome. Trust is such a process for me. It’s slowly coming together. The line work for st X bi plane and the lamppost on a planet. On my upper inner arm.

Leave a Reply