Tag Archives: Fear

Pain (Continued)

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I live my life through song. The lyrics, the melody. They speak to me. Different songs depending on my mood or my circumstance. At the airport tonight I randomly thought of a song that I probably haven’t heard in at least 2 or 3 years. I had such a strong urge to look it up and listen to it right then, but I could only remember the beat. I waited for the lyrics to come. And then one word did. Blood. The name of the song. ‘Blood’ by Middle East. Why this song? I’m not sure I know yet, but I will try to unpack it.

The song is heavy, at least my interpretation of it is. It is about family and love and loss. Lately life has been heavy, particularly for my family. But then again when is it not? There is always pain. Your own or someone else’s. And then so often there is the fear of the pain to come or the pain from the past that you are trying to forget. It can be paralyzing for so many of us. It is debilitating. I mean this metaphorically and, also, literally. Anxiety and depression can be physically painful.

As someone who has struggled with depression, I know pain well. The kind of pain that grips you and takes over. Pain that leaves you on the floor unable to get up. Pain that leads to uncontrollable tears and then the opposite, numbness because it is so deep you just cannot face it any longer. In high school I had a plan in the back of my mind that soothed me. I could end it. If I really had to. Back then taking my own life truly seemed more tolerable than living it. The pain consumed me and I did not yet know my way out.

Today, it seems like a lifetime ago. That version of myself. Sure, it doesn’t always feel like that. I have my bad days where I feel low, both helpless and hopeless. I still feel shame about many things from my past. But today I feel okay. And more days than not, I feel okay. Of course, I still feel pain and know I will continue to. But I feel at peace knowing that it will come and go, just like feelings of joy will, as well. But it has been a hellish road to get here.

I teared up listening to this song tonight. I think because it reminds me of my own family and the weight we’ve carried. Maybe this is inevitable when living with chronic illness. We learned pain too early. Not the typical pain of childhood. The bumps and bruises that your parents can wipe away with a band aid and a kiss. It was a pain you couldn’t easily make go away and one you certainly couldn’t understand, at least not when you were under the age of ten. When a parent is sick life is scary and unpredictable and you learn to feel okay any way you can. Her pain was my pain. Her suffering was my suffering. I would have given anything to make her better.

I was recently asked on a date what I was like as an eight-year-old and all I could think of was anxious. During those years, I was scared most of the time, especially when she wasn’t home. Every time she left for a doctor’s appointment or for the hospital, I feared she wouldn’t come back. I hated the space in between when she left and when she returned. That space was lonely and the silence was deafening. I learned early on how to fill it with all the “what ifs”. I begged God to please make my family safe, happy, and healthy. Over and over again. This was self-preservation. The relief I felt every time you returned was intoxicating and I believed my various control tactics worked.

I used to look back at my childhood self with shame. Why wasn’t I stronger? Why was I so strange? Why did I behave the ways I did? While it still isn’t easy to talk about, it makes a whole lot more sense now and slowly the shame is dissipating. I’m learning to soothe the childhood me.

I understand from the outside looking in that obsessive compulsive disorder looks completely irrational. But is it? As a child, I felt out of control and I did not know how to express it. I was also told often to “be strong” which I interpreted as do not show you are afraid. I learned to control what I could. Of course, the organization of my dollhouse and the position of the throw pillows had nothing to do with my mom’s health, but it did make me feel more in control in some strange way. It was better than sitting with my spinning thoughts. When you are anxious and hurting, you will accept any form of relief. And if it works, even for a short period of time, you are going to repeat the behavior. This is what I mean by self-preservation. I learned to survive. Day by day.

When I was at the beginning stages of therapy, I was told to practice self-love. To talk to my inner child and repeat words of affirmation in the mirror. I was repulsed by it. I felt insulted by the therapist. My skin was crawling at the idea of it. What an intense response to self-care…

If you are in therapy and have had this reaction, try and ask yourself why and, most importantly, be patient. For me, it was impossible to practice self-love when I did not love myself. It felt foreign and any of my efforts would have been insincere at the time. I did not think I deserved any sympathy. The problem was me. Why would I go easy on myself?

My current framing of my struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder took years of therapeutic work. First there were the years of hiding it and then there were the years of being ashamed of it. It is only until very recently I could see it differently – as resilience.

I’ve learned the hard lesson that you cannot escape pain. Pain is certain. If you let it, it can consume you. My advice to you is to feel it. Don’t run from it. Don’t bury it. Don’t ask someone else to carry it. Feel it so you can move past it.

Cue ‘Blood’ by Middle East

Shame

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I started this blog to push myself to address my deepest fears with the hope that by doing so I would be set free of them. I wholeheartedly believe FDR’s quote “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” To live in fear is to not truly live at all. It is like spending your days digging your own grave. After my last post I told myself it was time to start addressing the parts of myself I am ashamed of. I told myself I needed to expose more of myself and to unpack why I am who I am today. Instead, I just stopped writing for five months. Why?

Because I am scared.

I am scared you will judge me.

I am scared you will think lesser of me.

I am scared by the depths of my pain.

I am scared that exposing my shame makes it real.

And after that, there will be no denying it is part of me.

Shame is like a parasite that won’t be away. It makes a home in you. Every time I soothe myself with food, I’m fueling my shame. I’m making it stronger.

So today I will start with some brutal honesty: I am more ashamed of who I am than proud of who I am. I say this after years of therapy and that shit right there is depressing. Naturally I went to therapy to feel better, to be fixed. And yet here I am. You may be thinking that the problem is my therapist or maybe how you knew therapy was a sham. I don’t think either of those things are true. For awhile I’ve been of the belief that therapy will only be as successful as what you put into it. I’ve realized there are ways we all do therapy more “safely” where we only talk about the topics we are comfortable discussing. It is incredibly easy to deal with only the current week’s events or to quickly brush over major life events that fundamentally changed us. We get to leave each session feeling like we opened up. But did we? Now I’m not so sure.

Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely not the same person I was years ago. I am in many ways more confident than I have ever been. But my pain is still there. It is still gut-wrenching. It is still physical.

This leads to me to a couple other things I’ve realized about therapy and self-growth. This should probably be obvious, but it only sunk in recently. Progress is not linear. There are moments in my therapeutic journey that have been transformative like when I acknowledged my insecurities with another similarly aged woman in my group or with one of the therapists. Both times I challenged my deepest fear that I’m inherently unlikeable. These sessions were both painful and powerful. But they didn’t “fix me”. I still get down about the curve balls life throws at me and sometimes I take a couple steps back and revert to old patterns of thinking. I’m thankful for these transformative, but they didn’t make me superhuman where I no longer feel hurt by future interactions.

This next realization for me has been huge and why I am risking being vulnerable on this blog. Here it is: Therapy will never work if you are of the mindset you are broken. I have always thought there was something wrong with me, with how I feel or how much I feel. I still think this way too often and this is a problem. I go to therapy to figure out how to feel less so that I won’t be “too much” for people to deal with. This right here is a goal I will never achieve. Feelings are normal. ALL OF THEM. These days, my more confident self reminds me that the ideal state is not one where I am absent of any feeling. For me, I hope to be able to manage my feelings. I hope to see them for what they are without them turning into inappropriate actions on myself or other people. So the problem isn’t that I feel sad or angry, but whether I lash out as a result.

I know, I know. I said this post was about my shame. Ultimately my shame has to deal with the fear that I am not enough and that the way I have behaved over the years is not normal or acceptable. It has been especially a problem in romantic relationships. I have a complicated relationship with men and am incredibly embarrassed by the situations I’ve gotten myself involved in.

I’ve literally never felt “skilled” in this department. I was that girl who had a huge crush on her neighbor since 4th grade and when he actually asked me out a few years later I broke up with him four hours later via a friend because I couldn’t deal with my discomfort. This is the same guy I mentioned in a previous blog post where my so called friends pretended he wrote me a love letter. After that happened, I just couldn’t actually let myself believe he really liked me. My fantasies weren’t supposed to come true for me. Period.

My first boyfriend was in 8th grade. We dated because our mutual best friends were also dating. When they broke up, we did too. As teenagers do, he started dating someone else right after and I couldn’t get that off my mind. It was right around the time of my first panic attack and the bullying and it just felt like a reinforcement that I was not likeable. I was just a pit stop on a longer journey of finding someone better. From then on, I was hypersensitive to how quickly men moved on from me and my behavior bordered on desperation. At the very least, it was destructive to my sense of self. I accepted what I thought I deserved which wasn’t a whole hell of a lot.

The very first man I slept with, during college, was a merch guy for a band who cheated on me. Rather than walking away, we continued to talk and I pretended that he cared because I needed to believe he did. To me, being with someone who didn’t respect me was better than being walked away from. I was “a lot to deal with” after all so beggars can’t be choosers.

Needless to say, my early twenties were a bit of a hot mess. I was the other woman to a man who went on to marry his girlfriend at the time. I was with a guy who lied about being with not one, but two other women, one who turned out to be pregnant with his child. I was date raped by a bartender I knew from the previously mentioned relationship I had been in. Left naked on the floor of the bathroom bleeding from the chin.

Two weeks later I moved for graduate school and tried to erase those memories with my new life. The life I’ve been living for the last 12 years. In many ways I’ve built the life I’ve dreamt of. I’m successful. I’m independent. But I’m also still hurting and I think it is because behind those memories which never were erased is my shame. The shame I don’t want to think about. The shame from the years I pass over quickly in therapy because I just don’t want those memories to be reality. I sure as hell do not want them to be my reality.

What would the people in my current life think? How can she be who I know her to be and also that other person? I cannot look at her the same way. And what about the people from my former life? Would they be thinking, “I told you so”? I knew she was pathetic. And what about my family? I raised her better. I told her to be strong and she was the furthest from that.

I’m embarrassed of that person I was and I still am every time I date. I’m embarrassed by my weakness. I’m embarrassed by my attention seeking behavior. I’m embarrassed by wanting love and settling instead for just sex.

When I date I am filled with doubt, anxiety and sadness. Am I worthy of love? Would they be on this date if they knew my past? Did I come across as desperate? Did I sleep with him too soon? Will he walk away like the rest?

So here is a look into my personal hell. This is the shame I am running from every time I order food only to binge and purge it. This is the embarrassment I hope will be flushed down the toilet.

This is my shame and it is part of me whether I like it or not.

Today I accept it.

Cue ‘Arcade’ by Duncan Laurence

Fear

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Fear knows no middle ground. There is only room for one outcome. There is only loneliness. There is only pain. There is only the road that leads you back to the past. The one where you are lying on the floor. In angst. Wishing you were anyone other than who you are.

Fear taunts me. It calls me foolish. It pulls me into its spiral. It gets me to say things I regret. It encourages me to act against my best interest.

Fear has taught me to apologize for who I am. To hide the parts I’m ashamed of. To display the ones you will find acceptable.

Fear is physical. Fear is gut-wrenching. Fear is panic. I feel it in my throat. I hold my breath.

Fear is date 4. It is when I allow myself to feel hope only to be met with disappointment. It is when I begin picturing a future with you in it at the same time as you schedule your next date with someone else. I lower my guard in time to watch you walk away without a reason. In other words, it is when it falls apart.

This is on my mind because I am back at date 4 with a man I like. A man I could picture myself with.

But we had plans and they did not happen. And here I am, back under water, trying to catch my breath. The waves keep coming and I desperately look for something to hold onto.

I feel this way all because plans changed.

I understand this may not seem rational, but fear is not rational. Fear sees no future, only the past recreating itself.

Fear is hell on Earth, and it can prevent you from living. You may as well be in actual hell.

As you know, my fear manifests as anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and bulimia. I latch on to that which I can control (only to discover that if you repeat certain behaviors enough they actually control you).

I could easily be engaging in any of those fun activities that would help me pass the hours of the night. It came close. I ate half a cookie when it could have been the entire box. Instead, I am choosing to write and that, for me, is progress.

You see, I’ve realized something about things that stay hidden. They just grow. So even though this is uncomfortable, I need you to know these parts of me. I need to say these words so they lose their strength.

I fear death. My own and the deaths of those I love.  In response, I seek control.

I fear being alone. In response, I fill my time with the company of others even when they are not deserving of it.

I fear I am forgettable. In response, I crave success and perfection if it will make you notice me.

I fear I am not enough (of the desirable things) and too much (of the bad things). In response, I am constantly trying to fix myself and recalibrate.

I fear I am unlovable. In response, I look for validation, sometimes in all the wrong places.

Right now, I want to reach out to the man I’ve gone on a couple dates with and either apologize on behalf of myself or be antagonistic in hopes of pushing him away.

I, also, wouldn’t mind drowning these thoughts with cookies or maybe the coconut chocolate chip ice cream sitting in my freezer.

If I’m really feeling wild, I could do all of the above.

Tonight, I won’t do any of this. I can make no promises about all the days to come, but for now I see it for what it is. It is fear and I’m going to put on my big girl pants and feel it.

Cue ‘Zombie’ by The Cranberries