First off and most exciting and terrifying is a phone call that I just received. It’s far too early to hope, and it would entail sacrifice, but my happiness IS worth that! I don’t want to jinx things just yet, but I should know for sure within the next couple of weeks….the clock ticks too fast and too slow all at the same time.
Second, I did speak with Amy at U of Phoenix. While I can’t technically sign up until July 10, she laughed and said that they’d be seeing me probably the first week of August. It’s so wonderful to know that they have night hours, since it means I won’t even have to ditch work. I didn’t ask what modalities they use there, but any port in a storm. 8 sessions is better than nothing.
Third, Valerie from the Women’s Center called; several of the workshops Anna was recommending are not going to be available for a while, so Valerie and I have an appointment on Saturday to assess what resources ARE available to me and work out a more complete action plan. This makes me happy, because, again, it’s all about forward motion! Of course, it does mean that there shall be a re-vamp of the schedule that I THOUGHT I had worked out, but whatever it takes.
I realized today that the crisis stage may be drawing to a close for me. I don’t mean the way I’ve always insisted on living SURROUNDED by chaos (which I AM through with), but the crisis stage as far as my emotional well-being. I see an end in sight, and somehow feel that by September, even though there will be more work to be done, I will be able to look back and go, “DAMN, girl!” I’ve already forced myself to shed the “victim” label….”survivor” is the next obstacle to overcome.
Some of the people I know and love get it. I just wish that other people in my life did. I wish that I could make some folks just understand. If they can’t understand, maybe they can just accept? The past is the past, and I no longer give it the power to punish me. This has been a conscious decision on my part, perhaps one of the first truly conscious decisions that I have ever made.
Today has been a day of little tears in between what I now want to see as huge victories. It seems like such small things, but they do add up to forward motion, which is all I’ve ever wanted. For so many years, I’ve been completely broken and shattered inside, but now? Now, even with the ability to still see the cracks and gluey edges, the pieces are connected….now I just have to wait for the edges to seal so that I can truly be whole. There are no magic wands for healing, but the gluey edges and cracks smooth out over time. I will be whole again. It’s terrifying to think of it, but there it is. I will be. I won’t have the luxury of falling back on my past when times get tough; I have to show and prove my strength–a strength that I now realize I DO have, and have had all along, even if the way it manifested before didn’t always seem so strong!
It’s funny; for so many years, I’ve had this whole thing going on where I try to be nice and understanding of everyone around me. This is not, in itself, a negative behavior. The problem, however, was that I never felt I was worthy of the same from others. I know, now, that I am. I don’t offer understanding and forgiveness to others as a way to control them, or as a way to beat myself down. I offer it because that’s…well, frankly, that’s the spirituality in me coming to the forefront—at least it is, now. That was something that I found interesting in COURAGE TO HEAL; their definition of spirituality is being in touch with what I have called, since losing my faith, the “power lines.” There is good in people, even in me.
Unfortunately, I long ago mastered the art of using that good as a weapon, and that was never healthy. It’s one thing to forgive someone because you truly believe in him or her; it’s another to forgive because you think you deserve nothing better. At the same time, as Janine pointed out to me on Tuesday, I have also often taken negative patterns/situations and turned them into tools for survival. Surviving is something that I should have always honored, instead of minimizing and telling myself that it didn’t really matter. It did and does, because I do. Frankly, I deserve and WILL HAVE, the best in life, simply because I AM the best thing in my own life. Whether I or anyone else ever believed it, I am someone worth fighting for.
When I talked to my mom the other day, she was so proud of the level of anger that I had. Anger, in and of itself, IS a healthy emotion and one that I have always recognized as a fuel for me. However, there is a huge difference between healthy anger and destructive anger, and that is a distinction that I am still learning. Still, I don’t think, anymore, that I have within me the capacity for hatred. I don’t want that. I want to be able to have that peace that showed itself to me, no matter what. Will it be hard? Yes. Am I worth it? Yes. Am I determined to have it? Yes.
When I was talking to Amber last night, she mentioned, briefly, that she can already see a huge change in me from just a few weeks back, much less the changes that she has seen over the years. I can’t kid myself and say that there isn’t a hard road ahead; there is. But I do believe it’s a road that I can handle. The people who I have given the gift of love will simply have to accept that this is my path now—they’re welcome to join me, but if they can’t, then they will have to respect the choices I make, since I am, perhaps for the first time in my life, willing to fight for myself and for what I deserve.
If I were to stop my healing process right here and now, with just what I’ve forced myself to realize over the past two weeks, I would already be infinitely stronger and more. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the fundamental issue…that one is clear. I’m in a clarity zone right now, and I will fight like Hell to continue moving forward. Will I backslide at times? Probably. Will I make choices that are not necessarily the best in the long term just to protect the gains I’ve already made? Probably. However, if I am making a conscious decision/choice and keep aware of the consequences, and feel they are the lesser of the evils, then I am NOT perpetuating my old image of myself as a victim.
Want and need have always been complicated for me, because I was always willing to subsume what I might need, thinking that everyone else’s wants were more important. I wasn’t willing to even admit that I might actually want something, because, again, I never felt I deserved it. But right now, I do have wants and needs; they will be addressed, and I will deal with the consequences of addressing them. Of course, part of the problem is learning how to communicate these things without it becoming a confrontation.
I had never really thought about it, but I spent 7, nearly 8, years being systematically programmed to be a victim. Not to put too fine a point on it, I was essentially brainwashed. Unfortunately, that early programming doesn’t just go away because I want it to do so. So, at least for now, I have to be ever-vigilant of WHY I make each choice I do. It’s not a wall, more like a screen door that I just can’t allow myself to fully open until I am more complete.