Understanding

"You don't understand. No one understands what it's like inside my head"

Oh but honey I do know. I was there and in some ways still am. Hating what I see when I look in the mirror. Wondering how it is I can be cared for when I care so little for myself.
Wondering when I'll have the courage to sink the blade just a little bit deeper. Just a little deeper I would think, then the pain will all be gone away.

"I want to kill what's inside of me"

Me too. Only therapy lets me say these things louder than a whisper. I know what it's like to hate what's inside of you. To want to kill it. To want to stop the hissing voices telling you you're nothing. You don't matter. All of them are right.

I've been there. When I was there I hated the people that told me they'd been there too. I hated that they told me it would get better. I hated that they told me it wasn't just me. I wanted to feel special. I couldn't even be uniquely miserable.

But the thing is; all of the things I say to you I wish people had said to me over and over and over again when I was 15. To be honest it's what I wish people told me when I was 20, and 25 and even 30. Even now at 33 I long to hear someone tell me I'm valuable.

The only way people can know you don't feel valuable, really know it, is if you tell them.

Oh, I wouldn't have listened either. The times when my parents or friends would tell me these things. That I was beautiful and lovable and valuable I really mostly thought they had no clue. They thought the girl I showed them was beautiful. They thought the boisterous acts were lovable and endearing. They thought the way I allowed my body to be touched and my favors abused was valuable to them.
I simply didn't believe them.

I can see it there in your eyes too. That you don't believe me. That you think I'm just some old lady thinking herself hip to your jive.
But I see it and it's ok. You don't have to believe me tonight. Tonight is just one of the many times I will tell you that you are beautiful. That you have value that is not in how your body looks, that how you look is not even close to the most valuable thing about you.

So I know. But you don't have to believe me. I understand, and you don't have to believe that either. Some things are true even if you don't believe them.

I'm stuck in this dream it's changing me I am becoming
the me that you know he had some second thoughts
he's covered with scabs and he is broken and sore
the me that you know doesn't come around much
that part of me isn't here anymore
all pain disappears it's the nature of my circuitry
drowns out all I hear there's no escape from this my new consciousness
the me that you know used to have feelings
but the blood has stopped pumping and he's left to decay
the me that you know is now made up of wires
and even when I'm right with you I'm so far away
I can try to get away but I’ve strapped myself in
I can try to scratch away the sound in my ears
I can see it killing away all my bad parts
I don't want to listen but it's all too clear
- The Becoming NIN

Red Flags

I don't trust myself.
My judgement, my decisions, I always think they're probably wrong.
Always.

So when a person comes into my life and I see all of these red flags going up I don't trust the boundaries that I want to set, because what if I'm wrong.
Others don't seem to have a problem with this person.
Others seem to think it's perfectly find to interact with them.

But the thought of hanging around this person makes my head scream

DON'T DO IT

I'm pretty sure I'm right. I don't know that I need to never be in the presence of this person, it would be pretty hard anyway because we're in the same circles, but I definitely think I need to be very VERY aware of the things I say to and around this person. I think that I need to speak the boundaries out loud to this person and hold the consequences in place when the boundaries are inevitably broken.

So I sought council, with my counselor even, and she agreed.

GIANT RED FLAGS

Lies and abuse of trust are very clear indicators that this person isn't trustworthy and isn't someone that I should be delving into a relationship with, especially right now. Because I'm re-assessing my relationships to pursue healthier ones and I'm working to do what's best for me emotionally and mentally I can't afford to deeply invest myself in someone that will be so draining and likely damaging to my forward motion.

But still I worry. What if I'm wrong? What if I'm not looking hard enough for the good in people? What if I'm not giving this person a chance to show me who they really are? What if I lose other people because they don't understand my resistance to being involved with this person?

On healthier days I think, so what?
At some point I need to realize that I am the one that is ultimately responsible for guarding my heart. I am the one that is ultimately responsible for saying no, it's too much, I can't help carry you.

I had a healthier day yesterday, and it felt nice.

Goes Away

We've been working on safety issues in therapy lately. Which of course means that my nightmares have escalated and I've started to have trouble sleeping again.
It always seems to get worse before it gets better.

But I was doing this homework assignment where I'm supposed to identify a belief (about the world not like religious beliefs or something) and as I was working through a belief about how safe I feel with other people and in relationships when the belief that my love makes people go away flowed out of my pen without prompt.
As I read it aloud to my therapist she made me stop and we talked about it.

We talked about how I don't trust that people will stay. That one day I'll be too much for them, either too clingy or too distant, too loud or too soft, too available or too overbooked and they'll grow tired of trying to be my friend or love me and they'll just disappear.
Or they'll die.
Which logically I know doesn't mean they leave me but we weren't really worried about logical at that point.

Because I've been behaving and acting in relationships based out of this belief.

One of the questions I had to ask about the belief is if the source of the belief is reliable.
I had to pause because I thought the source of this belief were the list of people that had left, who had dropped out of relationships with me (through death or by choice of walking away and no longer returning calls) and I felt caved in on when it happened. Some of them I thought were really reliable sources. Because they had been, up until the time they weren't.
But really the biggest source of that belief is me and when it came to how I viewed relationships and my safety in them I had to realize that I was unreliable.
Because I didn't trust that feeling you get when you meet someone knew. I didn't listen to myself when I heard that whisper of  "tread carefully with this one" and I willingly and recklessly gave all of my heart and all of my secrets to them from the word hello.
I allowed them all full access to my heart without allowing the relationship to develop because I was so desperate for someone to care. Someone to see me as I truly was.

Did I scare some of them away? Of course. But the others I should have never let in in the first place.
I felt that if someone was kind to me I needed to befriend them and help them in anyway that I could. I needed to pursue them because they of course wanted to be pursued.

I was treating them the way I wanted to be treated and expecting them to reciprocate.

But that's not how relationships work.
I don't really know how to change that belief, that my love is annoying and too much and people eventually grow weary of me and go away.

I take that back. I think I do know how to change it, and I think it's happening already. Through therapy yes, but a lot of the work is through the talking it out. The speaking aloud and writing out of these fears and this paranoia. Of realizing that I can't and don't control others or their actions and motives but that I should be more protective of my heart. I should let people in, but slowly and intentionally instead of quickly and desperately.

I still feel really unsafe relationally, and day by day I'm figuring out what it means to have healthier relationships and healthy boundaries in them.

On Weeds and Oak Trees

Last week I went to the Unleash conference in South Carolina.
It was a jam packed 2 days filled with 18 hours of car time and lots of giggles and napping.
I had no time to really look at or choose the break out sessions I wanted to go to until the morning of the conference. Since there were no blatant breakouts about outreach I chose the volunteer culture breakout in the morning and caring for care ministries in the afternoon.
The morning session was good, not what I expected though. They were mostly question and answer but the leader made a great point about caring for your volunteers. I was excited because one of her suggestions is exactly what Washington Project is doing for the Odyssea volunteers at church in the next few months. But by the end of it I was so hungry I was shaking so I was just ready to be out of there for lunch.

After lunch was the caring for care ministries breakout. They were mostly talking about benevolence funds, hospital visits and similar things, nothing really like what Washington Project is doing and barely a mention of any of their international outreach efforts. But the leader got up and he said he would open it for questions in a minute but first he wanted to check and see how our hearts were.
He offered up their care ministries volunteers to pray with us and speak to us about any struggles we might be going through and he also wanted to just talk about the state of our hearts.
He asked us if we knew, I mean really KNEW that we are loved and cared for by God not because of our performances but because we are sons and daughters of a King. He asked how the people we were surrounding ourselves with, the things we were exposing ourselves too were working for us. He talked about guarding our hearts and how it was so important to pull weeds the minute they started growing in our hearts.
Then he said it.
He said:

It's easier to pull weeds than uproot oak trees

Whoa. Did you feel that? I mean, it makes sense right? It's so OBVIOUS.
But sometimes I need to hear the obvious and have it slap me around a little.
Because I've been struggling with how now that the core of the issues have been identified it's time for them to all roll up neatly in a little box and *poof* go away. But it's hard work defining the lies I believe and combating them with the truth. I feel adrift and unsure of if the truth is really the truth even.
I realized in the midst of all this other learning and leadership stuff that my job right now (personally, not including you know professionally or in my role at church) is to uproot the damn oak trees that have grown from weeds that I (and others) have allowed to be planted in my heart and life.
The oak trees have always infected my life but now they are infecting every single aspect to the point where I couldn't function even and I'm taking steps to uproot them. I just need to keep working, keep plodding away and keep believe that I am valuable and worth it because I am the daughter of the King not because of what I do or don't do for anyone around me.

Perry also said during the afternoon session that we can't expect what took 20 years to break to heal overnight. That there will be people in our churches that take a lifetime to heal, and that's ok. My problem has lately been now that I know where the wound is (and believe it's a valid one) I just want to slap a band-aid on it and move on. But you can't uproot an oak tree in a few minutes so I'm going to try to stop trying to uproot mine in a few weeks.

Comparison Kills

A few days ago I attend several events in the same day. They were all with mostly people I knew and interacted with on a regular basis.
I remember at one point looking at some of them and wondering how they seem to socialize so effortlessly. At the risk of sounding juvenile they just seem cool.

I just feel awkward.
I felt so awkward that I went to the store and bought a completely new outfit for these laid back and totally chill events so I would feel less awkward.
But then people complimented what I wore and I spazzed out because I didn't want them to think I just "threw something on" and floated through the day effortlessly so I babbled about how I bought the outfit less than an hour ago because I felt so awkward.

I got some weird looks and some nervous laughter but most of the time I got, "I've totally been there".

I mean, when it's all typed out in black and white it makes sense to know that everyone else besides me does not in fact have it all together all the time. It sounds very ridiculous to think that I'm the only one that struggles, that I'm the only one that feels anxious when hanging around people I consider my friends for fear we won't have anything to talk about and my contributions to the evening will be less than witty.
All typed out, it just sounds selfish and crazy.

But I forget that it's not just me.
I isolate myself because I think everyone else has it together and has a firm grip on any given situation, especially social ones.
Because I forget that just because my internal dialogue is the only one I hear doesn't mean it's the only one that's happening.

It's far too easy for me to look around at people and see them having it all together for an hour or two and forget that anyone (including me) can keep it together for an hour or two. It tricks my heart into believing that I have to be perfect, that I have to always be funny, always be witty and always be fine.
Just another story in my continuing saga of believing completely untrue things, while knowing they are completely untrue.

What a clever enemy we all have that encourages these comparisons and tricks our heads and hearts into survival mode so we don't dare thrive.

Maggie wondered why everyone else in the world suddenly seemed so sure of themselves, and only she felt that every answer was the wrong answer, every situation a strange one.
-Anna Quindlen 'Onject Lesson'

Second Guessing

Five breaths
Ten seconds
One 2nd guess

I have no idea what the right thing is, I have no idea what to say even
I stare. Gaping open mouthed torn between wanting to vomit all that is on my heart out and zipping my lip to protect what little is left whole inside
I wait for people to tell me what the right thing is, but the best I can do is reject the wrong things hoping that eventually the right thing becomes clear.

No choice is still a choice I hear
Restless I pace
I sit
I lay down
I pace again

Pretty Woman and the beginning of Juno bringing the tears I had banished back to my eyes
Harry telling Ginny it will all be ok
I toss and turn
Dreaming of the answers I won't remember when I wake up

Heartbreak and Bones

Some things you carry around inside you as though they were part of your blood and bones, and when that happens, there's nothing you can do to forget. - The Blue Diary

A few years back I heard someone talking about grief. He spoke about how he needed to make sure he was feeling it and working through it the right way. Of course, my immediate reaction as I'm sure yours is was that there isn't really a wrong way to grieve. Which I still believe.
But I am realizing that there are wrong ways for people to grieve for them. It's hard to explain.
I find that I've been grieving the wrong way. The wrong way for me.
It might work for other people, it might be more comfortable for people that I'm in relationships with for me to grieve this way (or at least I might think it's more comfortable for them) but it's doesn't work for me.

I've been subscribing to a don't ask don't tell policy of grieving. If I just don't look at it, if I just don't feel the grief it will stay away. It's just not true.

Some people believe if you don't open your eyes to sorrow and you don't talk about it, you can pretend it never happened. You can go on about your business and not even notice that a year has gone by, time enough for there to be nothing left except heartbreak and bones. - The Blue Diary

I've been reading this fiction book called The Blue Diary which I've not finished yet, I'm not even half finished with. But it's needling my sense of grieving at every turn of the page.
This idea of shoving it down and pushing it aside so I can continue to tell you that I'm ok. Because I think you really just want me to be ok.

I'm just finding more and more lately that taking the short cut to ok has only left me years later nothing but heartbreak and bones. It's left me feeling relationally and emotionally fragile to the point of completely disintegrating at the slightest wind of betrayal.
I'm finding that the advice I have doled out regularly about how grief doesn't just show up when a human dies, it shows up when a life dies, is true. A life in the form of a human, and animal, a dream, a thought of how it should have been, how it should be and how it could be if only...

You could tell she didn't want to [cry], she was trying with all her might to hold it back, but sometimes it's impossible to do that. I know that from personal experience. You have to turn yourself cold as ice in order to stop yourself, and then if anything falls from your eyes it will only be blue ice crystals, hard and unbreakable as stone. - The Blue Diary

I'm finding that the ice cold feelings I've been using to dampen down the hatches and not publicly talk about grief has not protected me, it has not dispersed the grief or the pain that comes with it. It's only delayed it. Sharpened it. Spread it thickly about my heart. Making it almost painful for me to delve into any sort of healthy relationship, romantic or otherwise (mostly otherwise). I've been mistrusting and suspicious, I've been cold and have pulled sharply away because of disappointments that strike fear in the deepest and more fearful parts of me. Because the thought of it hurts more than I can take some days.

She didn't want to be touched and she didn't want anyone to be kind to her. She was filling herself up with ice, and when a person starts doing that any human contact can be dangerous.  - The Blue Diary

I used to joke about no touching days. Way back when before Jesus and I were hanging out, before I let God out of the closet I stuffed him in. There were days that it was physically painful for me to be in proximity to people for fear they would touch me. For fear they would break through this angry barrier I had placed between myself and anything that I imagined could hurt me.
I would lash out, snarling, if I was touched. Because I was afraid to be touched, I was afraid to be loved and I was afraid to love. A lot of days I couldn't imagine that I even deserved it.

So this seemingly benign book about a fugitive on the run has cracked open this feeling of grief in me. This idea of grieving it appropriately for me. This idea of feeling it, then moving on with this new life. It's inspiring me to move closer to the middle of the road, where before I would only either be obsessively in relationships or not in them at all I'm re-learning how it is to live in relationship.

I'm trying not to leave people behind if I can help it, but I'm also learning that some people I've held onto much longer than is healthy and it is imperative that I leave them.
I'm re-learning that leaving them behind and moving forward on my own doesn't mean they weren't important, it doesn't erase the experiences we had and the ways I grew because of them...it just means journeying through the grief and continuing to live.

We couldn't see them anymore. Their door was closed, and it was just as if they'd never even been standing here with us and we'd been alone the whole time. It's like that when people leave you behind. You get to wondering if you ever had them in the first place. -The Blue Diary

Spinster

Urban Dictionary has a lot of disturbing definitions of spinster.
Dictionary.com defines it as the following:

–noun
1.
a woman still unmarried beyond the usual age of marrying.
2.
Chiefly Law . a woman who has never married.
3.
a woman whose occupation is spinning.

I am clearly not earning a living spinning. Besides, the word spinster to define one whose occupation is spinning makes me think she's pretty ghetto fabulous. Also, can men not be spinsters if their occupation is spinning? But I digress...

I have a Great Aunt, Ellen, who is where ellenjane came from (my former internet alias if you will). She never married, moved to be near her sister and their three kids, 2 girls and a boy. She never learned to drive, never held a job outside of holding down the household of my mother's mother.
Whenever my mom talks about her she calls her my spinster aunt. I don't know why the word spinster is necessary. When years and years and some more years have passed and I have never married will my mom introduce me or refer to me as her spinster daughter?

What would the harm be in simply referring to Ellen as her Aunt. I should think that now many people would wonder what spinster meant, perhaps they think my Aunt was a ghetto fabulous spinner way ahead of her time, rapping and spinning while occasionally doing some break dancing.
These are just thoughts wandering around in my head because of another conversation I've had recently that is closely related to the idea of a spinster.

No Other Option

The thing is, no one told me how hard money is sometimes. I mean it's hard and it sucks.
It's so easy to feel swayed and pressured to have things, things you don't even need or really want.
It's so hard to juggle and balance saving and spending, budgeting and keeping focused on the now and the future.
I mean, where's my money tree?!

I'm not starving, not even close. I could probably not eat for weeks and be ok as long as I was hydrated. But it's just hard.
I talked to a friend today and she said she and her husband are just now, 20 years in, getting to the point where they are sticking to a budget and saving diligently. I talked to another friend that is struggling to make ends meet while making some super grown up decisions about the care of her children and the future of her family. As I vomited up my worries about money they both replied with, "I totally understand and have been there/am right there now"
But no one told me.

I mean, I know money is weird and I know it's not my business and no one really should tell me but at the same time no one told me.
I thought that things just worked out, but they don't.

Let me honest though; it's not that bad. I just have to work really hard and be extra diligent. I just have to keep going. Because what other option is there?
So in case no one ever told you, sometimes you just have to get up in the morning and keep going because there is no other option, and that's ok because that is being brave.
I'm more of a coward than I pretend to be, but I'm just going to be brave because who else is paying my property taxes?
No one....unless you really want to, if so just leave a comment and we'll talk.