Sometimes all you need is a brief meltdown.

... but what happens if you're feeling no better?

I should be going back to therapy, but I'm broke. That being said, all the work I've done in the past has helped me deal with the little bumps in my road a wee bit better, so I'm hoping I can use some of my acquired skills to start taking better emotional care of myself. Easier said than done.

Where to start. I may have had a bit of a meltdown last night. You'd think by now that I would see them coming and make arrangements. I've been holding some things in, and should know by now that it's just not a viable way for me to deal. In fact, a very wise friend of mine reminded me via email that there's usually a reason why we choose not to deal with certain feelings and thoughts, and that it can be pretty unhealthy to leave them unattended. True dat. Yesterday was just the straw that broke the pyjama smoker's back. So here I am - I have my coffee, a ciggie, and I'm ready to debrief.

I've been seeing someone and I care a great deal for him. He is kind, funny, and I love spending time with him. We are taking things slowly, and I'm fighting tooth and nail (mostly for my own benefit) to keep from being scared shitless. Why am I scared? Simple. For one of the first times in my life, I am entering a relationship as myself. In other words, I am not tailoring myself to be who I think the other person wants me to be... I'm saying how I feel and what I need. This is new, and so unnatural for me. It is a daily struggle, and it pertains not just to romantic relationships, but to the rest of my life as well. For example, I had been pretending for a long time that I could handle my job as a clinical counsellor, when it wasn't the right time for me to be doing that work. Not to say that it won't be the right time in my future. Currently, I am doing work that I need to be doing, yet my old attitude - the one that isn't true to myelf, the mean one - judges me for not being able to handle the social work jobs that I passionately pursued through school and after. The jobs in which my school friends are finding success. The old me attitude is being pretty unaccepting of the new me attitude that is allowing me to take the space I need (through less intense work) to enjoy my life a little bit more. To let me find out what it is I want in my life when I take work out of the equation.

But I digress. Changing my attitude towards (for?) myself is not an easy or smooth road, and I find myself constantly slipping into old habits and beating myself up for my mistakes. Hence the relationship in question. It feels so unnatural for me to be laying my real feelings out on the table, and when I do, I find myself immediately apologizing for them. There's a lot of "hey, this is what I need from you. Wait! I'm sorry! Don't leave!" This results in two things: I'm making myself feel like an utter TOOL, and I'm not giving the other person a chance to see ME, like me, and accept me for who I am.

This is what I realized last night. I would rather be rejected by someone for my old, fake relationship self, than rejected for who I really am. And by rejection, I mean things not working out, for whatever reason. Being rejected for my true self feels like it would break me. It wouldn't of course... because I've been there and survived that. But it sure did suck. I think specifically of a relationship in my past where I really let go and started to be myself, and he left me. He left me in the biggest, worst, most heartbreaking way imaginable. He went on a trip, promised to return, and never did. I was left with his belongings in a place we had shared, and an email, telling me we were done. After that, I went back to being the people-pleasing girlfriend with people I dated. Keep the flaws to myself, and be... perfect. Be what I thought he thought perfect was. Then if and when he left, or emotionally detached, I could blame it on him, and not my well-hidden flaws and insecurities.

As I write this, I am aware of how backwards all of this "logic" was, and is. I understand that it is incredibly self-sabotaging. It is, however, a pretty effective defense mechanism!! Yeah, just ask me how well that's been working out...

I live every damn day doubting myself. My decisions, my words, my behaviours, my FEELINGS!! As I was sobbing on the phone to my bestie last night, it came out that I have been also struggling with this stupid fucking health concern that is probably nothing. That being said, last night was the first time I admitted how much it scares me, and why I wasn't allowing myself to admit that.

Growing up, I had a mixed bag of mental health problems. Acute anxiety a a child. My parents dealt with it with a mixture of denial and head patting. My mother brushed it off in an attempt to make it "no big deal" so that I would grow out of it (to give her credit, she apparently went to therapy to learn techniques to deal with me). My father called me a hypochondriac. Don't get me wrong - I'm not blaming my parents at ALL. Hindsight is 20/20. They dealt in the way that they thought was best. And they loved me. That being said, I completely internalized that label, and I bust it out on myself every chance I get. That way, I no longer need my parents. I don't need my Dad to call me a hypochondriac, I can do it myself! See how self-sufficient I have become?

I spent years ignoring random hand pains that turned out to be a symptom of a large tumour growing in my chest. I spent my twenties minimalizing my mental health concerns. After all, the best way to deal was to suck it up, keep moving, and it will pass. Right? Err, right? Yeah, I certainly learned the hard way on that one. Yesterday I had an assessment with the Retinologist and he gave me the choice of moving to the "next level" of testing, to try and figure out the worsening blindness in my left eye. I wanted to say forget it. I wanted to walk out of the office and write it off as me being a hypochondriac. So there's a little blindness. I'm sure I'm just making a mountain out of a mole hill. Instead, I was honest, and true. I told him about how I wished I had pursued more medical tests in my teens so I found my tumour far earlier. Turns out, he didn't have that medical history faxed over. Nerve cell tumour histories sure do wake a doctor up, especially when there's random growth occuring on your OPTIC NERVE. I was honest, and guess what? He listened. He took me seriously.

He took me seriously because I demanded it. Because I am worth it. Crazy, right?

This self-improvement shit is a long and tiring road. Most of the time, it's just so much easier and safer to slip into old habits. Of course, my life is a great example of why old destructive habits get us nowhere. And maybe one day I'll truly believe that I'm worth the work. Until then, I'll keep doing the work with the faith that I deserve it and it will get me to a better place. After all, my friends think I'm worth love and respect. They can't all be wrong.

xo
PS