I'm going to admit something to you that I really, really loathe: I'm not perfect. Not only is my character imperfect, I am also inclined to make some really bad decisions on occasion. The kind of choices that, were my life a horror movie (not so far a stretch sometimes), you would be yelling at the screen, "No, don't do it! Stop! Go back!" Just as the poor misguided blond meets her untimely demise, I put myself into bad situations and cause myself unnecessary distress.
It doesn't happen all the time, thank goodness. I AM capable of making good decisions, particularly when the outcome involves other people. I suppose the stakes are higher to me when someone else could get hurt. Why, then, do I not recognize myself as equally important as everybody else? That's probably one of those questions that requires 250 hours of therapy to unravel.
Self-sabotage comes to mind. I'm pretty damn good at it. Things are going along fine, the water is calm, and I don't like it. I throw a stone into the still water because the ripples soothe me. I'm used to chaos. I'm accustomed to suffering. It sucks, but it's comfortable. Comfort is a really powerful motivator. We humans are biologically driven to stay close to our baselines: physical, mental, emotional. When your emotional baseline is one of distress, like mine, the world just seems wrong when everything is okay. It may not make a lot of sense (why would anyone WANT to live in constant turmoil?) but at the same time I think it's pretty accurate.
I think, for me, it comes down to fear of the unknown. I simply don't know what it would be like for my life to be simple and calm. I don't know what I would do with myself. How would I function? It's a scary thought. Recovery, though, is about facing your fears. It's about acknowledging all of that awful stuff from the past that you've been running from for so long. It's about recognizing the uncertainty of the future and having faith that maybe, just maybe, you'll be all right.
Each of your posts has the uncanny eloquence of the poet who speaks specifically, privately, almost in a whisper about HER experience, yet in words and phrases that transcend her and can apply to so many, many others on their own plane of existence, interpreting in their own language of thought and feeling.
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