Feeling safe - depression - suicide - utopia

I can feel the sadness in the air with our incoming president. It is hard to feel good about someone that promises to turn back time. He is the president for that small group of people that enjoyed the world when it was a little more censored.  When you didn't know every bad thing going in the world and you weren't aware of the predators living in your neighborhood and you could just pretend they weren't there and the world is safe.

Now days there is so much information coming in and only the worst is ever reported.  We want to feel safe and if someone says they will make us safe we really want to believe them.  We want someone to just fix what isn't pretty about life and take us back to the days of Andy Griffith and Beaver Cleaver.  News flash they were make believe just like the idea we were or will ever really be safe.

Holding on to the idea that things will ever be the way they use to be stunts our ability to grow and adapt to how it is now. I know personally that change is not usually something you sign up for it is forced on you but you can learn to adapt quicker.

When my life was turned upside down. The breakup - menopause and the recession my mind could not accept it.  I could not accept that what I thought would be my life wasn't going to happen.  With so much uncertainty I had a meltdown mentally spiritually and physically.  I was in shock and thought about taking my own life daily it seemed like a perfectly logical solution with such an uncertain future.

Someone recently told me that during the recession they felt so out of control that they slipped into a depression that was so severe that that regularly kept a gun near them incase they wanted end it.  They said they laid next to their spouse at night an cried non-stop and hadn't told anyone except me about this time in their life. I can't imagine not telling anyone. I told you guys and regularly joked with the people that could stand to be around me that they might find me in the garage with a hose in the window. 

Just like the conversation with my friend it wasn't that I was sad it was that I felt nothing and without out feelings I didn't really see the point of going on. People say it is a selfish act but when your mind has had a break and there is no feelings it seems like a logical choice.  You are just there taking up space and since I am alone I felt no one would really be affected by my disappearance. I know these thoughts sound crazy and they were crazy but when you have no feelings there seem to be no point in living. 

I believe my higher self or holy spirit whatever you want to call it helped me make it through the each day.  I remember telling myself I can check out tomorrow if I want.  There is always tomorrow.

For me the life ahead of me was so uncertain that my mind could not process the changes quickly enough and I snapped. We have to teach people that feeling uncertain and scared is normal there is no utopia outside ourselves.  There is no magic pill or president that will save us the pills will only keep us from thinking too much about our fears dulling our minds.

When you are at the bottom it can be too late to pull yourself out without help of some kind. I was alone most of the time and my sickness liked it that way. It wanted me isolated so it could feed me a steady stream of crap that kept right where I was for longer than I should have been. I never questioned my thoughts until one day a voice said "you are doing this to yourself" and started asking myself "is that true?" and from that point on I got better.   

I guess my point to all this is that I understand fear of the future with all its unknowns.  I understand wanted to feel safe and crawl back into a life you once imagined you had. I would have done anything to not have had to suffer and change when I was facing it but you can't go back. Going forward is the point of life moving on besides the past was never quite as rosy I my mind would have me believe it was I can see that now. 

My friend said they fear everyday it will come back.  I never even considered that. I believe it was a spiritual correction for me.  It was a perfect storm to shake me to my foundation and make me question every thought I have ever had.  It erased who I was, one thought at a time, and left nothing but a foundation.  I have started rebuilding but it is a slow process but I have nothing but time. There is always tomorrow.  

I don't belong - Losing my place - no where in particular

I have had a lot on my mind through the holidays.  It is never the best time for me emotionally sometimes I can just be satisfied with being neutral,  This year a few things came up that I really didn't understand.  The feeling manifesting in an under current of irritability festering on top of resentments and ultimately ending by blaming myself for screwing things up.

When I first entered the program I became part of a group where one person kinda served as the social planner and matriarch of the group.  About ten of us did all kinds of things together and at the holidays those of us that do not have family here would spend our holidays together.  This has been going on and off for about twenty years. Really.

This year it was announced oddly at a meeting that they wanted to spend Christmas alone.  When I stopped by the day after I was given a detail account of all the people that were there and what a fun time they had.

I had spent Christmas with a friend alone the third day in a row of cooking and eating together.  I felt out of sorts and really couldn't put my finger on why.  The marathon cooking did remind me of the past and the life I use to have that life involved a lot people. Back then I did enjoy the cooking but I am no longer that person and cooking three days in a row for just two felt like drudgery.

After hearing how great Christmas was where I am normally invited made me really sad. I realized I am no longer part of that inner circle the one place where I once felt like was my chosen family.  I no longer fit in there but whose to blame but me.  During my dark time I dropped out of the circle and lost my place and now my pool of close friends is smaller than ever. Blaming myself was the reason for my own sadness and irritability.

I know where is my gratitude? I was able to sort this out by admitting that I don't really fit with those friends anymore.  I have moved on just like they have but the issue is an old one "I don't belong anywhere" it an old story that I tell myself when my life doesn't look the way I thought it would look at any given time. Also telling myself that my life is small with mostly work.

I would like my life to be bigger and to have more moments of joy and laughter with friends but the truth is I love my work and I meet new fun people every day. It challenges me every day and I need that. This is more than most people can say.  I chose my work and mostly I love it.

Time has passed and I am also grateful that I came out of the dark even if this means I lost some friends along the way.  I worked through some pretty painful ideas I had about myself not being worthy of love because everyone I have loved has rejected me. So being rejected this Christmas brought up those feelings.

I  have realized that I can't define myself by how other people treat me.  Everyone is busy being the star of their own drama and they aren't paying attention to my wants and needs.  It isn't personal and when I went to the dark side I wasn' thinking of them I was just trying to save myself.  I did just that with the help of my own higher power.  It could have turned out differently and this post would not exist.  So I wouldn't change a thing.

You can't go back and do things over and you can't go back and crawl into the spaces where you once felt safe and secure. I know that security is an illusion and as you grow spiritually you learn to feel safe just where you are no matter what the day may brings. Today I am happy even if I don't belong anywhere in particular I am still here.