What is wrong with me? The final solution

I haven't written here since my birthday and thought I would see if I have anything to say. First I am great probably the best I have ever been. My life as you know has been a search to figure out how to do better and most of all to feel better.

I give recent credit for healing to my therapist and to EMDR. I have handled life by bracing my self for something awful or swimming through treacherous waters, I have felt like an alien visiting here watching other people just move through life not thinking too much and not worrying too much.

I took a trip to see my family earlier this month and is actually felt good. Everyone older and wiser including me. On the way I listen to a book "What happened to you?". It summed up where I have been and where I am now.

The author is a trauma specialist and said something that spoke to me. She said instead of saying "whats wrong with me?" say "what happened to me?".  I have said the first for as long as I remember even now if I feel sad or just not interested in life I say "whats wrong with you?"

My work with EMDR has brought forward some significant events to the surface. Things that I have known about intellectually for a long time. What happened to me early in my life and the guilt I have for even thinking about it after so many years.  

I have written about those here hoping I could just let them go by putting them on the page. I have let those painful experiences go so many times but not really. The book talks about trauma in the body mostly early trauma and how it stays with children forever. 

The EMDR has helped me experience these painful times as an adult. Going back to the moment in mind as an adult and walking through my feelings until they dissipate. When I have my next session I can hardly remember what was addressed before. 

There isn't anything wrong with me I just had some things happen to me that made me think I was a problem and a real burden to everyone around me. I was regularly punished for being who I was and asking too many questions all in the name of love.

 I lost my family after my mother died and I found the best way to be loved is to earn it by doing things people wanted done and doing them perfectly. I learned to anticipate their every need.  As an adult when I had a crisis and couldn't fulfill my previous roll I was left.

I thought this was my fault that I was flawed in some way and didn't deserve love. I am free from that thought now and have moved through the events that created this belief. I have forgiven the child that I have been trying to solve the problem of me. 

This blog saved me and gave me a place to tell my story with honesty and freedom. I want to let you know to never give up on finding a way to feel better. Finding a way to knowing there is nothing wrong with you.  Finding peace with the past and loving yourself when it feels impossible. 

Is this true? A child's reality - Where did this thought come from?

 It was a hectic week and I felt pretty overwhelmed and by Thursday I was laying in bed not wanting to go to work. This only happens to me when I can't get everything done fast enough or don't know how to solve certain problems my clients. Luckily I love what I do so this is rare.  

I combat this apathy by telling myself I can come home after my floor time or after the meeting. This never happens because once I am engaged with the now instead the fears in my head it isn't so scary. It is funny that I have to trick myself to get past the fear or dread that tries to control me. 

I think of this as the little child in me who says "I don't want to go to school". I then put my big pants on and just get out there and do something.  The mind was built in our childhood the first six years we were taught all the tools we needed to interact with the world around us. 

If this wasn't a stable nurturing time, did anybody get that, our interpretation of what we were taught can be skewed pretty badly from reality. Since I have been writing about my own childhood I can see the message I received was that I was a real problem and that I needed to keep quiet. It was important that I be invisible as much as possible. 

I am sure this wasn't intentional but with my mother sick the grownups were trying to manage the situation at hand. The good news for me is that I have used that talent to stay under the radar and do what I wanted in my life mostly without asking for permission. The drawback is that no one sees just what I have accomplished. I have been conditioned to just do things for my own satisfaction and the satisfaction of the customer now.  

This trait did cost me my career in the mortgage world because I made my job look easy and they thought anyone could do it. I was let go without notice and my job given to a friend of my boss. In the end nobody could do what I had done and they had to sell the whole division.  He did make amends later by giving my name to someone that paid me a ton of money to do that same job from home. This paid for my design degree and more.

What he didn't know is that I had been there from the beginning when there was only three of us. When I left there was 70 and what I did was like breathing to me. I just came in and did my job every day without looking for a pat on the back. It never occurred to me that I needed to promote myself that would seem like bragging but in the corporate world it is necessary. I was too busy doing the work to do that.  

This event changed the course of my life and I ended up in a field doing what I love. We are pretty independent a combination of contractor and employee. It is the perfect combination for me since I am self motivated and happy to do whatever it takes to get the job done.  

I will say that finding out my mother was sick a year earlier than I thought helps me to see that I was shaped more by her illness than I thought. This isn't to wallow in the past but it helps me to understand why I think I am a burden to other people. I can know that this idea is a child's idea and not based on fact. I can see it was just fall out from the my mother's cancer and the people around her trying to cope. 

One final thing in writing here and about my past helps my brain to sort things out. I think this is the mind always working towards healing the parts that feel broken instead of pushing them down. I am always asking myself "is this thought true?" or have I been wrong about this for a long time.  

What has been lost and what has been found

There has been a number of mile stones in my life that have changed the person that I am today.  They say the earlier the tragedy the longer it takes to overcome those life events. It is not impossible if you can believe that how you feel right now is not permanent. Your situation is not unique and out there somewhere someone has experienced and overcome the same thing. It is believing you are alone and permanently broken that keeps you in a box of your own making forever.

Right now a lot of people are feeling the same way and at least we all know it. I do think that finding a self help group or a community is the beginning of finding a better place emotionally as long as you are there to commiserate and be stuck with other people that are stuck.   ]In the 12 step program they say "take what you like and leave the  rest".  This is my life motto and the only reason I could stay. 

In my own life I have experienced some serious breaks of my spirit.  First the loss of my mother to cancer at eleven and then the subsequent breaking apart of what was left of my immediate family. I married an alcoholic that I thought I would spend the rest of my life with that left me alone after almost a decade. Then I met someone who I trusted again who left after 13 years.

If you have read my blog you know way too much about all of these things but my point here is that I thought my situation was unique and that I was alone with all the feelings I was having.  I am a strong person who because of these things I am changed forever and I know that I will make it no matter what but this wasn't always the case.

I have a picture in my closet of a party with a group of ten people that at the time were my friends.  I only see one them now and when I am feeling low my mind tells me "this is your fault. You are unlovable and you deserve to be alone." What a mean to say and I know it isn't true.

I have loved big and have been there for a long time for many people in my life and I don't regret any of those relationships.  They have shaped the person I am today. I also know that I am forever moving forward emotionally and spiritually and this is not how most people live.  People want you to stay the same and they want me to stay with them.

It is in our nature scientifically to find the most efficient path each day and stay with it. Our brains in an effort to survive want things to be predictable and as simple as possible. We love a routine but hate boredom this is why we inevitably take things for granted.  The job we hated suddenly isn't there anymore or annoying family member that gives us grief for not visiting we now can't visit.

We dreamed of getting away from work to be home with the family and now we dream of going back to get away from those same people. I spoke to a woman this week at work who is working part time at home with her two kids and she said they just won't listen and do there school work.

This time at home although very short for me personally is a time to evaluate what we are doing with our lives. Living mindlessly day to day like our brain wants we can miss the obvious things right in front of us and it takes real courage to be awake and really live each day. Actually seeing and hearing people instead of hurrying on to the next thing as quickly as possible.

I spent the first half of my life just trying to get over every trauma. Someone much older than me said once "stop wishing your life away".  I always wanted things to be easier and always thought "I must be doing something wrong".  This was my own immaturity having raised myself. I thought the things that were happening to me made me unique.  I missed the joy of each day and the people in my life planning for tomorrow.

I am mostly peaceful now and living through the traumas in my life has taught me well that ____ happens and you can either let it swallow you or you can wait and be patient and it will change. I will warn you that it isn't always for the better at first but it will work out.

I didn't always believe this when I was left for the third time I suffered a breakdown of sorts. After 13 years I was left alone this coupled with the recession, menopause and a thyroid condition I wanted my life to be over everyday. Most people ran from me or I ran from people because they wanted something from me. I could barely live each day and the one friend still in my life now didn't. They were content to just let me be instead wanting me to change back.

The person I was even last year doesn't exist anymore but I am okay with that because I have done my best and today I am safe and happy. I have no idea what tomorrow will look like but today looks pretty good. I want to know but it isn't in my power to know so why waste another minute on wishing my life away.

My final word in this post may sound crazy but living in the present or at least today requires looking at all the small stuff we are doing like the food we are eating. Our brain wants a constant feed of sugar or carbs and we may think "comfort like mom use to make" is the answer but this is as addictive as any drug out there. It does sedate you temporarily but then you want more and more.

I use to think I wanted that bowl of tortillas because I just like them but it wasn't true.  Once I was able to reduce the carbs in my life I never craved another thing. Even when I slipped and ate something it didn't really taste good and then I stayed hungry for the rest of the day. I wonder now that if I knew this when I was so depressed would it have lasted as long as it did. I really didn't know I could be this happy despite a pandemic.