There's always another beginning. A new chance to start over. It's not about redemption. It's just cyclical. There's an end, therefore, there's a start. When I was younger I really struggled with the end. I focused a lot on why it was happening. On why I was upset. Why me? The end would encapsulate me in my past actions. I was dwelling. Circling only the end. I was angry all the time. I didn't take care of myself. I was depressed. Mean. Immature... I could go on, but that's not what this is about. It's not about the negative feelings I was entranced by, it was that I kept missing the opportunity to start over. To give myself grace and accept that there are ways to move forward. As a previous people pleaser, I felt like it was my duty to not mourn my losses, but instead become a martyr. A sad, wimpy victim. I was born a baby, I'll always be the baby, and I acted like one, too. Even when I was too old to be one. I realized a lot about myself that I didn't before. I suddenly had all this power that always felt out of my grasp. I was in control. This was my narrative and it made sense because it always had been. I just didn't realize that I didn't have to keep repeating the end. I could be born again. A new baby. One that suffered all this trauma, but didn't show it. I could choose to keep it to myself. I could choose to let people in on the real me, if I wanted to. I choose what people know about me. Moving on and starting over was the part that I usually glossed over, I just wanted that part to go quickly. I jumped into beginnings head first, never savoring those in between moments. I was used to being upset that I had to figure out new people, new places, when I wasn't ready to let go of the old routines.
Now, the same things don't appeal to me. The same people. Even family. People I loved my whole life. I chose to have a different outlook on life. It is really painful to get accidently sucked into the vortex of my past when I speak to people who haven't noticed that I am a different person. I don't realize I'm stuck in their web and triggered by them until I am there. I forget they still have a power over me, because I allow them. I can't always have my guard up. I think that it's safe to let it down and they clearly never knew me at all if they don't see that I've changed so much. It becomes a weapon they can use against me instead of a shield I can weild. They see me as the emotional dumpster. The people pleaser. The person who cares about them and puts aside my own feelings to make them feel better. It's been really hard to speak to them. I've gotten sucked into petty fights because I want to revert back to old me, but she doesn't live here anymore, but the trauma is still there. I never really reach the real meat of the argument. The difference is felt only with the family that truly tried to get to know the me I am today. They saw the change in me. The way that I speak and act. The actions that I'm proud to make and the things I'm proud to say. They see me and so I let them in. It doesn't mean I don't still struggle. I still have some days when I just want to say something cruel and be left alone. Now I let those words wash over me and I keep going. Partly because I know it doesn't do any good to say them. Partly because I don't need to speak to people that way to feel better. It's mostly because I know who I am and that version of me is not who I am anymore. I can speak my mind in a mature way. I can ask myself the "why" in my feelings and then speak on them. I don't need to spend my time apologizing. I don't need to spend my time being victimized. I am a survivor. A warrior. I am not a sad, poor baby.
It all makes sense why I became who I was and why I am this way now. I was picked on for having big feelings as a kid and at the same time I was berated for being myself. I felt like I wasn't allowed to be myself and I couldn't have any feelings about that either. I was wrong for being me and having feelings. What a terrible thing to make a child feel. My parents didn't tell me about their true feelings. If I wanted to know how they felt, I had to just intuitively know. I wouldn't know why they were mad. I never was told why. It comes out of me now, as a parent. I want to bottle up and just be angry. Let it fester and never talk about it. But, then I remember that I didn't like being so confused when I was a kid. I needed to know what was going on with my parents. I needed to know how to handle my feelings. I was taught to just ignore them. Shove them down into the darkness growing in the pit of their bellies. I could think about the feelings, wallow in them, but never speak about them. Never try to make myself understood. I became a therapist to people. I could tell they weren't okay. I wasn't okay, either. I knew what it was like. The funny thing is that people open up to me and tell me how they feel. It doesn't take much prying to find out what people are feeling, either. It's more of a confirmation of what I knew and a reason to go with it. I gave them space and kindness. I couldn't get it from my parents, but I could get it from other people. I felt like when it was time for me to open up, at first it was fine, but then it became a chore for other people. It took me a really long time to realize that it wasn't healthy for me to assume other people have the capacity for my feelings. Especially not my trauma. It took me even longer to realize that I don't have that capacity either. I am not a therapist. I didn't choose that as a career path. On purpose.
When people realize they cannot use you in that way anymore, they get very upset. It's been an adjustment going from realizing all these things are true and just trying to move past them as best as I could to feeling like I can have healthy relationships. Now, in the end again, I feel that it's time to purge the things and people in my life that cause me the most pain. That are constant forms of drama and I'm saddened because it's all around family. The family that I cannot speak to because it's just too painful. The family that I cannot stop talking to because I am not able or ready to let go of- even though I should. I feel stuck again. Stuck in the turmoil and drama that I don't want to be in. I just want to crawl inside of a warm cocoon and come out when I'm ready. Maybe never. I am distant. I rely on simple distractions. I am quick to a temper over nothing. I feel relieved to be alone. At least I no longer feel an empty feeling when I am alone. I'm glad I no longer indulge in the trauma response of needing time to myself and instead forcing myself to go out of my way to be around people and then lash out every chance I got. I'm glad I just stay alone when I need it. I don't like that I am self isolating again. I know that I am doing it. I go into this mode every once in awhile. It's sort of like a system reboot, but it's been a year and a half now. I've been stuck in limbo for a long time. I try here and there to switch up my routines to get myself back on track. I'm still stuck. I just don' have the drive or the spirit anymore. I save it all up to put on my mask of energy and good mood for work and keeping up appearances. I get home and slink to the couch after I've done the bare minimum to maintain my house. Never really clean, but there's clean things out of necessity. I don't have a partner to pick up the slack when I'm like this. I don't have someone who holds me until I feel better. I don't have anyone checking in on me and asking how I"m feeling. I'm just here existing. I can have the illusion of friends and the illusion of relationships when I try to go out of my way, but it's often just a lot of energy I would rather conserve right now.
This ending has been lingering. Out staying it's welcome. I keep thinking the new beginning is just around the corner, but it never comes. This must be my own personal hell. To be stuck in suspension. Just floating and never getting anywhere at all. I don't know who I am when I'm happy anymore. I don't care to know. I know I'm still better off than I used to be, but there's still just something that feels real to me, no matter how much I wish I could ignore it. I'm going to be alone forever. I just know it. I feel it. It's a feeling I joke about, but I know it's true. I'm stuck in a weird time in my life. I don't have the personality or energy to try to make it any different. No one fights to be my friend let alone spend their life with me. The only ones trying just want to keep sucking my emotional energy. I want so desperately to be rid of certain people in my life and I'm stuck here. Some of it is my fault. I've chosen to be alone. Some of it I was just born with. A poor little baby. No one asks how I'm doing anymore. It's probably better that way.
But, I go on. I need to go on. I cannot check out forever. One day I'll figure out how to find someone as a whole person. I just haven't figured it out yet. I grew a lot, but I still haven't figured out how to balance not needing someone, but choosing someone to share a life with instead. All I know is how to need someone to help me feel needed. I need someone to take care of me now and I need to let them. But, the new me can't take advantage of people. So I keep making an effort, but then pulling back when it's time to step up. I don't have the energy to fight for someone that might feel used. I stay in this space alone. Until I find a way out on my own. I suppose purgatory is it's own hell, isn't it?
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