[Issue #41] Forward Within
A brief contemplation on the importance of remembering accomplishments
“There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
- Nelson Mandela
What the great Nelson Mandela says is true, and my therapist drilled this message into my brain in several of our most recent sessions.
“If you want the life you say you want,” she says, “now is the only time left to begin doing what must be done so that you can actually move past this. If you’re truly committed to yourself, to your life, you need to treat the next 12 months so seriously, it’s completely uncomfortable. You need to take it so seriously that you look at this work as a full-time job. For the next year. At least.”
And this marks the second time this month in which I’ve sobbed nearly uncontrollably as my therapist drops some incredibly heavy truths.
I cry because I’m angry. I’m angry with my parents - all of them - for the decisions they’ve made and for how far reaching and traumatizing those decisions have been for me, who never had a fucking choice until now.
And then my therapist says something like “It’s not your fault. And even though all of this is not your fault, it is your responsibility.” If I were less-well versed in therapeutic dialogue, I’d ask her why it’s my responsibility. But I already know the answer.
At some point (maybe it was the day my mom signed the papers for me to join the Air Force or maybe it was when I threw up on the plane as we began the descent into Texas where I’d attend boot camp), I became responsible for myself. No one had a talk with me about what that meant. No one took me to the place of adulting to learn how to do things like an adult. And looking back, I’m more grateful than I’ve ever been for my own decision to join the military. Not because I necessarily wanted to (what I wanted had rarely mattered as a child, therefore I stopped trying to figure out what I wanted), but because the only way I knew I could survive was to get as far away from my parent’s home as possible. So I did. And without that experience, I don’t know how I would have learned to become responsible for myself.
It was hard. Confusing. Scary. And yet, the drive, the need to survive pushed me.
It was Air Force basic training, only 6 weeks of it (which is still 6 weeks of physical exhaustion, endless pounds of muscle falling off your frame, a lot of yelling and screaming, too many obstacle course runs and not enough sleep or food to make any of it feel rewarding…except when I finally felt the tinge of empowerment. Of ability. Of strength.
When I began to do as many push ups as the other girls in my bootcamp flight, I felt a little bigger, a little stronger, a little more confident and capable (like Mandela said). Then, eventually, by doing a little hard work almost everyday, I could do 10 pull ups, then 12, and one day many, many years later - long after my short stint in the Air Force, around the age of 27 or so (and with a lot of support), I deadlifted over 200 pounds, winning a medal in a powerlifting competition.
But if we go back to 19 year old me, throwing up into the little white bag on that airplane to Texas, I remember the anxiety I felt. Heavy with worry, scared of being without my anchor (my mother) to tell me what to do, when to do it, how to do it, poof! My anchor became myself, followed closely by my Drill Sergeant (or, Technical Instructor (T.I) in the Air Force) - who quickly became a fatherly figure for me, in the loosest sense that can take.
Fast forward to now, and while all the intense therapy over the past 6 years or so has been incredibly helpful, and even given me the ability to show up more in my day-to-day life than previously, I still find myself struggling intensely with whatever it is I expect of myself now.
I’ve got a couple DBT-ish therapy sessions in now, and while I can’t say I feel better, I can say I am starting to feel genuine threads of hope. Hope because I’m being reminded of all that I have accomplished already in my 39 years here. I’m in the process of re-training my brain’s thought-cycle system of anger, blame, and catastrophizing, and doing this kind of emotional heavy lifting is about as hard as pulling that deadlift was.
But I fucking did it. I had support along the way, and while I lifted the weight myself, I couldn’t have gotten there as quickly as I did without coaching, support, and encouragement. I’m finding this DBT therapy to feel about the same.
I’m also finding that I am more emotionally exhausted now than I have been in quite some time - although, a part of me recognizes that I haven’t had the skillset needed in order to continue unpacking my trauma and begin the reparation process within my marriage.
I’m hopeful my ability to be mindful of my thinking patterns and remembering all that I have survived, all that I have done, all that I am capable of, will begin to take the shape of me. Maybe everything I have ever accomplished, everything I have ever felt proud of having done or created, maybe that will help me hold this wise part of my Self while I jackhammer the shit out of the old foundation of my identity; Shame, guilt, anger, sadness, hopelessness, discouraged.
Maybe, just maybe, there is a me that can be happy without it feeling completely uncomfortable, or (if I’m being honest), nearly impossible, to bear.
In her (for me, life-changing) book, The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown says if we don’t get the skillset to invite in joy and then live from that place more often, we are doomed to find ourselves sliding back into our old negative coping skills. She says incredibly happy and joyous occasions, experiences, or feelings can send someone spiraling down, because the feelings of joy and hope become so overwhelming without the skills to be present with them:
“When we lose our tolerance for discomfort, we lose joy. In fact, addiction research shows us that an intensely positive experience is as likely to cause relapse as an intensely painful experience.”
So, if you, too, find yourself breaking all the happiness that comes into your life or your heart, you’re not alone.
And as it turns out, neither am I.
"My dark days made me strong. Or maybe I already was strong, and they made me prove it.”
-Emery Lord
A little bit off topic, but I watched this podcast today about sleep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMTt8gSl13s but it also covered a theory about PTSD, that in REM sleep while memories are being consolidated, adrenaline is usually turned off, but in folks with PTSD, the adrenaline stays on, and this stops the traumatic memory being integrated. They suggest that trying to make the mind calm just before going to sleep might be helpful.