Fo’ realz

Welcome to my first public posting.  Well...maybe not the ‘first’...but a first for this site!   I am no stranger to using online platforms for journaling.  Literal decades ago, I use to write on LiveJournal...and then years later I moved to Tumblr (before we ruined it and made it all about porn).  For the last several months, I have been using an app on my Tablet to log thoughts and events, but the trend I am noticing is a lot of highlights as to the current obstacles in my life, and lack any consistency of reflection to what they are or how to get around them.  It’s more a record-keeping log of...well...a means to prove to myself that such things have occurred.

But ‘why an online and public space for this shadow-work of mine’?  I don’t have a streamlined answer to that.  A lot of reasons have tilted the scales in favor of this type of engagement.  One would be a familiarity to the concept of online journaling...another might be a desire to reconnect with a former pastime of mine...another might be the excitement of knowing great unknown, to me right now, people will cross my path in the year to come...potential by-product relief from not carrying everything I struggle with alone...but there is also a nervousness of how vulnerability exposure of myself (and dynamics with my husband in the past and present) will be received.

In my first opinion article, (<link here>) was a ‘coming out of sorts’.  It was the first real step in trusting/risking a structural change in self-betterment and stability, proving the possibility to myself with a touch of reinforcement stemming from the reception and secureness of my husband.  This site will address the experiences I have had, where there is sometimes this outer opinion of laziness, incompetence, or lack of will to address my mental health struggles.  I will talk about the culture clashes in different sectors life brings intersections...which sounds so vague at the moment, but this will make sense later...hopefully.

I will be honest, perhaps overly wordy, in my approach to what’s on my mind...what is reflection oriented in my present life...weaning off of the anxieties of the future and discomfort of the past failures.  I will try to remain present to where I am at, in pursuit of where I want to be; multifold.  

But I will also share the uncomfortable.  My personal stories of stress, my hurdles in connecting a better sense of love and commitment to myself and my marriage, the experiences in different healthcare providers, how physical health actually marries with mental health...and how to unpack them from each other.  There are also the stories of being forced to talk about mental health, with unsupported and unknown parties, and how that gets you further away from healing than you were before your experience together was had. It can be shared about the process of seeing the perception of others change, when looking at you, to see a fully formed individual to some type of halfling or undesirable object.   I will cover how the more third parties are involved and side conversations start happening outside of your participation, how there is an exhaustion of trying to keep to the narrative of individual care and experience, and what the goals are, not what the goals for you should be.

The SUPER uncomfortable will layout topics around experiences about such third parties who individual talk about abusive patterns of your loved one, and how despite bad patterns, you are forced to put your own objectives on hold as you defend your loved one...or the odd things people say, when they are attempting to be supportive, regarding the loved one’s appearance, behavior, or ‘I always knew he was a [type of] person’.  When both clinical and non-clinical people toss out terms, trying to reinforce such ideas, like ‘this person has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, ‘here’s the circle of abuse diagram and it sounds like he is [#] of them’ to control you, you are suffering from Skokholm Syndrome, you are walking around emotionally blind...These are not helpful or supportive...they are actually just mean, damaging, and insulting...it puts the focus on blame and where/who has what responsibility...this is not productive when all parties are not there and information is not fully forthcoming...and in the process of trying to be helpful offers more exhaustion to productive healing objectives. (Plus, the word ‘abuse’ is so profound, and while it can happen without direct awareness, there is a case to be made for the intent and objective of the individual.  Unless you are some omnipotent being who knows this, blanket-statements of third-party information as to making claims about people they don’t know...it just feels like...idk...you need to trust me when I say the overall character of people I directly know in profound ways speaks against such statements.  Grrrr...as I write this, clearly, this will be a separate thing to unpack in the near future!!!).  To circle back- the idea of when you open third parties to trusted topics, and they take it out of context and try to act, and the setbacks of such interactions regarding the need damage control...meanwhile, they obviously take no ownership... these passing figures in your life...are just exhausting. Worse-made, they will continue to operate unaware of the destruction their best intentions have created.

I will share stories of chemical misuse, being a bystander to chemical misuse, and the variability of circumstances stemming from the roulette of controlled and monitored substances.  How I avoid eruptions of anger and deal with the familiarity with the ‘need to be small or not here’ feeling.  Received and perceived anger from others will no longer bully me down into cowardness.  I will engage with that person(s) and not shut down from fear.  I will share this growth process of past examples and current changes.  I will outline the strategy, growth, and commitment to no accept emotional crumbs during moments of high tension and conflict but to circle back and show the awareness of self-worth.  I will share the overall struggles to STOP apologizing for a condition inflamed by sets of parameters in life, we created together, and how to allow for room to healthily share the responsibility.

Sooo...in short...the Kuddelmuddel will be addressed thoroughly and with little reservations over time.

The angle and life-driver I will, most likely annoyingly, remind I am coming from is ‘love’. I mean, why get on this pathway to self-worth, if there was no recognition of inner love, the desire to share in that expression of love with my husband...engagement with the love in various humanistic or ideologic sectors in life...?!?!  Appreciation and gratitude undoubtedly will be ‘b-plots’ of driving factors in processing my healing treatment plan. 

This photo below is largely how I feel, especially the last few years of my life.  I actually had another way to describe it as ‘being trapped in a glass house’...but for the sake of supporting imagery...this photo is appropriate.  I feel a sense of being trapped from seeing life around me, from seeing how it could be, a desire to truly live that life as an individual and as the individual that was invested in and is cherished to be.  I have almost given up on the idea the jar can be unscrewed, the lid to become ajar, the idea I can get out of just watching life around me, but to live it.  I can see the struggles of a partner who is constantly looking back to a reserved spouse, trapped in life, hindering and missing shared bonded moments in life he signed up to experience together.  You can see their sense of obligation to try and constantly unscrew the lid, or not be able to do it, no matter how desperate they try.  I am going to get away from this outlook/spot in the world.  I am going to know how to unscrew the lid on my own.

‘Why now?’ I’ve played around with the idea of writing somewhere else from my daily app for a while.  In drafted emails that I left unsent, in random middle-of-the-night reflection notes to myself, in long uncontrollable ramblings in moments of panic- the common denominator is being stuck with unprocessed thoughts/feelings/fears.  It’s been several years to find a formula to become ‘unstuck’ for myself by proxy of framing it for my husband.  Something has shifted in the first steps in finally being connected to resources to heal myself and correct the uncomfortable dynamics created around my mental health symptoms are afoot.  ‘Now’ just might be the next step forward, creatively.  More specifically, there was mindfulness to the date to make this site public.  December is laced with beautiful memories, traditions, and mile markers for us.  I want to have a separate date for reflection, perhaps a year from now.  Also, Friday the 13th just seemed like an ideal opportunity for altering energy; metamorphosizing. ‘How will my postings transpire?’  I am not sure!  I think it will be safe to say I am going to outline some objectives I hope to (at least) reflect quarterly on.  I plan to post once a week to the goal of a book a week focusing on the topic of mental health and beyond that, I would like to make at least one thoughtful reflection.  However, I will not restrict myself to that.  As mentioned, December is heavy with events; wedding anniversary, Caleb’s birthday, St Nick, New Years, The night of Yule, Christmas traditions, etc.  It might be worth it to not let these, or other life-markers fly by without reflection on what/how they are and what is great about the or what has been limited by mental health to what they could be (from desire). Maybe I will embrace my 'hormonal man'strual cycle' (see what I did there?) and know that some stretch of days may have more emotional sharing and reflection than others, and not be bound to one constant formula. I am simply trusting that time will iron out a grove of regularity to some posting pattern!

Plus...all this regular written shadow-work may actually have another positive by-product, better-written language skills! (*quiet whispers of 'connect your thoughts' and 'end the fragments' heard)

#levelup #dothework #mentalhealth #cptsd #Itsokaytomakemistakes #Itsokaytofalldown #GetupLooksickening #happyhusbandhappyhome #lovewins #gaymarriage #buidlalifenotaresume #yourjourneyisthedestination #loveyourselftherestwillfollow