Bring on the lifeboats

Yesterday I did something brave and wise.

I emailed my counsellor.

I am all out at sea at the moment, and beginning to sink. It seems my life is becoming about other people again and not about me, and it weighs heavily. I lose track of what I want and need, defering instead to pleasing others, keeping the peace and surviving what needs to be done. I get lost in it all.

I need to regain perspective and myself, putting me before others so I can live well and healthily.

I've been shutting people out and behaving in ways that don't sit well out of fear, old lessons taught badly, and not knowing what else to do. I need to take a step back, regain, rebuild.

I saw him today. In this environment there's no room for bullshit or excuses, I have to face myself head on and it's not easy. It's easier than going back to where I was a year ago.

I've stopped the crumbling in its tracks. I've decided to act and take control before I sink. It's a strong and difficult decision take to make. At least I know I have the choice and can recognise the signs when the clouds come.

It's about people this time. Not specifically things they have done, but things I haven't done it seems. And integrity - his word. I sort of knew this, but it takes someone else saying to make it real and unavoidable. I could have ignored my guts and kept hiding. I've chosen to escape instead. I have to put myself back in that room and brave what comes.

I will learn one day to live with an active connection between the emotional and intellectual rather than burying how I feel. Bring on the roller coaster.

It scares me, but I am proud of swallowing my pride and asking for help.

I also feel a little like a failure.

An introduction

Some time ago I explained my reasons for writing here. My blog is anonymous to all, apart from the friend who's been mentioned here previously. It is a space for thoughts I have nowhere else to put or struggle to say out loud. It is a diary of sorts and a world apart from reality.

Somewhere along the lines I became a person who performed for those around me. I learned to conform to expectations, learned to please, and hid myself away. I felt like a fraud.

After crumbling last year, I started counselling to help me sort through the quagmire of broken bits. I could never have anticipated the journey that process began. It was a journey that started with external influences on my life, and then turned inwards. Through turning inwards, I am beginning to learn to share what I found there. I'm learning to give a bit of myself, take risks with my emotions and let people see the 'weak' version of me. The two selves may emerge one day as a whole, mask removed and integrity in place. I hope so. I'm trying.

A conversation has made me want to share a little of the external self here too, and give this a context.

In real life I work in the not for profit sector. I am privileged to work in a world of passionate and committed people who really do believe they can change the world bit by bit (so do I).

I am an outspoken, clever, compassionate girl with good friends. I am active and busy. I volunteer. I play the fiddle. I have fun and interesting times.

All sounds a bit conceited. The next bit? Sentimental, trite perhaps.

But, I'm a bit like a three legged dog. I live life and pursue my career reasonably well, but I often stumble. I am inhibited by the part of me that is more present in these pages than the everyday me. They are both real and true, but quite different. The scared, vulnerable, hurt me is here without the façade.

Not embracing the blogging 'me' has caused me to damage many things. I am a procrastinator as I'm scared of success/failure. I argue over things that are seemingly insignificant because a button has been pushed by someone to whom it is invisible and fires up things in me that are terrified. I run from emotional intimacy because I'm scared that if someone truly knows me they will dislike what's on the inside and on, and on, and on....

I am doing the best I can to reconcile the two. I will get there. I could not continue as I was. So, some days are good, some days are bad, sometimes I just want to record a moment in my day. For years I have told everyone what I thought, not how I feel. It is time for this to change. These pages are part of my journey.

I neither need nor seek pity or praise, just somewhere to explore.

One day, I would like to learn to write.

Finding freedom

I haven’t felt much like writing much these past few weeks. Maybe working full time again has just occupied enough of brain instead. After a weekend in Cumbria, and now typing from the west highlands I’m in reflective place again. So here we go…

It’s been a strange few weeks. An encounter with ex, that should never have happened, but weirdly I’m ok about it. Perhaps we have proven that he and I will never have what we both wanted from one another and can never go back.

However, a had a significant moment of revelation about the effect counselling has had on my life. Not only my ability to let the ex thing go, but in in translating feelings that would have once overwhelmed me. I was at a music festival watching a band amongst a crowd of folk. I turned round to realise my companion had disappeared without a word. Another, had gone for wander so I didn’t where she was either. I had a sudden rush of panic of being alone in this crowd. Ever since being mugged last year, crowds have freaked me out a little. I think they perhaps highlight my vulnerability and always need to know where my escape route is. I looked all over the marquee and couldn’t find either person. I had to get out I had to know where they were. I was scared - of what I don’t know - but there it was. I eventually found them. In previous times I would have confused this feeling of fear with being angry with my companion with having abandoned me. Instead, I was able to calmly explain to my friend, when asked, what was wrong. Had he simply let me know where he was going, and when he’d be back, I would have been fine. He wasn’t to know that I’d end feeling he way I did. I told him what had happened, and why the situation made feel like it did. For the rest of the weekend, he simply told me if he was going somewhere and when he’d be back and it was fine. A year ago I would have been angry with him. Perhaps not telling him, and telling myself that I was being silly, or perhaps been grumpy and let him know I was annoyed. The beauty of being able to simply express and understand my feelings is a new gift. Hard won, but wonderful, and let a situation pass so much more quickly. I finally feel like I’m free of my anger and confusion and fear of my irrational behaviour I have now have a language for it.

A year...

to the day that my newphew was in hospital having life saving and devastating heart surgery; a year less a day since I was visiting two parents in two different hospitals both having had accidents because of other illnesses; a year less two days since I split up with my last serious ex. All that was important to me was vulnerable, and so was I.

A year later, I'm not glad any of those things happened but they were the catalyst for me to go places I never thought I could, starting a chain of events that have left me far better. It has been a strange and incredible year. Today I must at least acknowledge those changes and achievements.