Monday I hit my personal rock bottom. What constitutes rock bottom differs for everyone, as does how you get there and how long it takes. Sometimes you feel it coming, and you aren't sure what/where that breaking point is. I think "breaking point" is a good definition of what "rock bottom" is. Until you've reached that "make or break point" or "breaking point," you truly haven't hit rock bottom yet. Mine has been coming on for a long time now, and accelerated in December, then really started rushing at me through January. By the end of January it was inevitable, despite everything. I held it off for a very long time through many coping mechanisms, some very unhealthy, some very healthy. I happen to be very good at my unhealthy ones. I learned them well, very early in my childhood. I know how to go numb and totally deny myself. I was taught that everyone else matters and I truly don't. I was taught to absolutely invalidate my own needs, feelings, and experiences, hence got very good at numbness. I was also taught that the only way I could gain any value or esteem in life was entirely based on my performance and success in all areas of life, duty, and service to others.
I recognize now that I brought "rock bottom" on myself with these unhealthy coping mechanisms, and we'll revisit that topic tomorrow. The fact that we create our own reality is a huge topic in itself and one I've been avoiding. Because I've been avoiding addressing it as I've seen it all around me, it kept recurring and that's why I wasn't blogging. I couldn't see how to address the subject without stepping on too many toes, or how to do it adequately. What I didn't realize was my own lessons coming back at me. I know all these things. I know the way life really works. I teach these things to others. But at times, I get caught up in not living them, and that's when they start cropping up all around me. I know we create our own health and reality but I was creating the opposite of what I want and need. So, the subject started dramatically showing up all around me. Plus, I most saw it in an individual who now greatly impacts my life.
My healthy coping mechanisms involve prayer, faith, meditation, reaching out to others for what I need, Reiki, resting, and so many other things. However, I got totally locked into trying to work my way out of my mess the only way I could see to do it, which wasn't from a position of strength or healthy sense of self by then. I started living those old messages and one of the worst things I did was entirely deny myself any more than the bare minimum of care or what I needed. I was also completely focused on lack, which only creates more lack. Again, I know better. Plus, I've done so much work on myself to heal from and release, overcome those old messages. Those of us who have been severely abused will never be completely over it. I've got to be honest with you about that. It's like a person-sized onion. You can heal and peel away layer after layer but it's still going to be there in your self and your experiences. That certainly doesn't mean it's hopeless or that it continues to hurt. The more you work at it the better you get, the less often you hurt, the less it hurts then, and the better you're able to make healthy choices. However, those tendencies toward self-perpetuation continues and you have to educate yourself, heal yourself, and work at making conscious choices instead of reacting. You have to pay attention to your first response and instincts, especially about other people and situations. For example, co-dependency - something I thought I broke the bonds of and harshly learned otherwise because of that. My second marriage was entirely co-dependent, even more than the first and way more disastrous in many ways. Yet, I thought I broke the bonds of co-dependency when I asked for my first divorce and ended that co-dependent relationship. It's like true alcoholism. You can consider yourself to be rather "recovered" the more years you've gone without a drink but you can never consider yourself cured and let down your guard or go back to it. We become addicted to those unhealthy patterns learned.
One of the problems with my unhealthy patterns, as I've said before, is that the world applauds and welcomes them. Everybody loves a giver. Additionally, I am also by nature, not just nurture, a giver and a servant personality. Not all givers or servant personalities have these unhealthy tendencies. My problems came about from the training that I was nothing and didn't matter, was entirely invalid. The problem wasn't from my overall nature, it's what I was taught about myself. I'm great and fine toward others, and if I continually did as my wise licensed clinical social worker daughter advises (she too needs to practice what she preaches here, by the way - like mother, like daughter, nature vs. nurture), I'd be as good, kind, and giving toward myself as I am toward others. I am now entirely working toward that.
Monday night I realized that I was at rock bottom, or it certainly felt like it, and I was. My responses were quite healthy at that point, although still bare minimum. I postponed making a major decision I couldn't think through, figured out that I needed expert help, plus I reached out to the one person who can always help me no matter what. The one person who knows me better than any other, and even better than I know myself, lives in Maryland. She's been my closest, most valuable friend for nearly 22 years. Thanks to my lovely daughter, we finally met, and very quickly became this close. We used to visit and talk daily, something that's entirely counter to my normal patterns and personality. She's one of the healthiest things I've ever done for myself, letting her the whole way into the bottom of my soul and self. That was major because at the time I was hiding the childhood abuse from myself, and still felt that I was dirty-stinking-rotten at the bottom of my hidden soul, that it was so dirty and so deep even I couldn't find it. Monday night I realized I needed my human life-line, so I texted her. That was kind of feeble, I now realize. I simply said I need her, and a sounding board when she had time to call, knowing she then wouldn't call that night. Fortunately, I'm used to knowing when God is reaching down His Hand to help me at my point of need, and He always does. Many of you simply don't recognize it or take the opportunity. So I made that feeble attempt to reach out to her, and was thinking of reaching out to another very helpful friend. I was trying to decide whether to text or send a private Facebook message, either of which would have been equally feeble, when he texted me. He asked me if I was going to the local Site Nite presentation the next night, offered me a ride home. Those in the Pittsburgh area, if you don't know about Site Nite please ask me or look them up on Facebook - wonderful programs. I'd forgotten about Site Nite coming up the next day, but said yes, I was going, because I've learned. Every time someone has asked me if I'm going or offered me a ride, there was a reason I was supposed to be there. I never know the reason in advance, I've simply learned and take it on faith now. I know God has something great in store for me if I pay attention and go, and I always do. My first impulse is to check what the program is, and has been to think about whether I can really spare the $2.50 or $3.50 to ride the bus (that's how bad things were). Then I remember that the question of whether I'm going means I'm supposed to, and I start looking forward to the major blessing, the adventure of finding out what it is.
Last night I finally talked with my friend in Maryland, the one who knows me best and loves me most, who always has my highest good, with no personal agenda, at the core of her heart. We talked for two hours or more, and I got exactly what I needed at the time. I was also healthy enough to request more frequent talks, to express my true need for her more present in my life on a regular basis. You have to understand that her life is busy and until recently, has been very hectic. She's also my twin in many ways, and seldom reaches out no matter how much she needs or wants me. She too often doesn't take the time for herself, take care of her real needs. She too often only gives herself the bare minimum, and struggles with co-dependency, is an ultimate giver. It's one of the reasons we were able to become so deeply close so fast - how much alike we are. When you understand one of us, you pretty much understand the other, at least basically. I've heard a lot of gems in the two days after I hit rock bottom. She and I discussed the whole thing and all the aspects of what's been happening, why, and what I'm going to do about it. One of the gems came Tuesday night at Site Nite. The lovely lady presenting the program said that self-healing is a service we give ourselves so we can share it with the world. I'd never quite heard it put that way before, but that entirely speaks my language so stuck with me, and I therefore internalized it. For me, the key words are "service" and sharing with the world - alignment with my life mission. Last night, my friend said that "rock bottom gives a solid foundation to build upon," just after I explained my plans to improve my life from here. It's something she heard one time that stuck with her, and she gifted it to me for my use in my mission to help others improve their lives. I love the imagery and the truth in that statement, the hope and promise. Tomorrow, part 2 - what I'm doing to create change and improvement. I'll start with unhealthy coping mechanisms and move into the good stuff!
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