Using what I know

This has been a hard couple of weeks. I slipped off into a depressive episode, had a major crisis with one of my sons, spent quite a lot of time in the town where I grew up, spent time with my oldest sister, was in the same town as one of my abusers, and have gotten in touch with some childhood friends on Facebook.

Each of these things alone were enough to send me over the edge. I was dealing with the town and people involved in the story of my CSA. So many memories stirred up. It was a bit overwhelming.

But you know, some of those memories were bad, but a lot of them were really good. Instead of focusing on the house on the very next block where terrible things happened, I focused on the park where I played with my friends, I showed my sons the choir loft in the church where I grew up, told them the stories about the people I grew up around, showed them the organ speaker covers than my daddy made with his own hands. Every time an image came up that wasn't comforting, I pushed it aside and moved forward with my stories and remembrances that were truly good in my life.

I get this image in my mind of swimming through water where my view through the water is blocked by sea weed obscuring the view ahead. I know if I fight with the sea weed, I'll just get tangled up and drown. Somehow I just know that I can gently push aside the sea weed and keep moving forward where my view is clearer.

I guess that's what I've been doing this week. I haven't been fighting those bad memories. I haven't been repressing them. I've just been laying them aside and choosing instead the good memories. It's been really eye-opening for me to realize that I can control how I deal with those memories, and I can do it in a really healthy way. It's like I can breathe where in the past I would have been suffocating.

This is just awesome!

((((((((((((farmergirl)))))))))))))

It gave me the chills to read this. This is something I realized today. It's my birthday and I am turning 40, which I thought would be scary and hard, but which turns out to be such a happy thing, because it feels really grown up and safe. And something about 40...it just sounds and feels SO far away from being little. I was driving for hours in the car today, and I could really feel that I have this whole lifetime of experiences behind me...bad stuff AND good stuff. Both. And SOMEHOW, today, I was able to accept that the bad things happened instead of trying to wish them away, and to put them in their place as PART of my life story...a life story that includes a lot of happy things too. I don't know if I'll STAY in this place - probably not, because I know we have some more trauma work that we'll do - but to know that this place even exists is such a gift. It gives me a glimpse of where I hope I can stay forever someday. And reading that you were in kind of a similar place gives me even more hope. Like...it's real. Maybe we CAN stay there, at least most of the time.

I love what you shared, Chris. Thank you for sharing it

You're welcome. I've learned a lot about myself this week. It's been really eye-opening.

YOu know farmer, to hear this post versus your posts only a few days ago is incredible. Things do change... all the time. I mean the house that you were giving so much power to before you've completely reversed and said, no thanks... I choose the park. It's of course encouraging to hear, but more importantly I feel so relieved for you. Where you were mentally a few days ago was so dark and scary and now you're seeing the light.. in fact it sounds like you see more light than dark right now. And what you're learning to use to keep your head afloat will serve you so well for the rest of your life. Thanks for this post. I appreciate it and again, so glad to hear you're beginning to feel better. Continue taking good care of yourself!

Thanks gravvy. A great deal of the mood shifting is the whole bipolar thing. My pdoc greatly increased some meds and when they kicked in, it was like a light switch was turned on. Bipolar s*cks.

Wow, that's really insightful...I soooo admire how you were able to handle all of this overwhelming stuff.

What an incredible post.Thanks for sharing, farmergirl.

Wow, good work!