Through the looking glass…things are not always as they seem…

As per usual I am finding that my patience with this flu is non existent, I hate being sick, it is a colossal waste of time. If I have to be horizontal it needs to be for the right reasons! I’m sounding like a man, they usually are ten times more whiny when they have flu or some other affliction..haha.

So what do you do when you are forced into lock-down when you have only just started to re-engage in life? Aside from sleep which is a necessary side effect of this blasted thing, you read. Well I do because daytime television sucks, there is only so much Dr Phil and mid day movie you can watch before you become even more depressed. I shouldn’t joke, depression is a serious thing, I’ve just had a guts-full of it.

So I picked up the second of a number of books I’m reading concurrently, two of which are by Susan Anderson; “The journey from abandonment to healing” and “Taming your outer child”.. She is an American Psychotherapist with over 30 years clinical and groundbreaking research experience in helping people overcome abandonment and the subsequent patterns of self sabotage.

You see, I have come to realise that whilst for many years I saw myself as a victim, the flow on effect of all the shite that happened within my life (and if you have read some of my old posts you will know what I have alluded to and some of it is pretty shitty but not detailed in public) was often due to choices I made such as the partners I chose to accept into my life often extremely poor choices that had the inevitable heartbreaking end whether due to mine or their actions. Depression and all the accompanying rubbish can be as a result of many things including heartbreak, a trigger.

Heartache after a breakup is normal you say, well, yes it is. It is part of life experience that most will come across at some stage of their lives. And as Susan A says it is not all bad. We can see it as an opportunity for growth and change. Each experience makes an imprint on us and it is how we react and what we do with it that matters. I have never handled it well.

The sum total of my many years of depression, abuse experiences and just sheer crap is what lead me to believe there had to be some other way of looking and responding to all this, why I can’t seem to function like most people or so it seems, and this time the overwhelming desire to weed out the rubbish once and for all, deal, learn and try to make what ever changes necessary to my life in order that the remainder of my life is not an unholy mess but an enjoyable experience, as best as it can be. Simply put, I truly have had enough of the shit. The past must remain the past and no longer affect my future.

I want to know why there are patterns that have repeated throughout my life including the depressive cycles and what I can do to break them. I want to help myself by using whatever resources there are available to me (except medication, been there done that, does not work for me). No offence to the psychologists here in Australia but I am almost certain there is a severe lack of knowledge, research and training into the myriad of mental illnesses out there growing in prevalence and occurrence. There is NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL. I have said this before and it is a source of frustration for me, our government has not the capacity to realise that if we don’t deal with these issues (lack of knowledge, training and funding for mental health) it will become a crisis of epic proportions in time…if we do not have our sanity it effects our health and productivity and we then have nothing.

Anyway, off my soapbox. I digress, but this means alot to me. There are many people suffering out there, alot in silence and very much alone. It is incredibly sad. But I need to fix myself before I can help others.

So my take on this is to read the extraordinary wealth of experiences, research and theories we have access to via the internet and in print and take from each what resonates with my own set of circumstances, become aware of and try to apply what works, for me.

When I looked at the ‘what is abandonment’ list,  it is not always as it seems at face value and the examples are many and varied of our everyday life experiences but she describes  it as ” a wound at the heart of human experience”…a wound.  It is something that we bring into the way we handle things including a broken heart and how we recover from it. The most basic example is the birth process where we are all of a sudden wrenched out of a safe, warm, familiar, connected and encompassing environment into one filled with bright lights, noise, cold and foreign touch, for a time disconnected from the source of warmth and safety and that is just the start of our human experience.

It is impossible to really impart the wisdom she shares but I have to say it makes so much logical sense I only wish I had come across her books sooner. She offers some tools to use going forward but like anything you must put the work in and not expect a magic pill to fix you.  A New York Times best selling author John Bradshaw describes her work as “An enormous help to anyone looking to let go of past disappointments and self recrimination and get on with the essential work of healing, building boundaries, and acquiring the skill to reach your goals”.

Things through the looking glass are not always as they seem. I feel better right now, aside from this damned flu, better than I have in many months.

I did think of Joe when I woke this morning, first time in a while because for many months he was my first thought when I woke and my last at night. It was a very difficult thought habit to break.  I’m not sure why, I still sometimes wonder what the purpose of us reconnecting after 30 odd years was, and why did things happen the way they did. I guess that will always be there somewhere. I let it come when it does and then let it flow right out again and it doesn’t hurt anymore.

I recognise in me the need to try fix things, my relationships etc and that stems from childhood issues. But I have realised you can not fix that that does not want to be fixed. You can not control other people, you can only work on healing and loving yourself. And you should because you are well worth it irrespective of other’s opinions.

Ohhh damn, I need to have a really good cough up….YUK