It’s good to bare one’s soul.
Clear the air. Own up to all the ills in the world past, present and future.
Everything but that last one.
In yesterday’s post, I offered myself this…
Perspective: Apologizing is my divine responsibility. Accept that no-one is required to accept my apology. Forgiveness is my divine right to myself. Forgiveness is not required of anyone I’ve hurt. The people who know me really well and consciously love me will accept my apology. Stop apologizing to those who have proven that they don’t.
Now, it’s today. I have an obligation to put that perspective into practice.
It’s possible – probable – that I’m too hard on myself.
It’s possible – probable – that I’m teetering on the verge of a personal trait that I find loathsome. The ‘I’m so fucked up and my life is so fucked up and you must actively pity me’ trait.
I fucking hate that.
In these posts, I truly am cleansing my soul. In my mind, that means being honest about my demons and kicking those secrets into the light where they will shrivel and die. Except they aren’t shriveling and dying.
Writing does help.
It helps a lot. I believe that what will help me more at this moment in time is to write about some of the coping mechanisms I have. The act of writing about those coping and healing tools will force me to become consciously cognizant of them. Consciousness is the first step to implementing them. Susan, DO IT.
When I was young, I used to tell myself that the only thing standing between me and anything was myself. I used that as an anesthetic to ameliorate how helpless I felt. Of course, I felt helpless. I was a child being abused and developing bipolar disorder. I’m certain those were exactly the sorts of thoughts and situations that helped create the extreme swings that characterize being bipolar. I wasn’t born with it.
Beyond writing
I’ve journaled my whole life. My first diary was a little red pleather book with space for 5-years of writing. It wasn’t 5-years long. It was a single page for each day of the year with 4 tiny lines to delineate each year. I did exactly what I was supposed to do. I filled that diary every day for 5 years in teeny-tiny writing. I went into margins but never over the lines. There wasn’t enough room for feelings so mostly I recorded what I did that day.
Hmmmmm…. Let me think about that for just a sec. Yep. Got it.
After filling that overtaxed little book, I bought a new diary. It had a whole page available for every day of the year. I only made it a few months. There was too much room.
I spent a lot of my time back then trying to do nothing and feel nothing so there was nothing to write. Let me translate that last sentence. I spent a lot of time trying to not be noticed so I wouldn’t be abused and spent a lot of time trying to feel nothing so that I wouldn’t be terrified. (I also spent a lot of time fighting with the abusers and feeling rage. Bipolar in the making.)
Back on point. Yes, there was lots to write but I couldn’t.
As an adult, I started journaling again. Pages and pages and pages of my feelings. Whew. That stack would burn hot.
I still have all of those journals – even the little red 5-year diary. Most of them are locked inside a briefcase I used to carry back and forth to the high-paying office job I had in the ’90’s. I have a sacred pact with Deirdre Sargent, should I die, she will fly to my house, retrieve the briefcase and burn the contents. And vice versa.
Eventually, I learned that simply getting my thoughts and feelings out on paper was only going to do me so much good.
It helped but it didn’t change anything. I never shared what I wrote with someone who could help me go from writing as catharsis to writing as a healing tool. My early talk-therapists never asked me to bring my journals.
Not until O – the therapist of song and legend who saved my life – started guiding me through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I had homework assignments and had to bring them with me to my next session. Ouchy.
Now, I write for you to read. And, it’s time for me to be my own O – the therapist of song and legend who is not only saving my life but making it better.
Maybe next time, I’ll write about having faith in myself. Maybe one of those faith-in-myself lessons is that I’ll know when it’s time to move on and stop being so hard on myself.
I’m Susan Scot Fry, the author of “A Year of Significance”. In 2020, I take on the greatest nemesis of my life: Binge Eating Disorder. With a side of aplomb sauce. Honest, occasionally humorous and sometimes I swear.
A Year of Significance 