“It’s Going to Be Okay.”

I’ve written a lot about hiding…behind a mask, a smile, a facade. Pretending. Acting. Retreating within myself.

The irony is that because I hid so much of what I felt, who I was… I came to yearn for the love and attention I dismissed. I wanted to need nothing from anyone. I refused to burden anyone with my needs for affection, touch, appreciation or validation. “Fine” became my default word. When people asked how I was, I no longer thought. I just answered out of habit, routine.

After a while, those unfulfilled needs began to sting, to burn, to throb. Even then, however, I didn’t want anyone to know. Whether it was out of pride, fear of rejection, fear of being a burden or mere inability to express, I continued to hide the pain, the loneliness, the fear. I swallowed the tears, bit my lip against the screams, held myself until my muscles grew sore… in order to pretend that I was all I needed.

I remember that during times when I had a bit of effort left, I would repeat a phrase over and over to myself, “it’s going to be okay.” Those words, I yearned to hear from anyone else: my mother, my father, my siblings, my friends. I felt that if someone uttered them just once to me, I would feel whole again. And yet, I only ever heard these words in the confines of my own mind.

I sometimes look back at myself and want to scream:

Say something.

Just let them see you cry.

Make them notice you.

Make them see.

I mourn for my child, teenage and young-adult selves. So many years they spent unnecessarily alone. As a woman once said to me after a meeting, however, “you can now give your old self the love she needed.” I can express gratitude to her for her strength. She did the best she could, the best she knew how. And above all, she survived…so that today, I can know and feel that love.

Today…

I’ve found my voice.

I can feel and let myself cry.

I am noticed.

I am seen.

I have heard those words from others, that everything really will be okay. I still have to say the phrase to myself sometimes. But that’s okay. Because little by little, I’m starting to believe it.

♥

Ghosts

I’ve often heard the phrase “haunted by one’s past,” sometimes from the mouths of others in recovery. I think I’ve actually used it, myself, in some of my own journals. Initially, it meant something different to me. It meant that painful memories followed me, intruded on my thoughts, constantly reminding me of a past life. But the word “haunting” doesn’t fit into this context. We all have memories, good and bad, of times long or shortly passed. But those memories are just stored information in our brain’s amygdala or other areas of storage.

A haunting implies a presence of another person, soul, spirit. It means being followed by someone not some memory. But even so, I still think that this phrase, at times, is valid.

I spent the last few days in a city I love, but that also played host to a younger and darker version of myself. Just a couple of years ago, I left treatment to live in this city, having learned a great deal about recovery, gained access to many resources, but having not yet actually committed to life, to recovery. I left those secure walls feeling as if a team of surgeons had dissected out the poisoned and broken parts of me, but that it was still up to me to toss them aside. It remained my choice to either leave these behind, to allow the wounds to heal without them… or to continue to carry these parts with me.

I lived a short while in this beautiful, but intimidating city feeling terrified, naked, vulnerable and alone.

Just yesterday, as I walked down those streets lined with decadent buildings, appreciating the beauty that had once brought me comfort along with fear, I felt distracted. Familiar sources of anxiety caused my present, stronger heart to quiver slightly in remembrance. Riding the bus, my phone’s music shuffled to a sad and lonely song to which I listened while sitting in those same seats two years ago. I walked across bridges where I once stood near-by for hours, trying to summon the urge to jump.

Even as I walked alone down these streets the past few mornings, I knew she was there with me. Like a ghost, that melancholy, frightened and desperate past self of mine walked beside me, haunting me as the past sometimes does.

Though it did make me sad to feel her presence and though she triggered familiar urges that once aided her escape from her own misery, I was able to acknowledge that though this ghost once was me, I am no longer her. I no longer have to live that way. I no longer have to hide, to hurt myself, to brood on painful thoughts and emotions. I am no longer alone. I can grieve and remember all that she went through, but I don’t have to relive it.

We may be haunted by our pasts, but we control how these ghosts affect us. We determine whether these glimpses of what has passed intrude upon or derail what is happening in the present. We decide whether we will stop and give them our attention… or whether we will keep walking forward, leaving them behind.

And though I sometimes see a familiar pair of feet walking solemnly beside my own, I have not stopped walking.

I’m still moving forward.

Signs

Life is full of signs.

It’s been a stressful, emotional and tiring day. I’ve spent a large part of it focusing on what’s gone wrong. I’ve dwelled in insecurity, loneliness, fear for the future. I’ve worried about people and events outside of my control. I’ve cursed my luck and pitied myself for unfortunate things that happen. I’ve even gotten to the point where I’ve considered escaping through an unhealthy behavior. It was at this point that I started to notice some signs…

• I was rear-ended this afternoon on my way to an appointment, but slid forward on the ice beneath my tires slightly, the impact causing me to slide, but not to crash.

Instead of a head injury, I have only a stiff neck.

Just an icy road, or a sign?

• My head aching and my heart hurting, I sat in the dark watching TV. As my thoughts, too, filled with darkness, the lamp next to me turned on without a switch.

An electrical malfunction, or a sign?

• As my inner monologue repeated to me that I had no purpose, that no one cared… I was brought outside of myself by a message from a treatment friend asking me for help. The gift of service never fails to remind me that this is about so much more than just me.

A coincidental message, or another sign?

• At school today, in a moment of desperation, seeking an escape… My eyes fell upon a message of hope on the wall of the ladies’ restroom:

In psychology, we talk a lot about whether behaviors or events happen for a reason or whether they are simply due to chance. Statistics usually determine the answer to that question. But in life, I find that it’s up to us. Do I believe these signs (if that’s what they are) to be the mere result of chance? I don’t know, really. But whatever they are, they give me hope… and that means something.

…Life is full of signs.

Sometimes, it just takes a minute to notice them for what they are.

Chbosky Quote

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by: Stephen Chbosky

Drowning