I have been on quite the rollercoaster these last few weeks. After deciding to allow myself and my subconscious to bring my issues, insecurities and everything else in-between towards the surface almost a year ago, I’ve reached somewhere along my journey I’ve never been before. I’m in uncharted territory.
I compartmentalise, I package things away and store them in boxes at the dark back corner of my mind. Over the last year I’ve slowly been taking each box into the light and going through them. And I don’t mean a quick one over and throw out, I mean like when you’re cleaning your room and start looking through your old stuff and 3 hours have passed and you’re still looking in that box.
As you can imagine, some boxes are easier to deal with and go through than others. Honestly, I’m not sure why I thought healing would be easy- because it isn’t…. But it’s worth it!
For some time now I’ve been processing multiple things at once, but recently? It seemed like every other day I was having a eureka moment, some realisation or connecting dots. At first this was going well, this has been happening for the entire year of therapy but its getting more and more frequent. My brain started working in overdrive. One of the conditions of allowing my subconscious to work through things is to not run away from it, and to face what ever feelings come up…
I started having experiences where it felt like my eyes were finally opened to a lot of things I was ignoring. I was finding the final puzzle pieces to things I couldn’t figure out for years. I was challenging my beliefs, my wants and even my desires. I felt like I was fighting against this old, comfortable version of myself and this new me who is willing to explore and try new things.
I have been fighting. I’ve been fighting myself hard. Instead of facing my fears I’ve been avoiding them- ignoring them actually. Except, ignoring them doesn’t work at all- in fact it made it worse. The voice in my head (yea I know how this sounds) got louder and louder and more persistent, pushing out boxes and emptying them all over the floor.
“Look at me!”
“Don’t ignore me!”
It felt like a toddler was throwing a tantrum in my mind and throwing things all over the place in a messy room, I was paralysed. I couldn’t run, everything was happening all at once, and everything was revved up. I felt so overwhelmed and anxious- but different too.
Nothing I was ignoring was bad- it was just scary. And fear is a secondary emotion- just like anger (read my anger post here). I was afraid of being vulnerable.
Maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago I said to someone “I think I’m happy” and it has slowly evolved to “this is the happiest I’ve ever been”. I know reading what I wrote in the first couple of paragraphs might not seem to support my statement, but you’re looking at it wrong… I was looking at it wrong.
I thought everything that was happening was a bad thing, that I was too fragile to face them and I had just gotten to a good place so I’m going to ignore it because I couldn’t risk losing this peace! I made a big mistake, and I wish I had trusted my journey, my strength and my own mental resilience to feel and face my feelings. Eventually, it became so bad that I couldn’t focus on anything else, it sounded like constant screams and echoing in my brain.
“Look at me! Look at me ! LOOK AT ME!”
Over and over and over and over again until I had no other choice. I was paralysed, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, I needed to work through this. I started self soothing, and I tried a grounding exercise that actually brought me to tears! But most importantly, I faced my inner child, the 3 year old in the middle of a destroyed messy room out of breath from trying to get my attention.
And I’m glad I did.
These last few months, I’ve been working constantly on improving myself, and I only just realised the major headway I’ve made. And now I have to face a new emotion on my healing journey, vulnerability.
Vulnerability is scary in so many ways, the biggest reason why it’s so scary for me is because now that I’m willing to be vulnerable, and open up myself and my heart it means I open myself up to hurt and pain. I always thought I was an open, vulnerable person, and that every time something bad happened I didn’t build up my walls higher… but I did. I isolated myself, only pretending and only giving the parts of myself I was willing to away. Letting people into the maze that is my mind, so convoluted and twisted that it would be impossible to reach me. I didn’t build walls, I built sophisticated, complicated and difficult mazes, really not allowing anyone in. Well, the maze has begun to collapse, like a line of dominoes hitting each wall down causing a rippling effect.
The thing is, I’m happy about this. Vulnerability isn’t bad, and now, I can finally experience emotions in realtime and real life rather than behind a glass several feet away.
There’s still quite the journey ahead, thank you to everyone who has been on this journey with me. In a way, this blog was my first test of vulnerability. Writing brings things to life, it makes things real. I have breathed life into many challenges and successes through writing. And now, I’m breathing life into being healed, embracing happiness and being the best version of myself through constant improvement.
I’m going to bet on myself and take the risk.
Love,
Samantha
