​...but the direction is good!

One reason I think I should write these posts more often is I tend to only write when I have heavy thoughts. It makes sense. Writing is a way that I process. Heavy thoughts require more heavy lifting.

It is also crazy to me how crazy the past several years have been. I don't think of myself as someone who lives a dramatic life. I am quiet and go with the flow. This is true of me. I am happiest when I am "in the flow," as my friend, Sage, describes it.

(Sidenote: calling everyone Friend and other vague titles was getting confusing. I''m going to start using pseudonyms. They may or may not be used consistently).

The biggest turmoils of my life is when I've wrestled with my circumstances and tried to avoid the things I very much needed to face. After decades of stubborness, I've finally come to accept that if there's something I very much want to ignore, the fastest and best way to move forward is to deal with it. Ignoring does nothing.

I am tempted to go on with the flow analogy (or cars sliding on ice, or running down a rocky hill, or many other examples from the physical world), but the point is that learning to accept situations as they are are has absolutely made my life better. Not easier - this is VERY important - but better.

Hard and heartbreaking things happen. Facing them and taking steps to understand is hard hard hard. However, it doesn't have the added shame and anxiety that comes with feeling inadaquate, or like I made a mistake, or that I need to fix it, or that it was some sort of punishment. Letting go of the poisonous "should've, could've, would've" dialogue is amazing. Highly recommend.

It looks like once a month had become my natural blog-posting pace. I like it. Seems to work for me. Of course, I'll likely not stick to it with strictness.

I want to follow-up on my last post, since it was left very open, especially with its broad vagueness.

Circumstances with my friend have been...resolved? Clarified? What is the right word for things-between-us-are-solid-but-there-are-on-going-consequenses? At any rate, the place may not be the greatest, but the direction is sound.

After a few days of many tears and knowing only the broadest circumstances, Friend and I were able to talk. I learned what all happened in the days before, the reasons for not replying, and the events of that night. My deepest fears and biggest concerns were addressed (like my angry text contributing to whatever had happened). 

After hearing the details of what took place, I felt relieved, and mentioned how scared I'd been. Friend reassured me that's not what took place, and also saw my fears as valid. They confirmed, given what I knew, my questions made sense.  They didn't apologize either. In a good way.

So, my friend confirmed their awesomeness, even while having a shitty, shitty time. With that at a rest, life continued to be tumultuous in other ways...

*sigh*

​

Starting sometime in my teens, I began to believe that my purpose was to support and help the people around me. For way too long, I pushed down my own feelings and interests in favor of what others seemed to need of me. I’ve talked previous about my fear of not being worth remembering. This trait came out of wanting to have some sort of value. It was reinforced by what I like to call Too-Much-Church. The result was often feeling rundown and ashamed for not being able to do more.

In the first few years of my teaching career, I would get so frustrated that the kids wouldn’t cooperate the way I wanted. Yes, there were skills I need to refine, and had a noticeable lack of support. However, I took many things personally. Every incident and outburst embarrassed me. Derailed lesson plans brought up feelings of inadequacy. Asking for help made me cringe. Thoughts of “If only...if only...if only…” swirled through my head.

During my third or fourth year, a few things clicked into place. I realized the majority of my frustrations were a result of trying to fix their whole lives. Their families, their communities, their attitudes. An impossible task.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Yesterday, as I was writing the above, I got a message that, coincidentally, ties into the current “fix” situation I wanted to talk about. The nature of it doesn’t leave me the head space to finish what I was writing at the time. There may be another opportunity. The essential part is that once I shifted my focus to things I could do (ie teach good science lessons), I had better relationships with the students and was more content overall.

Relevant to the present situation was the much harder lesson of learning how to help and support people in healthy ways. I have distinct memories throughout my 20s and early 30s of believing if I could figure out how to care for some the right way, their problems would be fixed. This put a lot of pressure on me and the other person. Thoughts like “If they would just…” or “If I could just…” were prevalent, especially at bedtime.

Even as I realized that “fixing” people was no way to live, I continued to prioritize other people’s problems over my own. I wouldn’t talk about the things that really, really bothered me unless I’d been able to rationalize it to some extent and I could sure that it wouldn’t make my confidant’s burdens worse. And if my hard time was the result of another’s personal issues? No way I’d bring that up. My hurt feelings were my own fault because I wasn’t doing enough to understand their perspective.

This, of course, was not sustainable. Gradually, eventually, all my efforts to be strong, supportive, and untouchable collapsed upon itself. I know now that these habits were rooted in my inability to believe I had any intrinsic worth. Accepting that I had value was hard. Hard hard. I spent the first 7 months of 2017 in tears almost daily as I faced all the hurts – big and small – I’d been ignoring for a lifetime. Even now, here on the other side, I still struggle with many of the same habits. However, now I’m able to recognize what’s going on and can respond differently. I vastly prefer this way of living.

Back to yesterday. It’s necessary that I be vague because this involves another person’s story, but a close friend of mine is going through a very rough time. Over the course of the week, Friend stopped replying to me. I wasn’t too concerned. Given the nature of their personality and the stuff on their plate, stepping back made sense to me.
However, as the days progressed, I began to wonder if I was being avoided. This was confirmed Thursday evening, after not acknowledging me or my messages in any way, I learned I’d been effectively cut out of a regular event.

This hurt. The majority of my self-protective habits were developed to prevent this exact thing. This person knows this about me. I do not believe Friend was in the frame of mind to even consider the impact. At the same time, the more a person is trusted, the greater their ability to hurt.

I stewed about what to do for a while. Even though it wasn’t my favorite, I was okay with Friend wanting a bit of space from me. A chance to connect better with other friends. This method, however? No. Just no. In the end, I composed a text saying as much. I tried to be kind while also being clear that this sucked. I originally intended to send it late Friday morning. After all, I knew they were in a low place after a hard week. But as the minutes passed and sleep did not come, I realized that delaying was another instance of me making allowances for how another person has treated me.

So, I sent it. No response, no surprise.

Late Friday morning, about 12 hours after sending the text, I got a message from another person close to Friend. They were worried because Friend was acting out of character. I got them in touch with someone better able to address the situation, and...that’s it.

I don’t know what happened. I do know that the biggest concern was quickly resolved. Anything else would be speculation. I can say that in the moments between receiving the message and learning of the resolution, I felt the full force of why I’m afraid to tell people about how their actions affect me,

As heartbroken as I am, and as much as I hate all of this, I don’t feel the text was a mistake. I’d have done differently if I’d known differently, but I don’t feel ashamed or guilty. There are things going on that are bigger than me, things I can’t fix. Friend has my full support, more than I think they understand. And I’m starting to understand what it looks like to be a good friend while being honest about myself.

Friend will reach out eventually. Hopefully. Life takes time.

I haven’t posted in a long time. It’s been an eventful couple of months, but, fortunately, recent weeks have not filled with the emotional dilemmas that characterize many of my posts. I am enjoying taking things as they come and being present with what is in front of me. There are many stories I could tell. I’m going to begin with the night when things officially shifted for the better.
​
I apologize in advance for the vagueness. Much of this story involves the stories of other people, and their stories are not mine to tell.


​
The Story

Most Tuesdays, I join up with a group for pub trivia. The team is coordinated by someone I respect a great deal. I like his sarcastic sense of humor and watching the way he takes care of and encourages his people. I find him to be a relaxing presence.

Most of the time.

The Tuesday after my December hospital stay, this was not the case. There was an awkward tension I did not understand. Knowing my emotions were already convoluted, I decided not to address anything that night. It was the right choice. At the same time, it did nothing to help my mood and definitely contributed to my heavy state of mind while writing my previous post.

A few days lately, the tension was resolved when he initiated a conversation to clear the air. I was relieved and understanding his experience was an important step in getting out of my miserable mind set. Combined with some other high-quality mood boosters (dinner with a friend, an unexpected phone call from my uncle, Christmas shopping with my brother), by the time the next trivia rolled around, I was a whole new person.

The night was much more jovial all around. Since I only had one more work day until Winter Break, I even joined the group when they went to karaoke after. It was a lot of fun until, suddenly, most people left. Only my friend and I remained.

I was torn because I’d been intending to leave soon myself. I hesitated because I could see his depression kicking in. I had seen him in depressed moods before, but this was my first time witnessing it take over. The change was drastic. I was at a loss. After all, he’d resisted me reaching out on prior occasions. Our friendship felt tenuous.

He, of course, said I could go. He’d be fine by himself. He was used to it.

At this, I became angry. I yelled at him. While I didn’t raise my voice and managed to keep my tone calm, I yelled at him all the same. I told him I’d rather stay here, get home late and sleep well, than go home now and lose sleep fretting about him. When he protested, I called him out on his recent posts telling people to “check on your friends, check on your friends, check on your friends.”

“I’m checking on my friend. You don’t have to talk to me, but I’m staying.” I sat myself on the same side of the picnic table, but scooted to the far end of the bench to give him space.

Being reminded of his own words quieted his arguments and we sat there awkwardly. A man came by and broke the remaining tension when he showed us a magic trick involving rubber bands. We talked for a while after that. Nothing serious or heavy; lightness was the medicine needed.
​
Staying was right choice. Many things – small and large – came out of that night and will get told at different times and in different ways. For me, the most important was the confidence boost. Telling someone I’m staying because I know they’re not okay and I don’t want to lose sleep over it was maybe one of the most freeing things I’ve ever said.

I am most looking forward to potentially changing my meds to something that’ll let my emotions stabilize. I always knew depression was a possible side effect, but it wasn’t until my dosage was increased in mid-October that I became aware of the impact.

If you look back at my entries from September and early October, you can see that a lot was going on. I know I kept things broad and vague, but you can see that my thoughts were heavy. At the same time, I felt calm. Sad as I was, I was also calm.

When my dosage bumped up, the calm retreated. My emotions became bigger and more erratic. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the fight with my dad happened the week after the change,

The previous times the amount was increased, my mood would be off for a few days then settle down. This time, the off-ness has stayed. The mood swings aren’t quite so big, but I am still off. Having a break from them last week, then resuming has made it apparent the meds aren’t an innocent bystander.

The medication problem will be resolved soon enough. I can hang in there another month. The tricky part is that this has been a rough few months. There are reasons to be sad; things to face and things to walk away from. Knowing my sadness is being amplified makes it harder to decide what to do, what to address. Do I take steps now or wait until I’m feeling more level? I don’t quite trust that anything I do – either waiting or acting – won’t be giving the sadness too much power.

As I muddle my way through this, I’m trying to keep from isolating myself so much. Trying to be honest with people without over-sharing. Trying to not take things too personally or cynically. Trying to remember what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown.

I am tired and I am sad and this is not forever.

Hopefully.

Last Saturday, November 5th, I ran in the Screaming Monkey 100 50k. It went well! Way better than anticipated. I approached the race expecting to walk almost the entire 31 miles. I knew I was under-trained, and knew that pushing myself too hard would awaken all my worst symptoms. As luck would have it, early on, I found myself in a pace that I could maintain for almost the entire first half. I took my time at the aide stations, and sipped down plenty of Gatorade. The second half I walked quite a bit more, but was still able to run a fair amount. All together, I think I ran well over 20 of the miles. Additionally, I was only an hour slower during the 2nd half compared for the first. Yay!

​I’m really glad I did it, although I was a little surprised at how lonely I felt after it was done. Everyone there was quite friendly, but most attendees and participants were local. They had their group. If I was less tired and introverted, I’m sure I could have joined in with some of the people at the finish line. As it was, after showering, I just quietly ate my dinner while watching the 100 milers change up gear for their night leg.

Adding to my loneliness was my lack of phone signal. I was unable to send or receive any updates. When I drove out the next morning, I only had one message from my brother waiting for me. I was also disappointed that I didn’t hear from any friends. I’d sent a couple texts about heading to Shreveport, but nothing…

While driving through northern LA/southern AR, I gave myself a talking to. Because of my desire to avoid advice and keep myself from overthinking, I’d barely told anyone I was doing the 50k. Even the texts about Shreveport were vague and barely alluded to the race. One friend in particular doesn’t do well with subtle hints and needs directness. In short, while keeping things close was an important part of maintaining my nerves, it also made it harder for my people to support me. They had no idea I was wanting encouragement because I hadn’t let anyone know.

A harder pill to swallow was not hearing from my parents. In my last post, I talked about my conflict with them. As of the race, we still hadn’t talked. It hurt that they didn’t send me anything, and only reinforced the frustrating feeling that they were waiting for me to step up and resolve things. Talking to my brother, I learned my dad had regularly asked him if he’d heard from me. Dad never reached out to me, though. I was in my room when they got home from church. They didn’t knock on my door or even call out. That’s how it’d been for the previous week and a half.

After another day of silence (I took off that Monday), I finally talked to my mom Tuesday morning before work. It helped. She maintains that I’d been hard to talk to with my walking out of room (which is true), but took me seriously when I told her I was tired of trying to get them to hear me. I haven’t spoken with my dad yet, but I don’t overwhelmed with feelings about the whole thing any more. I also don’t particularly want to initiate a conversation, so we’ll see how that goes.

I’m glad I did the race. I feel lighter. Also, with it going so well, I feel more confident about hanging in with the other hard and confusing things happening right now. The experience is helping me learn to trust myself again.

​

Changing Shape

I think the hardest part about changing my habits, especially my internal, mental habits, is the effect on the relationships with the people closest to me. While I know they love and support me, they are so used to my old ways of responding to the world that they don’t know how to handle my new responses. Their reactions can make me feel like they’d rather I just return to my old self. My new shape is uncomfortable for them.

I get it, especially when I am in a messy place of not having any clue what I am doing. Living in a new way is way more difficult and confusing than advertised. It’s not enough to get rid of bad habits and negative thoughts. They need to be replaced with something better. In my experience, that takes a lot of trial-and-error, intentional decisions, and many, many mistakes. It’s miserable at times and the reason Real Change takes years of work.

If you’ve read any of my previous entries, you already know that the past 2+ months have been emotionally tumultuous. I 100% understand that my moodiness is challenging to be around. Amplifying this, I work with teens who are easily triggered. This requires me to maintain a stoic and positive demeanor in front of them. While I can definitely express frustration over certain situations, an air of peaceful neutrality in necessary. As a result, when I get home, my temper is feistier than usual until I have a moment to release the restrained emotion.

So, since the end of September, I’ve been dealing with some hugely emotional circumstances in my personal life, while managing the stressful learning curve of my new job. In all honesty, while things have been rough, I think I’m doing pretty well. At least, I can see how I’ve grown. Even though I have periods of intense anxiety, I’m able to navigate my way to the calm place. I don’t feel ashamed of setbacks at work, and it doesn’t take me too long to reset after I get home.

However, all of this is being done in front of the audience of my family. They’ve noticed that I’ve been moody, but they don’t have a frame of reference to know that this is better. They never personally witnessed the angsty, temperamental stress-ball that arrived home from SLPS all those years. I’m a hot mess, yes, but I’m more like a compost heap than an exploded pressure cooker. Good things are happening and there’s potential for more.

I’ve tried talking to my parents about what’s going on, but they don’t seem to want to know. At least, they don’t want to know the real stuff. Griping about a bureaucratic coworker is one thing, but attempting to talk about how I’m facing a crossroads central to my identity? Nope. Every time I’ve alluded to my deeper concerns and bigger triumphs, the subject gets changed.

I’m not sure why they don’t want to hear what’s going on, but I do know they’ve been worried about me. Among other things, they returned to fretting over my food allergies and what I can eat. Over a year ago, we had a frank conversation about how I can handle my allergies. They are my responsibility and I will ask if I need help. I don’t need outside intervention. I reminded them that my least favorite part about my restrictions is being put in the position of having to repeatedly reassure others that I’m fine. This includes dining companions apologizing over my limited choices or people sharing stories that begin, “I know you can’t eat this, but…”

I suspect they returned to this old concern because, in their minds, it’s a safer topic. A safer way to show they care. I’ve talked to them about it and they’ve backed off, but it really hurts my feelings that they’d prefer to focus on a non-issue instead of learning about what’s actually important to me.

I’m also hurt because I’ve talked with them at length about my struggles with feeling disregarded. Not by them specifically, but in other circumstances. I’ve been open about stepping away from people who refuse to hear me. I would’ve hoped that they’d understand, especially in light of my private nature, that if I bring up a more personal topic, I want to be taken seriously.

Right now, things are not good. It’s Sunday and I haven’t seen either of my parents since Thursday afternoon. I was venting about something admittedly minor that touched on some bigger frustrations. My dad was completely unsympathetic. Basically, he condemned me for having the same kind of temper that he has. I’m sure I sounded annoyingly petty and childish in my rant, but his words to me completely crossed the line. I’d already been feeling like he just wants me to be cheerful and pleasant, and this just confirmed it.

My mom wasn’t involved but I don’t want to talk to either of them. I’d been working up the fortitude to address the smaller slights, but this is too much right now. I feel hypocritical because I keep advocating for conversation and addressing conflict. At the same time, I am tired of being put in the position of trying to get people to listen to me. And, in this case, I can’t address what happened Thursday without going over all the backstory they avoided learning about over the past several weeks.

I don’t know what I am going to do.