December Beware

I'm not a huge fan of December. 2 years ago is when my walls came crashing down and I no longer could hide from my abuse. I was diagnosed with PT.SD and depression and barely was able to manage a normal semblance of a life.

Last year, after surviving another meltdown in late October, I spent much of the holidays in a fog. It was a time where my attempt at denial had come full force to knock me down, take away all my defenses and make me feel as though I wanted to die.

This year is different, although part of me is on edge expecting something huge and awful to happen again. I am still finding that my moods are very erratic, but I am attributing that to stress more than anything. My sadness this year is coming from missing my cousin and hurting for my family. Her death is still so painful.

This week has proved to be a test of my strength and ability to focus on my recovery. Tuesday I let my exhaustion override my desire to heal, and basically wasted my time with A. The only thing I think I really gained was that I was able to communicate that with her and realize the actions that led up to it, hopefully so that I can keep it from happening again. Part of what kept me from pushing myself is that I have been feeling very alone lately. I do not want to push myself into things that hurt as bad as they do without having someone there to comfort me. It's a vicious cycle. It is very hard for me to trust people with my emotions, yet I want them there.

As part of my homework for the week, I was asked to think of ways I can start reaching out to others and allow them to begin seeing my emotions. Trusting people with facts is one thing, trusting them with how you feel is something completely different. As previously written, I reached out to a friend at C.R. who has been very supportive. She has helped me feel as though I am not alone in this world, even if it is only once week for a few hours.

I went to C.R. on Thursday and sat in the back. I just wanted someone to notice me alone: a non-verbal way to describe how I was feeling. I was nervous about small group because I knew I needed to let some things out, but did not want to cry in front of everyone. I listened as others shared, taking bits and pieces of things that I could relate to and dreaded my turn. Finally, all eyes were on me and I began talking of how hard it has been for me in the past week to not push. I am not trusting God to put that person in my life, and I am trying to play God and do it myself. I think I do a pretty good job of letting my life flow the way it supposed to, but there are times that I am just convinced I am being short changed and will just push until I have no strength left. This is definitely one of those times.

I moved on to what I had recently discovered about my relationship with my dad. I explained to everyone that I had come to terms with the fact that I was not going to have the relationship I wanted with my dad a long time ago, but that I was just now realizing it was OK for me to be sad about that. And not only that, that I could also be hurt and disappointed for things he had done in the past. I told them of a paragraph I wrote in this letter to him about how excited I was when I found out M was going to move in because it meant that he didn't have to be alone, but it also meant that someone was going to pay attention to me. M always did, my dad rarely did. Realizing that if my dad had been there for me before M, I wouldn't have needed him to save me from M.

I didn't do such a great job holding back the tears. I imagine I was somewhat incomprehensible throughout my time, but I think I did a pretty good job letting others see my emotions, instead of just the facts. Baby steps.

After small group, our women's leader pulled me aside and asked me if I was coming to the leadership meeting. I believe "Hell no" was what went through my head, but I'm pretty sure I responded with "Uh.. no way!" I am not a leader. My main fear is that with a leadership role, the expectations that would be put on me would be too fast and too much. I see what the leaders do in this group and I am NOT ready for that. I told her that and she insisted I come anyway. I am by far the youngest person at C.R. (with the exception of one other guy) so it was very obvious that I stood out in that meeting. I kept asking myself "What am I doing here?!", while we were waiting for the head of the church to arrive.

Recently our C.R. group has gone through a lot of changes with our coord.inator being laid off. Ever since then the feeling has been different, to me at least. Things were not as organized. So with the shift of power was the need for a new team to be put into place. Once everyone arrived, we were told who was going to be in charge of C.R. now and what her goals were for our group. Using the CR group manual (as provided by Saddle.back church, the original starters of C.R.) she went through the 4 different teams that needed to be formed to make everything run as smoothly as possible. Immediately I looked at those teams and wanted to RUN AWAY. Most carried a year long commitment which freaked me out. In comparison to everyone in the room who were a good 10+ years into their recoveries, I was just an infant. How in the world did anyone think I was ready for this? The man sitting next to me was new to our C.R. group, only in attendance for 2 months and he spoke up. He said he was there because he wanted to help, but did not feel that he was seasoned enough to help in the ways that most jobs required. There was one job on the list that had very few requirements as it came to the intense work of helping others, and that was the job of the "Greeter". He volunteered for that position and said that he was looking forward to just being able to help the group by volunteering to be the smiling face at the front doors, telling newcomers where to go and introducing them to everyone.

God was giving me my window. I chimed in and thanked him for saying exactly what I was feeling. I volunteered for the same position and felt this huge weight lift off of my shoulders. It was replaced with a sense of connectedness and acceptance. I might not be ready for 95% of the jobs on that list, but I did know I could do this. God gave me the chance to take a risk. I had my mind and heart open to it and now I am feeling less alone than I have in a while.

So far, I'm liking this December.