Lonely

Really working to acknowledge my feelings lately. So often my first instinct is to bury them because the actual feeling of them is so uncomfortable but it's becoming more apparent to me that therein lies a lot of my inability to understand the weight I'm carrying around right now as a result of the accidents.

So at this very moment I am feeling very lonely. It doesn't happen often but when it does, it is strong. I'm to a point now where almost all of my friends are married with kids and the ones that aren't are more surface friends than actual let's go out and do things together friends. I loooooove my best and closest friends and their families so much. I am SO happy when I am around them. I have uncountable and priceless memories with each and every one. But it's hard to be the third/fifth/seventh wheel. I sometimes think to myself "This is so pathetic... find your own life and family. Stop encroaching on theirs!" I know that's the insecure part of me but it is still hard to dismiss all of it when it seems like there is so much truth to my random placement within their lives.

It's also hard when you are alone because your best and closest friends are families. They have their own lives that are so complex with jobs, schedules, kids activities and family responsibilities. Those take up a vast majority of their time. I am lucky enough to share it often but there are times where the busyness of their lives all overlap and it leaves me alone; sometimes for weeks at a time. I'm in one of those stretches right now and it's so defeating to feel like you aren't needed or wanted. I obviously know that's not true but when everyone is off doing their own thing and you are sitting back watching it all unfold on Facebook and Instagram, it hurts. Like the kind of pain felt in 3rd grade when your best friend goes and plays with someone else and leaves you out.

These stretches always make me question how I'm living my life. Am I living it the way that's going to make me happy 5 years from now? 10 years from now? What am I going to do if these friends move away? Would I be OK with being alone more than I am now?

These stretches always make me reconsider dating. How awesome would it be to be married to your best friend? You'd never be alone! Not like never be physically alone because, OH MY GOD I WOULD GO INSANE, but figuratively never alone. What solace can be gained by knowing you have someone who chooses to be with you. I can't say I've ever had that so the thought of it is so appealing during these times.

But as much as my heart thinks it needs that to fill this hole that opens up every now and then, my brain thinks otherwise. There is no man that exists that can deal with my fears and baggage, especially now that I'm 31. I had the chance when I was 23 with B, but I blew it. I had no clue what I was doing and just flat out ruined our relationship. I was so waist deep in my own mess of a life that I couldn't have possibly done anything different and that kills me because I think about the what-ifs all the time. So my brain has just accepted that my window has closed. And to be honest, I am OK with that.

Most of the time.

But these stretches of time that leave me questioning my choices in life make me crazy. They make me hope for something that is never going to happen. They make me yearn for something I can't have. And that makes the loneliness so much greater.

Gratitude

I've been frustrated lately with my {perception of the lack of} progress with this most recent traumatic event. I can feel the weight of the experience inside me and even in spite of the physical recovery I've had since the accident, I feel like there has been no emotional recovery. I haven't allowed myself to process that day in its entirety because it just feels like too much to handle on my own. Even tonight when V asked about my internal reaction when she says "car crash", it elicits such an involuntary physical response that everything gets shut down before I have the chance to sit in it and understand my own feelings.

I do however understand that with the return of my rebellious and somewhat apathetic inner voice that my ego is taking the reins and preventing me from doing some of the work necessary to get the progress I want. It's such a battle between my normally in charge logical side and this damn ego. My ego is cocky and loud and persistent. It projects this feeling of safety behind the strength while preventing me from moving forward. Case in point:

Logic: I am having a hard time dealing with the fear and trauma from this car accident. It was frightening and it's no wonder I am having a hard time coping.

Ego: Your brother-in-law was in the car with you and he wasn't hurt and doesn't have any issues getting in a car to drive. Clearly you are being way too dramatic and need to calm the eff down. Drama queen.

Hard to process much when you can't even give yourself permission to own your own feelings. So in our work tonight, I pleaded for a way to carve a path for progress for myself. Emotional progress. Something that will allow me to throw the ego aside and learn/understand the true emotions that are swimming inside me right now.

Careful what you ask for.

I have this list of words I can't stand. They make me shudder and cause me to shut down a little when I hear them.

I also have this list of words that make my eyes roll. By list of words I mean just one. This one.

Gratitude.

That was V's answer for me.

What combats your ego and justifies your own feelings? Gratitude. What allows you to find joy in things that could easily be dismissed? Gratitude. What can help balance all the out of control feelings you can't quite understand? Gratitude.

Well hell. I suck at positive stuff. I suck at feeling positive stuff. I can identify it. I can acknowledge it. I hate to feel it. It seems conceited and showy and just plain wrong to flaunt something that is great in my life. Hey guys! Guess what! I have amazing friends and an amazing family and I am so grateful that they are in my life.

NAILS. ON. A. CHALKBOARD.

But I know she's right. You don't remove darkness with more darkness. You remove it with light. I just have to figure out how to "do" light... Can't be that hard right?

Labels

Had to look back at the last time I blogged here and was actually surprised to see that it was just 6 months ago. It's amazing how slow life goes when you are miserable and how quickly life passes when you are actually enjoying it.

A month ago I was in a really bad car accident. He was going 50 mph, I was essentially stopped. He ran right into me. Didn't even brake. The impact threw my car out into the middle of the highway. The fact I didn't get hit again is a miracle. I walked away with a pretty bad concussion and a sprained wrist along with a totaled car.

Fast forward to a week later and I got a settlement check from the insurance company and went to buy a new car. Got it home and then had to convince myself to go out and drive it (was anxious after the accident) and not a mile from my home I was hit head on by a teenager in a truck that cut a corner too short and turned into my lane.

To say I lost it is a bit of an understatement.

I was terrified to get into a car. If I had to get into a car, then I freaked any time anyone got near me on the road. I started having panic attacks again. I got really depressed; in part from the concussion (apparently it's normal) and in part from being so isolated. I had no stamina to participate in social activities nor did I have the courage to get into a car to attend any.

I started cutting again. My anxiety got so bad and I felt so out of control about the entire situation that I just lost my grip on the coping mechanisms I had worked so hard to integrate. They honestly were not working and that just scared me more and turned me faster back to the release I knew would work. It bums me out a little to admit it didn't work as well as I remembered. I attribute that to the fact that I have lost my nerve a bit. Not a bad thing, but in the moment when I was waiting desperately for that relief and it wasn't coming the way I remembered it was very frustrating.

I have had to go crawling back to V. I literally felt like I could not cope with life without her support. I was falling apart and I needed her to save me; or rather to help me save myself. First session back was mainly to gauge my level of depression and help me get a handle on that. Only these last two have started to focus more on the trauma of this last month.

Trauma... *&@! that word...

That leads me to why I'm writing tonight. In the last two sessions I have had two diagnoses/labels thrown out in our conversations: PTSD and trauma.

Hang on while I grab a pin for my scarlet letter(s).

I never quite understood why in meetings at school, parents were so dead set against accepting the help their child so desperately needed because it would label their child as dyslexic or learning disabled or autistic.

I completely get it now. Labels take away humanity. They force you to see one thing and divert your attention from the millions of other things that are true about yourself/your child/whomever.

So to label myself with PTSD means I am that. To say I am traumatized again means that is my whole existence. You may be able to see the millions of other things, but I see only that. The shame that came with those things last time shrouds everything else in darkness.

I broke down in tears at this discussion today because I hate connecting this situation to my past. To me they have nothing in common and to connect them only further solidifies my feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. But as V was quick to point out, my prior experiences with PTSD and trauma were riddled with feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. I dealt with them the best way I knew how (aka shoved them so far down they rarely ever surfaced) and suffered the consequences of their unwelcome eruption 4 years ago. But as she also pointed out, I am so much healthier now and in a position of power in my own life to be able to process those feelings in a different environment and with a better understanding of my own self to possibly further my healing in a way I wasn't ready for before.

And you know what? I like the sound of that.