I have been stumbling over myself for the last five years of my life. We all have our own inner issues. Sometimes, due to outside forces (such as dysfunctional families or societal pressures), we fail to acknowledge the elephant that is hot on our heels.
Did you know that at some point in our lives, we will all need some form of help? I am not even talking about counseling or medicines. You might need to hire a plumber to fix the sink. Or maybe hire a maid because you were in an accident that has slowed you down.
But at want point does your gut-feeling kick in, and you say it is okay for another person to hire a gardener, but it is not okay for you to hire one because that means you are lazy? Or that you can’t bring yourself to pay to have someone fix your resume because you’re a college educated person and should be able to do it your damn self.
Now let’s look at the counseling side of this issue. Why are we okay with others seeking counseling because they have mental health conditions (such as bi-polar or severe depression), but it was not okay for me to seek help because I was grieving the loss of an abusive family and PTSD is something that only soldiers suffer with.
I think about how long I fought silently through my physical pain and mental anguish of trying to figure out why I was having such a hard time with my memory. My family’s words, “It is all in your head. There is nothing wrong with you,” play over and over again in my head.
Sure today, I am beating myself up for not seeking help sooner, but that is why I write this. Don’t be afraid to ask for help! Even if in the past, you had a hard time finding the right professionals.
I will never be what I wanted to be. And it still hurts. Really damn badly. One of my wonderful counselors pointed out that I used the word failure way too often, today. And she is correct – in the best way. I need to find my way off the path I was on and start hacking away at another path.
The secret is this – we need to acknowledge that no matter where we are in life, we are enough. We do not need to be perfect. We do not have to the corner office or the biggest paycheck. We do not have to have the five-bedroom house or the perfect spouse.
No. Those things are not who we are. Our kindness and compassion. It is more about our spirit and our thoughts. These internal works that make us whole.
As we work on them, we can bring them out in the form of activities such as the time we spend with our kids or a sick relative. Volunteering at a local food pantry or being a tutor. These are the things that make the world a better place.
I went through a series of tests last week with a fancy title doctor – neuro-psychologist. It was a bit nerve wracking because I can feel my brain not working right. I can “see” what information I want to access, but the words don’t come out properly.
Yeah, you try making it through a job interview sounding like a dementia patience. I can listen and take in information, but I forget a huge chunk in the short term, but it does (most of the time) appear in long term memory in about 3 to 4 days.
I don’t know exactly what he is going to call it yet, but he was on the verge of calling it cognitive blah, blah due to multiple head traumas. My mind spaced out on the cognitive part due to my severe insecurity over my intelligence level. How can I be this smart and have constantly put off taking care of myself?
Eh. This is why we have counselors!
Finding new ways of doing things is all I can do. And radical acceptance is another concept for another day. As I sat in group therapy today, one of the many great counselors in my life was talking about filtering out all the bad constructs that makes us doubt ourselves and just keeping the gems.
Our minds were both thinking about how this would be a great project! And she looks at me and tells me to remind her later…about half of us laugh because she is telling me (girl with short term memory issues) to remind her…
Yes, I wrote it down because she is right. This is a great project. I am in the process of writing the project out. Yes, I promise to post it, with the supply list. It would make a good self-esteem builder for those of us that are working on ridding past garbage that got stuck up stairs.
Life is too damn short. Spend it doing things (legal things) that make you feel good and that help to leave this place a little better than when we got here.
