Foreword

Here are some realizations I've had, that I'm often wishing I could remember. Honestly, this isn't even for you — I'm just hoping that writing it down can help drill it into my thick skull.

I've tried to loosely arrange them in the order I realized them, but in reality many of these were happening simultaneously. In reading this, I truly hope that this doesn't cause any feelings like "I am behind," or that this is "reading ahead". We're all on our separate paths. I just hope sharing mine might be able to help. We're all gonna make it.

If you like my story and find it useful, hell yes, use it however you'd like (within the GNU GPLv3, so pmuch just don't sell it). And if you don't find my story useful, honestly, that's okay too — I don't know shit, I just write what I know.

Realizations I've Had That I Wish I Could Remember

Part 1: The Comma Before the Trauma

Don't worry, I will not be trauma dumping; after all, this isn't a recipe. Well, maybe it is a recipe? But a recipe with zero trauma dumping. And it's my personal recipe specifically dialed to my kitchen, so good luck adapting it.

The reason I chose this title is because this article is all the stuff I wish I had known before I started mucking around in my trauma. It's all stuff that helps me feel safe, and I hope I'm not the only one.

I want it to be clear that, despite how I've tried to write about it, my story is neither simple, straightforward, nor sensible. These journeys only started happening for me after I began independently dealing with my anxiety, depression, anger, and shame (all of which I have very graciously tried to omit the details of).

Also, the journeys I've written about below are not paths I walked once and then moved on from; these are all well trod, and I still often find myself walking them. In a weird way, I now find them quite comforting; like what I imagine counting rosary beads feels like to a very old nun.

Well let's get started, shall we?

Remembering to Try (and Accepting Myself When I Can't)

There are still some days where I genuinely don't remember to try. I wake up dissociated, I fall asleep dissociated. There are other days where I'm trying my absolute hardest, and completely stretching myself thin by refusing to accept that it's just not working today. Neither are much fun tbh — even though it's sometimes scary to admit to myself in the moment, looking back I realize I've pretty much never regretted trying nor resting.

This was my biggest hangup for multiple years, and I only wish I could have recognized it sooner. Even though this was one of the earliest of my journeys, I still find that this realization can be incredibly tricky to remember well — some days I'll swear that I'm trying, but realize I'm not actually taking any actions, just stuck in a thought loop. other days, I'll think I've put aside time for me to rest, and then not let my mind rest at all.

The only thing I try to do now is try. And if I can't, that's okay.

Remembering to Wrap It Up (But Not Too Tight)

I've found it helpful to think of myself as two parts – my head, and my heart. When it's screwed on straight, my head is rational, sensible, in control. Put in a bind, and it can stay calm and think its way out. But working alone, it's cold, calculating, and affectionless. It has no heart.

For a lot of my life, my brain and heart weren't on speaking terms, and my brain sat at the helm. It's unclear why my brain thought that not speaking to my heart was the correct solution — but whether with intention or from being misled, the only time I would ever hear from my heart was when it could bust free from its concrete cell. Sometimes it would bring impotent rage, sometimes inconsolable sadness, sometimes deep feelings of abandonment, I could never be sure; but my brain knew that it would always come out swinging, so my brain grew to distrust it.

And since my heart wasn't being listened to, it became resentful. Most of the time, my brain was in strict control, and out of either shame, fear, or anxiety, I would bite my tongue and tamp down my true feelings. It was the emotional equivalent of giving my heart more solitary confinement in the hopes that it would improve its behavior; but unlike a mistreated prisoner, my heart would only get stronger and more driven as more feelings poured in, until it could break free and wreak havoc with no brain in sight.

At some point I realized that, if I could gently wrap my brain around my heart, I could listen to my heart without spilling my guts. It was in that moment that I realized that, as much as the cushion of my brain could shield my heart from the bullets of the world, so too could my brain shield the world from the bullets of my heart.

In English, what I realized was that, with practice, I could ensure my brain was always the watchful barrier between my heart and the outside world. And if my brain could listen, without pretense, to both my heart and the world, then I was cooking with gas. Suddenly I didn't have to hurt anymore.

If I could tell that the world was being kind, I could let the world directly into my heart. And if I could tell that my heart was being kind, I could let it out into the world.

And when I could tell that there was any hint of unkindness from either side, my brain could pop out like a bouncer and shut the whole thing down. To be clear, not like some crummy TV bouncer who only pretends to help while actually escalating the situation. More importantly, with my brain intercepting but my heart still informing, I could handle the situation with both patience and kindness.

This isn't to suggest my system is perfect: I certainly still mistakenly get my feelings hurt, and still mistakenly do things that hurt others. More than anything it gives me a sense of order in this chaotic world; a place for everything, and everything usually trying to be in its place. And of course, I still have moments of miscommunication between the two; but now, since they are on speaking terms, it's only becoming more civil with time.

Remembering to Be Kind to Myself (and Apologizing When I'm Not)

A big source of the conflict between my brain and my heart was that neither side trusted the other one. It was constant retaliation and resentment, where my heart would pile on self-hatred for how my brain was treating me, and my brain further oppressing my feelings.

Eventually, I had to give up and realize that this literally wasn't helping anyone. Even worse, it was passively hurting all the people I cared about and associated with, and actively destroying me.

The first step was realizing how cruelly I was treating myself. Strangely, even while I waging war with myself, I still understood the value of being kind and apologizing externally. And yet, it took years for that message to make its way inwards.

Only once I realized that I could offer myself the same empathy I offered others did I start learning to trust myself. There was a lot of confusion and tears; it genuinely felt like a reunion between long estranged friends.

And of course there were a ton of hard feelings that I had to resolve within myself. But genuinely, just by letting my heart know that my brain was willing to talk, and vice versa, and by trusting myself to be able to remain kind, an entire floodgate of emotions opened that I wholly regret not opening sooner.

Remembering to Validate Myself

This is one of the steps that I'm kind of embarrassed to share cause it's so cliché. I had to really pierce it deep down into my brain of brains that I. AM. VALID.

And after that, super closely monitor my thoughts for any sort of self-doubt. It really felt like I had a spray bottle and my subconscious was a misbehaving cat. Or some sort of defense game, where even starting to think I'm valid makes waves of memories start spawning, of things that i didn't ask to occur to me.

It was a total pain at first, but after a while of self-validating, it strangely started to feel like the protective brain I'd wrapped around my heart started growing more "rigid". It was like my brain now understood that it was valid, and had started building and setting a new valid self-image. And strangely, I could feel what it was like — it wasn't a thick concrete cell anymore, but a translucent sphere. Not only was it now letting light through, while still stopping bullets, but it was holding its own structure to boot!

And what that structure showed me was how empty my heart was. Yeesh.

After years of being squeezed down by my brain, my heart was hard and dry. I swear I could genuinely feel it rattling around in my newly-formed brain-heart-sphere-hole. And at first, it was incredibly demotivating — to know that I am valid, and also that I feel empty and hollow.

But with my newly-validated brain now running the show, I started making choices and taking decisions I previously never would have even considered. And every time I did one of those previously-impossible things, I sweater gawd, it felt like a warm little blob of sunshine plopped right down into my heart.

My heart was watching me make valid decisions, and even though it had been hurt for so many years, it was starting to believe. And just by letting myself live and making daily decisions, slowly but surely, I started to feel sort of valid.

At first, it didn't feel exactly right. It felt strange and incongruous; like I'd taken a hardened old chunk of play-doh and sloppily balled fresh dough around it, fissures and all. But as more time passed, I was able to pour more self-validation in, and massage my neglected heart. And those crevices grew smaller, and the core grew softer, until one day, seemingly out of nowhere — I felt whole.

Remembering That I Am Myself and that I Love Myself (and Also I Like Myself)

Because of all of the mutual resentment between my brain and heart, it was often difficult for me to figure out how I even felt about myself. Sometimes I was sensible and efficient, which my brain loved but my heart didn't super care for; other times I was boisterous and outspoken, which my heart loved, but my brain felt was just too much.

One thing that helped me snap out of it was realizing, in spite of my inner turmoil, how much I had done for myself out of care. For too long I'd simply put these acts of service aside as being dutiful, or some form of hygiene. Of course I have to do my laundry, I'll smell bad if I don't.

Even if it was out of something as trivial as an avoidance of bad smell, I still cared. Even if the reason was dumb, it was still caring. I had been caring for myself all of this time, while neither realizing nor recognizing it. No wonder I felt miserable.

This quickly followed with the realization that, even though I'd been treating myself like I had done everything wrong, I still somehow kind of liked myself. Even though I was not at all meeting any of my strict expectations for myself, and was generally miserable from all the self-abuse, I still found myself to be a pretty kind and good dude all around.

This also helped me realize that I hadn't really developed any of my love languages. But as my head and heart grew more cohesive, so did my self-identity, and as that improved, so did my ability to love myself.

It wasn't at all simple, straightforward, or sensible. But it was worth it, because I was doing it all for someone I loved.

Remembering That Only I Can Save Myself

For years I thought my mental health was pretty good. After all, I read about it a bunch, I knew all the information, how could it go undetected?

It must be no surprise by now, but I wasn't trying, and I wasn't listening with my heart. And even though some part of me could still feel that things weren't fully right, my self-assured brain took no heed. It's just his heart, you know how emotional he is. We'll get around to this eventually, but my career is going so gosh darn well right now.

It was very easy for me when I wasn't trying or feeling to not have any sense of mortal dread. I thought I knew myself, I can change my mind at any time, I'll be fine. It was only once I got to know myself that I truly understand how fucked I was.

I am the only person who can change my mind. I am the only person who can choose my actions. If I am unwilling to try, as the only person who can truly help me in this arena, I'm resigning myself to where I'm at.

I won't change unless I make myself. Nobody else can save me. I am the only person who can save myself. Very spooky, I know. That's why I put it at the bottom, so I would have read all the other soothing stuff before I had to reckon with death.

Remembering That This Is My Life

Since I am the only person who can save myself, I am the only person I need to listen to. I only have to do growth that I want to do, and I only have to be who I want to be. This was kind of the opposite of the abyss, because I realized I could be anyone I wanted to be, but it was just as terrifying a realization all the same.

To deal with this overwhelming crisis of identity, at first I tried adopting other people's values. People who seemed very self-assured, very confident, and living happy lives. But after every attempt, I kept finding different ways their worldviews differed from mine.

The only way I could see getting through this was by discovering my own values. I had never thought about it before like this, but I realized that values were kind of just heuristic shortcuts for emotions. Once my brain has seen my heart respond to this kind of input enough times, it knows not to even bother my heart anymore; and if I could get my brain to actually understand the pattern, I could store it as words!

These are certainly not set in stone, but these are the values I've currently settled on:

I will never expect to be trusted.
I will never try to harm.
I will never try to waver.
I will never try to judge.

If I want myself to be trusted
then I expect myself to always try to:

  • accept, soothe, validate, and trust
  • act safely, mindfully, honestly, openly, and accountably

and if I cannot meet these expectations, that’s ok.

They've served me well so far; some of the biggest challenges I have are in applying them to myself.

Afterword

I don't want it to seem that this all just happened at once. Sometimes I'd have to rest for days after trying to validate myself; sometimes I couldn't bring myself to try again for weeks. Or I'd forget to keep my heart wrapped, and hurt someone. Or I'd simply forget to try.

And even worse, as far as I can tell, this journey never stops; these are all things that I still have to remind myself of every day. Even after all of these realizations, I still often find myself feeling bad for seemingly no reason, only to realize that I'm sitting on some previously undiscovered hangup, or I'm simply just mad at myself.

And that's okay. All I have to do is remember to try, and accept myself when I can't. We're all gonna make it.

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Pub: 11 Jan 2024 11:18 UTC

Edit: 11 Jan 2024 13:58 UTC

Views: 346