I reveal many things about my tormented past on this blog which most people would never admit even to their own family and friends, let alone the entire blogosophere. So why do I do it? The driving force in sharing my past with others is to communicate that no matter how fucked up or stupid your life might get or be, you can survive, you can learn, you can grow, and you can become a better human being. If you can just stick through the process, your life can be better.
I spent years reading tons of self help books looking for answers and solutions, and I did get some good stuff, but mostly what I enjoyed reading was not all the doctor and professional psychobabble, but the letters and stories from the actual patients. I always wished that there could be more books that contained only the words from the patients, the recoverees, and/or the "lab" experiments. I also wanted to hear about people in the middle of healing their pain. Most books only share a glimpse of the beginning and end of the healing process. As an example, "Hi, I'm Sharon from Wisconsin and I'm bulimic, a shopaholic, and haven't had sex with my husband for 2 years because he scares me. What do I do?" Then you see the letters after the recoveree has tried the therapy, self-work, or whatever the book is pushing. "Hi this Sharon from Wisconsin again, and I have to say that after doing Dr. X's program for almost a year, I have gained the courage to leave my abusive husband. I realized that the stress from that relationship was the source of the bulimia and overspending. I am building a new life, and I have never felt better."
Sharon’s testimonial is great and all, but I want to know more about some of the details of how Sharon from Wisconsin dealt with her pain and changing life. What drove her to marry an abusive man. Where did she get the idea to start binging and purging? How did she handle a relapse after doing good for the first month? There is no quick fix. It takes years to get where you are at, and it’s going to take time and patience to undo it. How do you handle all that?
The hardest part about change is not the beginning it is the middle. Everyone can start something just look at New Year’s resolutions. But, not everyone can get through the hard, yucky, painful and incredibly messy middle part to get to the end. For me, it took a good 3 years to get through the middle, and one of those years was just so absolutely horrid that there were times where I thought it would just be easier to die than go through this. The only thing that got me through that tough time was 1. the support system I created specifically to help me with times like this, and 2. Karma. I believe that if you just up and kill yourself to try and get out of pain, the universe/God will simply send you back to earth and set up the exact same scenarios until you finally deal with the lesson. There is no way out except through, and each time will get harder and harder. It won’t end til you deal with it, so just get it over with and deal with the shit in this life.
My hope is that sharing my story helps your story. I have fucked up my life in some major ways, and now I can look at those things and know 2 things. First, my past does not define who I am today. I have learned from my mistakes, and although I may have hated much of what I went through, I did come out being a wiser and more conscious human being. And second, there is no need to live in perfection any more. Trying to be perfect nearly killed me, and living that way was nothing but living in constant fear. I have gained great wisdom through all the pain I’ve been through, and I am finally in a good place. It’s not a perfect place. Sometimes mess is good. I still make mistakes, and unwise decisions, but I fail forward faster now, and I get to be in a real and authentic place. You can have that too. Just believe and do the work.
