The Biggest Surprise Ever

Couple of weeks ago, I wrote:

'You don't know if the upcoming events will ruin the fragile fundament your emotional stability depends on...'

Today, I know something very important that may change my daily basis in the future. 

In the next posts, I described my ordeal with anxiety, fear and suicidal thoughts. And, suddenly, it struck me that this is the answer to the unasked question:

What for real is this 'fragile fundament' my emotional stability depends on?

In case of people who were raised by normal loving parents or carers, this fundament is their own self. In my case, it had been always my mother with her moods and unpredictable behavior (wrongly named 'love'). I've learned that I have no right to feel good until she wouldn't let me. I couldn't be convinced that I have right to live until I didn't receive her approval. Later on, other people showed up who were very similar to her, preying on this weakness... I was trained not to live but to be depended on somebody else's opinion and decision. I had been trying this trick also with God - the Giver of freedom; as expected, He didn't played this game.

So, how does it look in real life? In life where there is no longer my mother nor other bad people? You may assume, it is much better... But it's not, because the nerve system still works its own way.

It is exactly how I described it in the post: 'Suicidal Daily Basis'. This is the living in uncertainty. Waiting for something bad and scary - just as I had been waiting many years ago. 

But when I focus myself on the cause of my state, this anxiety fades. And this was the biggest surprise I've experienced since I remember. It actually works! 

I imagine myself my internal world as if it was standing on very unstable base, and the base simply is my mother's mood and opinion. I remove it, e.g. by smashing with the hammer, and put myself on the stabile ground: my-own-self. I am no longer shaking. I am standing. And now I can walk.

50 Shades of Pain

I still don't know how to merge the two worlds I live in... But at least I know better now why do they exist.

If I look closer at my emotions, I can see very clearly what kind of situation I was in as a child and that I had been desperately trying to recreate it as an older me. While experiencing the rejection from the mother (later on from the father and other important people), you may feel as if you are not invited to the world you want to find yourself the most. Mother's role (or someone who is replacing her) is crucial when we are very little babies. We need her as if she was some kind of a mirror in which we can see us and gain the certainty that we are real and that our emotions are true. If she doesn't ensure this... we have the impression we live in two separate worlds.

After many years, it turned out that I was always right by trying to recreate that situation when I attempted to gain somebody's attention and to acquire the permission to become the part of this person's life. Well... of course, I was right until I was using my brain and getting the point that repeating this actions one by one (with different people) is complete nonsense. I needed to stop and think what I am really doing. What am I recreating? 

The thing is I cannot simply stop doing it. I cannot say that I don't need this love and the sense I am important to someone who is important to me. But the biggest issue is that people important to me don't want me... So - impasse?

No! Everything is fine, since I am aware. Awareness, again, saves me, even if I tend to think that I am lost... The knowledge gives me the opportunity to direct my actions and thoughts where they should be. Pain doesn't disappear nor fade, whatsoever. Still, it has a little bit different shade than before.

Suicidal Daily Basis

In our lives, nothing can be taken for granted. But there is nothing less sure than living the life of a person with mental health problems. You don't know what the next day will bring, what may cause you're gonna feel even worse than yesterday; you cannot predict what could make you more anxious than you are daily. And you don't know if the upcoming events will ruin the fragile fundament your emotional stability depends on...

In my case, the absolute turn was when I accepted the fact that I cannot guarantee myself that I will stand another day without doing something stupid or harmful. I didn't do such a thing, still... I cannot be deluded. This awareness was one burden less on my shoulders.

For the most part of my life, I felt I was hounded. And, unfortunately, in too many situations, it wasn't only feeling but reality. I was hounded and bullied by my own mother and her family. Thus I become easy prey for other predators - at school, in the army, at my work... And this is something I cannot prevail, for I don't know whether another person will be tormenting me tomorrow and, by doing this, she or he will destroy me again. 

Guardian Demons

Unaware of what I was really doing, I touched the gist of every mental illness. Only after writing and reading my last post, I saw that this is the fact: we, sick people, had been separated from our own 'self,' that's why I had the impression I live in two separate worlds. 

Every human being should be connected with each part of its own construction: body, mind, soul, memories, emotions... We must become our own owners. But we are not. The core of the existence is like owned by something else: havoc. And the real name of this havoc is LIE. We live far from our own truth. 

I will explain it by using an example. Ten years ago, on a regular day, I was going to work. I met a guy I used to love... And this meeting was the havoc as if some kind of tornado came through my body and mind. I was agitated, desperate, angry, sad, depressed, but also happy and full of hope (just as I was feeling when I met my father...). After that, I came to work and... everything stopped. I crossed the invisible border and found myself in the second world of mine, the 'normal' one. 

There are two things. First, I didn't know then that I had been constantly experiencing the emotions related to my biological father, because they were forbidden, I had to push them deep into my memories and pretend that I don't have them. Second, for over thirty years I was convinced that the world of havoc was something wrong, that I am a big failure since I still have it in my mind. And this is the essence of mental illness - this very lies. 

The same when it comes to my 'right' to live. I was sure I have no right to be alive unless someone else would give such permission. I wasn't wanted and I always knew it. I knew my mother considered me as a 'problem' or a 'burden'; she also was certain she is my owner and she can do whatever she wants with me, with my body, mind, memories, emotions, etc. She, and, later on, other people, became the 'guardian demons' standing on the border of my own 'self', forbidding me the pass. 

And the thing that pisses me off is that most of the so-called therapies and rehabs lead to the addiction to another Guardian Demons - therapists, doctors, family members - instead of showing us that the healing is when becoming free and independent human beings.