Positivity journal

I'm making this journal to help me stay positive.

Some good things about me:

I am patient

I think long term

I know how to have fun

I have known so many different kinds of people and have had so many different experiences.

I kind of know what I want

I take action when I have a problem

I love myself

I don't push myself too hard anymore

I learn from other people

I am constantly changing

I'm open minded

I don't have many sexual hang ups

I'm strong

I'm really grateful for my own piece of mind. I'm so glad I can finally think for myself.

I'm also looking forward to this spring and summer. I'm strong enough to feel again!!!! This time I have a solid, healthy foundation and no one can bring me down. I feel so balanced and pretty much in control of my life.

I need make it through the hardest part of my life so far!!!! I need to love myself enough that I can withstand the worst. I need to stay positive so that I can balance my fears with reality.

I'm moving forward in my life and to do that I have to keep any negativity out...like a force field...I have to stay safe and never look back!!!!

(Obviously perfection is unattainable but I just want to outline some ideals to strive for in here)

I only want to surround myself with people who love me, respect me, and believe in me

I want to give back to the people who care about me

I want to find joy in many different forms

I want to live my life with true integrity

I want to feel only good things

I want to never judge anyone

I want to have good luck

I want to make the world better

I want to live a beautiful life

I want to feel safe

I want to wake up refreshed and ready to embrace the day

I want to laugh all the time

I want to be sometimes calm, sometimes energized, and full of life

I want to be in love for the first time

I want to have experiences I truly cherish

I want to have memories that make me smile

These days I'm waking up with hope, mental clarity and energy, instead of feeling like I'm in a heavy fog. Sometimes I still wake up scared and alone, but most of the time I feel protected. I know that no matter what happens in my life, I am strong enough to find things that make me happy.

13 is my lucky number...

Today I want to feel calm. I don't have piece of mind today. I'm going to try to meditate, as cheesy as that is.

I need to develop coping mechanisms so I can manage stress in my life. Hopefully this will work because I'm feeling kind of desperate for relief.

On my period too so I need good nutrition and iron. This time I knew I was PMSing and prepared better than usual.

Another thing I will do today is prevent over thinking or overloading my brain with thoughts. That should help me feel calmer.

In order for me to become a more fulfilled person, I need to relax more and stop overthinking. I sometimes get totally in my head as a way of avoiding my real life and making decisions. Today, I'm going to stop thinking about the future completely and give up my need to control that.

I want to get in the habit of making my present moment more fulfilling and comfortable. So no more thinking!

Right now I feel weird, almost bored, slightly afraid of my brain melting down and becoming useless if I'm not constantly using it or trying to improve myself. I had this fear of becoming stupider but I think I'll make much smarter decisions and observations if I slow the eff down.

Here it goes...

I think my thoughts really are slowing down.

My muscles are loosening even more, I don't feel the same degree of fatigue at all.

I'm motivated by my desire to be happy. That is finally giving me the energy i need to get moving in my life.

Healing my messed up brain just takes sooooooo long.

It's probably going to take like another 6 years.

I'm so grateful for everything i have today!!!!!

But still te two main questions remain

1. Is my life fundamentally a punishment from a higher power? For a crime i have no recollection of commiting? (i still feel like this has to be true)

2. Wil ever be truly happy, will I be one of the lucky ones?.

I want that more than anything!,,

So im going to try not to believe my suffering/abuse is a punishment from a higher power.

I dont want to suffer for the rest of my life. I am going to do everything I can to enjoy everything that is going on in modern life and not get down about the past.

I'm really close and I should take the next step.

I am going to be really forgiving of myself and other people.

I really just want to make myself happy, and i feel like deep down i know how.

I think I am going to take a short break from ENA. I think it will help me be more productive in terms of reaching my current goals. I don't spend much time on here but I think I've written down enough of what is going on in my head. Hopefully I have something interesting to say when I get back!

Ha ha so much for my break...I don't have anything to contribute to this thread today though

Counting my blessings

I'm healthy

I can see, hear, touch, smell

I have all my limbs, body parts

I have hope

I have compassion and love for others

I can appreciate things

I'm trying out this new thing where I recognize my own vulnerability and try to gather strength from it. I'm trying to be okay with who I am, no matter how hard it is to accept that I might never get what I want in life. It sounds negative, but for me, it's liberating to pause the internal dialogue that is never satisfied no matter what I do. I want to be consistently empathetic toward myself. I'm not really at a point emotionally where I can be too critical of myself.

In the past, I always felt so nervous, like the stakes were so high and that my decisions were so important. I think this came from the abusive dynamic in my household where my mother alternated between treating me like the golden child and scapegoat. She would always vacillate between two extremes, as if I was two completely different people. As usual, it is sososo bewildering to realize how so much of my so called personality was the product of my abusive upbringing. I'm always finding new ways they screwed me up lol. It is one thing to realize you can't trust your parents, it is another to realize almost all of their influence was toxic.

Anyway, here are some of my goals for the month.

Continue to challenge myself to grow and develop in new ways

Deal with, and eliminate, once and for all, my toxic anxiety (I might actually be able to accomplish this for like the first time ever!)

Be tolerant of difference

Find an outlet for my repressed anger (mostly toward an indifferent society, and towards my mother)

I want to take it one step at a time though.

This month I want to challenge myself to deal with my anxiety once and for all, like I stated in the post before this one. It has been a really long time since I haven't lived with crippling anxiety. Maybe more than 10 years. It is hard to believe that I could even allow myself to suffer for that long. It's weird how time passes by so slowly, and painfully, when you are mentally disturbed but at the same time it's like no time has gone by at all, since you never really matured or grew as a person.

So that's the main challenge.

The amazing thing about all this journaling, is that I started out with this vague goal of healing. I wanted to overcome my abuse and become like a superhuman or something. I didn't realize what I was really doing. I had no idea where this path was really going to lead, but it turns out, the journey is so different from what I expected. What I initiated as survival boot camp ended up being the wrong path for me. I don't know how I was so naive. Why did I ever think that I knew how to cure myself? But in all of this,

I never met a single therapist who had a clue about how to deal with PTSD. I never met anyone who did anymore than what they were paid to do, or how to talk to survivors in a way that actually reaches them. Simply providing a confessional environment isn't enough at all.

I had very unrealistic expectations about how quickly I could heal.

My learning curve has been steep, and I really feel like I have paid a heavy cost for just being born at the wrong time to the wrong people. But I'm still here.

I actually accept that now, it's a fact of my life and I'm moving on.

Things I have overcome

an eating disorder

paranoia

hatred of other people who don't understand the effects or nature of abuse or domestic violence

racism (both my own and others)

classism (both my own and others)

narcissism (both my parents and my own)

depression

ignorance (obviously this is going to continue to be a work in progress for me)

and obviously a pretty intense level of child abuse

abusive or toxic relationships and friendships

slowly overcoming

fatigue

mental fog

mistrust of others

overthinking/overanalyzing

fear of the loss of control

low self esteem

hopelessness

overstimulation

I think dealing directly with my anxiety will help me eliminate a lot of these other problems I have.

I really feel ready. I feel aware and ready!

Spring makes me so happy. I have so much more energy when I'm not freezing all the time. I just feel like I have it made right now, the wind is really strong, especially up here on the 3rd floor and it's so polluted that I can't even see the color of the sky, but in my head the sky is blue and I feel like I'm at the beach or something.

13 is definitely my lucky number.

Today will be awesome.

I had this awesome new idea and I really hope it gets me out of my funk.

I don't want to think about the past, whether it's the near or distant past, for a full year, or at least 6 months. I want every day to be a clean slate.

This should be really helpful, I am not allowing myself to have regret for the things I should or don't do. I either do them or not.

I already feel so excited to do this. It's one of the few strategies I've come up with that seems really useful.

Wow trying out this thought stopping thing is interesting.

It was really hard for like the first couple of hours.

I'm noticing how often my mind wanders to the past or to regret. But today I really have control over stopping those thoughts as they form.

Last night I had a dream about a person I don't even know. He was my good friend and we were sitting on his bed discussing something when I was trying to friend cuddle him and he got the wrong idea and tried to kiss me. Not necessarily because he was in love with me, but because he saw the opportunity. Haha

But anyway, seeing and being close to a completely new person in a dream makes me think that new experiences are really in store for me! Which is exciting. I know my analysis is kind of arbitrary but I almost never have dreams where I interact with people I've never seen before for a long period of time. It was like I am literally not being haunted by the past anymore.

I wish I could have a cool dream at the beach or at a party or something, usually there are only up to about 3 people in my dreams.

Here is my super new age post of the day:

When I'm visualizing stopping those thoughts, I put them in an imaginary bag, a bag made from fabric that is patterned like the sky. That way, when they go in the bag, they disappear and kind of float away for good. I don't know, it's working for me.

Things I want to do

-actually use my sleep cycle app

-Meditate/ or have some kind of calming practice (I used to think this was lame but I think it is a great idea now)

-start a dream diary

So busy I almost forgot that my mind isn't supposed to wander to the past.

This reminds me of the time I tried to be a vegetarian

But actually this has been more successful.

It is really doing me some good.

I have to constantly remind myself though.

I am determined to accomplish this!

Still doing well with this, but occasionally I still forget my little pact!

I am really feeling much more in the moment though. I was really feeling spaced out for a while there, about a year and a half maybe?

I am really enjoying myself recently.

I want to make this last!

Forgiveness is setting myself free. Free to be happy, free to enjoy my life without guilt, love others, and fully participate in life.

Forgiveness is about understanding that just because other people may not have been abused, doesn't automatically make them good or moral people. It is about accepting their limitations, and being realistic.

Forgiveness is about letting go of my need for others to demonstrate more love and tolerance in their lives.

Forgiveness is about protecting myself, my dreams, my hopes.

Forgiveness is about leaving the past in the past so that I can feel the present and have a future.

I forgive all of you.

I have love for all of you.

I don't judge you.

I want the best for you, and for me.

Let us all live our lives in peace and without regret.

I am taking responsibility for my happiness as an adult woman. I no longer mourn for being made an orphan with no past.

I want to formally say goodbye to the past and what it represents to me. While my memories and while the people in my life at that time will live on, I will be at peace with all that has happened over the years.

I'm living in the light now. Abuse hides in cracks and shadows, afraid to let its presence known. Flooding all the dark places in my heart with light has shriveled and dried up everything that used to fester. All that remains are the ashes and dust.

I avoided the pain for years and years, accepting my family was abusive meant I would be completely alone, having to protect myself constantly from unwanted attacks, dealing with their flagrant rejection and deep hostility, and most of all having to carry burdens that were never mine. Years went by, with me not wanting to know how bad it really was until it reached a critical point and I had no other choice but to realize that I had been a total fool the entire time for thinking I could trust them at all. It almost makes me sick how little I used to think of myself, that I would think a slap in the face both literally and figuratively, was love. I had no idea how unloved and mistreated I was.

I was judged and may still be judged for being the child of depressed, irresponsible, unclean, unstable, abusive parents who lacked education, social graces, and the ability to care for themselves and their home, and love both themselves and others, I'm terrified of the way I will be memorialized in the minds of my old friends. The girl haunted by a past she could never express properly, my lack of resilience and failure to plan a proper escape until adulthood is a product of the times I lived in. I waited too long for tolerance, guidance and love that never came and still hasn't come.

While I wish I could say I was a pioneer in exposing child abuse, in lessening the stigma, that I had the wisdom and courage to express myself to my community, get help and find a healthy new home and family, I didn't. That doesn't make me a bad person. I was just following the shamed based mores of my day and in some ways I was far too forgiving of their abusive actions toward me.

For many years I was too afraid to even think about what it all meant. I was so afraid of feeling the pain of being an orphan.

I can proudly say I raised myself.

I overcame so much adversity, it is truly a miracle. How I am who I am today still mystifies me.

Everyday I want to grateful that I know how precious my individual body and brain are, considering I wasn't granted full ownership of either for such a long time.

Forgiveness is about having clarity and seeking truth.

Forgiveness is about having so much love for myself that I won't allow anything or anyone to hurt me, including my own memories.

I think I can finally say I love myself that much.

I love myself enough that I won't allow myself to hurt anymore.

I love myself enough that I won't allow myself to hurt anymore. I want to tell myself this every day.

Even if I know there are people in the world who I know want me to hurt every day, who if given the chance would play power games with me and try to put me down so that they feel just a little bit better about their lives. Now I see that people like that are wrong, not me.

I am not vindictive.

I'm a lover of peace.

I will not allow pettiness to get to me.

I will not allow myself to act like a trained submissive victim.

I love myself enough that I will invite ever more joy and good will into my life.

I will be strong enough that I will find ways to win my battles without harsh words.

I want to be so powerful that people don't try to take advantage of me, and will seek my true friendship. I hope this is possible.

I love myself enough that I will have the courage to try

I love myself enough that I will give myself permission to be a positive person.

"Forgiveness above all is a personal choice, a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to repay evil with evil."

Controlling how much I think about the past is naturally leading me toward forgiveness, I guess.

Anxiety

Obsessive thoughts about the abuse

Are the things I want to overcome

My deadline for April is coming up!

I have to succeed! I want to be free of my abuser forever!!! I want her out of my head forever. I never want to suffer another moment because of what she did to me.

I just need to forgive everyone and move on. Any day now.

I need to keep doing the thought stopping and slowing down my thoughts.