Normal

[meoww]

In 2014:

 

I want to talk less, listen more, be more thoughtful about the things I do and say.

I want to give less unsolicited advice.

I will not complain as much to the people I feel comfortable complaining to, because then I tend to get stuck on negative ways of interpreting things.

I want to be a stronger person, whatever I think that means.

I want to feel safe around people I don't know very well.

I want my mind to be healthy.

I won't work myself too hard and suffer from burn out or resentment by expecting others to do the same for me.

I want to be more forgiving and understanding without being a doormat, at all. I just want to have more compassion for people even I don't want to put up with them.

 

That seems like enough....i have lots of concrete goals but it doesnt have to be the new year to list those. I need to work on those constantly. These goals above seem like appropriate resolutions. They are all things I really want to do and need to do be healthier and more like the people I admire.

 

My own ignorance and defense mechanisms continue to be a hurdle. my negativity is overwhelming, its just so pointless lol. I guess a long time ago I needed it to survive but what a dumb way to cope. Just because i personally feel inadequate doesnt mean i need to judge others negatively. I dont know, there is just this thing I do to try to deal with people who have done mean things to me where i'll just try to be better than them so i feel like i guess it doesnt matter that they arent part of my life. Its so weird because most of the time, those certain people, its like a mutual thing, i honestly dont care but i guess my mind is stuck on this pattern of coping. So i avoid things that are associated with them and end up missing out, if that makes any sense considering how vague im being. It's okay to like some of the things that they like, I have to tell myself that again and again...thats a huge thing

 

Its keeping me stuck in the past isnt it? That actually makes sense. Thats why I feel like they have so much power over my life even now. Because im allowing them to influence what i do...

[meoww]

I guess it's an unfortunate consequence of my black and white thinking that I started to try to avoid everything that reminded me of the pain. It kind of eliminated a lot of things I enjoy doing! I'm not going to allow my trauma to win out in that respect. It is time to do everything (or as much as I can) of things I missed out on because I perceived it to be part of my trauma. I deserve better than that! Before I was feeling such an enormous loss, like oh my life was ruined, wasted, etc, without realizing or really comprehending how much I was letting the trauma win by letting it keep me down.

 

In terms of an identity crisis though, I still have all these confusing thoughts and questions.

[meoww]

More resolutions

 

In 2014 I will disengage from any ongoing power struggles. Even when it comes to how not knowing the truth about that one cheating ex, no matter how many years pass, and despite falling for other much more attractive people, how suddenly it has really been bothering me. He used his lies as leverage to first lure me back to find out the truth, and to keep me from being happy and moving with my life.

 

He continued to lie to me no matter how many times it asked to know the truth because he wanted me to hurt as badly he did for what he knew had done. Like his way of punishing me for him making a mistake. That's unacceptable..

[meoww]

I had to get to the root of why it was bothering me so much lately. That's it, it's the power struggle. Just like with my a-b-u-s-e-r. They know my weaknesses and will exploit them for all they're worth.

[meoww]

I had lacked understanding about the way I would get trapped in power struggles. Now I know how to drop my end of the rope. It is so liberating! I guess that's why my anger transferred on to the old ex. But this time, out of all the other times, I can see why he had played that game with me. Even if I don't like the outcome, even if I can't change him, I don't have to deal with it anymore. I don't have to sit around and wish I could implore him to tell me the truth after all this time. No more. Never again.

 

I avoided it this summer with 2 guys!!!

So I'm learning

I definitely make mistakes but I'm learning how to get ppl to respect me,

[meoww]

This is what I'm learning:

 

How to avoid becoming submissive

How to avoid looking like an easy target

How to avoid getting into an unequal give and take

How to stop overextending myself

How to stop being too nice/giving in inappropriate ways or contexts

How to not get upset when I get bad advice

How to not get upset with people give bad advice on purpose

How to not feel like people are always thoughtless and selfish

How to deal with conflict without feeling so scared and vulnerable

How to deal with insecurity and fear

How to move on

 

Lol the last part is hard to do when you don't understand how to compromise and communicate in a healthy way. That's part of why I always feel stuck.

[meoww]

Everything is set in motion. It's amazing how much changed from that realization that I had to forgive for the sake of my sanity. Then everything fell like dominos. I'm really beginning to be able to detach.

 

It's so much easier than sticking around compromising basically sacrificing my sanity and health.

[meoww]

Always a struggle to throw that guilt back over the fence. Anyone who makes me choose between life and family is not worth my guilt. Why I can't I ever remember this? Ever?

[meoww]

I guess that's what it is. Part of me says, I could do more. I should do more. Sometimes all the trying in the world doesn't matter if it's not what a person needs. But then I look back and realize, what's done is done. I can't excuse that, as much as I'd like to. It's over for me, the way it should be. If it was a boyfriend, people would be actually angry if I went back, they would think I was crazy. I have to be strong....eternal sigh. I'm really really not strong am I? I might be the weakest person ever.

[meoww]

Maybe this would help:

 

I'll just be like, in a letter.

 

Dear mom,

 

I wish I could help you the way you want and need to be helped. I've never wanted to be your adversary or to cause you pain. If you'd wanted, and if you'd even tried to get along with me you could have. I really am an easy going person and it was not at all fair of you or my father to identify me as the problem child. You didn't appreciate what I brought to your life. I think maybe now you're beginning to realize how wrong you were and that the way you treated me has consequences that affect you too.

 

Things got so awful that I just can't be a happy person if I have to have contact with you. I wish you all the happiness in the world. Even in the not so distant past, my only real wish in life was to be loved by you. But I really think those days are gone. I'm sorry that I didn't do a better job of getting you into counseling when I still had a chance and a connection to you. The longer I stayed in this toxic relationship the worse my life got, until I hit my breaking point where I had to save myself or who knows. I had to realize my love for you is not greater than the love I have for myself.

 

You forced me to make a decision that grave, and it's really not my responsibility to feel guilt or grief over that, especially not for the rest of my life. Who knows maybe you'll just be like dad, who seems completely unaffected when his children cut him out of their lives. I guess we'll see.

 

If you want to love me in a healthy way maybe I could do that. I need so much space from you right now, I can't even think about you right now. I'll never be happy even thinking of you, the way you are right now.

 

You have to change. If you don't, I am out of your life. Nothing anyone can say will change that.

You know the truth, and others are beginning to see it too. You deny everything and make me feel horrible guilt and confusion. That's not the mark of a loving person. You can't deceive anyone forever.

 

I know that maybe I could get you into counseling, be your support, and encourage you to be the wonderful woman I see inside. But that would require me to sacrifice even more of my life than you have forced me to sacrifice and not enjoy. I have the made the decision to leave you because of that. I don't have the luxury or the time to save you.

 

I just need you to know that my love for you will always be there. That doesn't mean I will let you treat me horribly. Someday I hope you can tell the difference. I hope someday you'll come to understand that loving someone shouldn't ever be so devastating and painful. I also hope someday you'll learn to love yourself. I hope you can see the world as other happier people see it. You are missing out on so much.

 

For now, I'm asking you to begin that work alone. Have faith that the rest of your life will turn out the way you want. I don't know if I will ever feel safe enough to ever allow you to be intimate and close to me. I really, really don't know and it makes me so uncomfortable. I hope you can forgive me for all this. I forgive you for being such a negative, destructive force in my life. Why would you do if you could help yourself? That's all I have to say for now.

[meoww]

Edit: Why would you be that way unless you couldn't help yourself.

 

And how about this:

 

I need to you know that I don't trust you. It was unbearably painful for me to realize just how much happier I am without you. I may love you, but I think that we are on completely separate paths. I hope you'll learn to live without me, to be fulfilled and not feel a void where my presence should have been. I don't deserve to continue to suffer without you, and I wish the same for you.

[meoww]

It's a relief to know what I'm feeling for once, and to able to actually communicate what I need, if I can't always get it. Just having the freedom to have emotions, even ones that aren't so positive, and even if people disagree with me, now that is true freedom. This year I have serious power. Like in a completely ordinary way. It's awesome. I can just do all that normal stuff that seemed like such a dream.

 

It was like this:

 

Tell an empathic person--->deal with bully no.1--->get support and even praise for how I handled that situation--->feel unbearable stress when it came to bullies no. 2&3--->found the true root of my anger and arrested development-->grew like Alice in Wonderland drinking one of those magical bottles

 

Wrote a few letters to my family and mother that I haven't done anything with yet,

 

And now here I am

Almost completely unknotted

[meoww]

It's nice, having stood up for myself, having been validated in some ways, that was like going into that magical machine in the movie Elyisium (or however it's spelled) and being cured of cancer in 5 minutes.

 

It's definitely not like a 12 step recovery program though. It's more like the 1,000,000 step recovery program and each step is like a page in one of those where's Waldo books or one of those weird hologram pictures with the secret hidden picture within the indiscernible blobs.

 

You really don't need that much compassion to live. But for me, I had to have a just a drop. Like it was not much at all and it just changed everything...

Who knows, maybe you need to keep saying it

 

Keep holding your ground, defending yourself with real facts, with real examples, being calm and smart about how you say things....

[meoww]

It's weird though when you have a problem you can tell everyone but your friends about. I'd feel more comfortable telling a stranger on a bus then someone who would judge me and treat me either like I had a contagious disease, or like I was trash or like I was somehow soiled in their eyes. Anonymously I have said things that I have never heard anybody say. I still have a barely there wish for all those things to be said by everyone. I want there to be complete chaos for a while as everyone unravels all their problems and everything weird about them in plain sight. Need to keep that wish under wraps and hopefully it will go away when I feel like my ____'s sickness is no longer a reflection on me as well.

[meoww]

I also have this paranoia that I need to have complete integrity and a completely clean heart or that I'll be shamed by literally everyone in the world when I die, I imagine there being this montage of all the dumb stuff I've done and everyone snickering or worse yet, being completely understanding of it. I think it's holding me back from like, just relaxing. Because constantly I'm like, oh my god, I can't screw up anything because then EVERYONE will know. It's like a form of OCD.

[meoww]

Yeah like anyone would care, it'd be like, there she goes again not watering those plants, even though she knows she should.which reminds me, I do actually need to water my plants. Yeah I think my list of failings is so long, I'm actually lucky because people would get too bored watching any such montage. Unless it's more like a highlight reel of all my worst moments, I which I would probably die. again. But if horrible people have to be accountable, in death, if I believe that, then why I would I be spared the judgement? Ahh so scary.

[meoww]

I want to think about my best moments

Those times when I was actually proud of myself,

 

And I realize the list seems really short. Way shorter than the highlights recap of all my worst moments.

I need to bring out the good memories, I hope they are in there somewhere!

[meoww]

I wish I could design a poster/psa for a law raising the statute of limitations for child abuse, I think it would be cool if the tagline was, "It's never too late for the Truth."

 

Or for awareness, a poster that addresses the victims.

 

"We see you"

"Speak out."

"You need this." and have it be a hug picture.

 

I think it would be so cool, because most PSA's address the people who aren't involved. I think one of the two most important things would to be to show a survivor they are heard and that shouldn't be silent no matter how embarrassing it seems to "come out of the closet"

There are probably already a bunch but I've never seen one.

[meoww]

I really am in awe of people who make good music that is also unique, it's just one of those things that not everyone can do. Fads come and go so quickly too, it must be so hard to stay focused enough to follow through.

[meoww]

I'm already starting to comprehend that a big focus of this year is going to be about how I can fulfill my responsibilities and still honor my needs. I used be really confused about how I could do that without feeling vulnerable. Like, how could I balance my liberal mindset with societal expectations, how I could possibly be a good person if I ever got angry or upset sometimes, or how I could honor all the different aspects of myself that I believed to be mutually exclusive. It turns out I kind of just didn't know how to combine everything together in a way that worked for me.

 

I didn't think it was ever possible for me to feel that there was a definite or distinct "me" or that I could be comfortable knowing that my individual experience is always going to be limited, and sometimes you just have to be okay with that.

 

I still want to be open to broadening my horizons, whenever possible, the way that a lot of people are. I have lots of role models and people I look up to who have helped me realize I can have all those things and it's okay to be how I am. I guess I didn't really realize just how multifaceted everybody is. Some people are so gifted and can do a lot of things really well. I hope someday soon I can feel like I can do at least a few things well too. I can't believe my a-b-u-s-e-r made me feel like that wasn't possible for me, that I didn't deserve it and that life was just sooo damn hard and that I could never be content with the status quo, that it was simultaneuously too good for me and beneath me at the same time. How confusing and weird.

 

So anyway, when it comes to my needs, I realize that I need to let myself have bad feelings more often then I have let myself in the past. I have to be okay with standing up for myself with grace and confidence. I have to master that complicated balance in order to love myself.

 

I won't love myself if I am passive, as much as I wish I could block it all out in my head and magically move on. I also can't love myself if I get stuck or feeling like the feelings of injustice are keeping me from fully experiencing life.

 

In terms of inner child work, I want to integrate that part of myself into who I am today. I'm not a shattered person, I'm whole. I don't want to feel like 'she' is separate, lost and abandoned, and possibly even dead. I need to just be like, I'm an adult, I didn't die, I actually survived and I'm amazing and somehow nothing like them.

 

I won't be able to love myself if I feel weak or different or pathetic. I won't be able to love myself if I compromise my dreams. I won't be able to love myself if I allow other people to judge me for who I am. I guess I'm now comfortable with doing whatever it takes to not have to disclose my victim identity if it means I can continue to connect with 'normal' people as I always have. I'm not angry with the 'normals' for not being able accept that part of me. I'm almost grateful because I have never wanted to be defined by it, and have felt uncomfortable identifying as a victim. I know I am though. I am strong enough not to feel like I want everyone to see and understand everything I went through. As much as I would appreciate living in a gentler, more empathic world, I know that I have to accept reality. I don't want to have to try to change reality to cope. That's way too confusing.

[meoww]

No contact is seriously worth its weight in gold. I must seem SO completely neurotic saying this over and over again. I love no contact more than macaroons. And baby sea horses. And babies dressed up like sea horses. No contact and I are in a serious relationship and I've never been so fulfilled. I'm so lucky my life used to be so bad that just being able to think makes me want to have a party. I'll be never be jaded. Seriously I get so scared every once in a while, thinking about how my life would be if I hadn't been brave enough to take my life in my own hands!

[meoww]

Positivity is the armor and the shield I use to protect myself in life. Even happiness isn't necessarily a privilege, it provides protection from vulnerability. An epiphany lol I just had. I wish I would have realized that earlier. No wonder it's a cliche that some of the poorest are the happiest. In some ways, it's the only power they have, the only dignity and control they have over their lives.

 

And like all things once you get the ball rolling it's a lot easier for it keep going and pick up speed.

 

It's like my mind did a 180 this past week. I wonder why I'm ready now, at this moment in my life. I guess I could wonder about it for a long time but I'll choose not and just be grateful.

 

Sometimes when I feel a sense of loss or regret at the way I handled a situation, I have to realize the root of my frustration is at my own stupidity or lack of know how. If I was smart enough to know better, I wouldn't have acted that way in the first place.

 

I want to be grateful that my life didn't turn out as I feared when I was first in college. I'm so grateful that I am who I am today. I'm so grateful that I was able to change now instead of realizing I had wasted my life at 45 or something. I'm glad I stopped lying to myself, I'm glad I didn't settle in anything.

[meoww]

Being an adult is kind of like just being a really, really smart kid. I guess that's what all those adults in my life were trying to tell me all along when they said they didn't really have any answers.

 

My perspective on life right is like so jewel toned, like I'm looking through molecules of precious stones, like I'm this tiny little particle that can wedge itself between what makes up the colors, so everything I see is still as it is, ordinary, unchanged, but I feel almost intoxicated and thrilled like I may as well be in heaven. I'm almost too content to be cautious and worry if it's worth getting comfortable and assuming it's not an illusion.

[meoww]

I don't even smoke (anything) but I'm clearly able to think up all kinds of stupid ass on my own. Please spare me the shame by tuning my rambling out lol, not even joking. I'm in such a good mood though. I'm just going to go with it and enjoy this zoning out.

 

How our definition of an organism is defined by the space between a mass containing a heart, a brain, etc, because I don't know what someone else is thinking, because I can't read someone's mind, or will them to move their limbs as I please. Regardless of all that there are common goals, shared dreams, shared intuitions and absurd conjectures. The paradox of being completely unable to understand another person or living thing or even the state of being inanimate, yet being able to communicate and finding that paradox again and again in so many other people. It's like seriously? How completely divine, like divine lace or feathers or intricate beadwork. It seems to serve no purpose other than to awe, it's so leisurely, and so that's why I feel like this:

 

Art is for decoration, even if it has inherent meaning, so given the frivolous nature of my own perception, how I feel incomplete, and how I am bound to other people and my world like a bead on a string, then the whole universe could just be a pearl in some person's ear or one of many hung around someone's neck. Like if it was necessary for me to be the non existent dust that makes up a cloud to make a star that makes a the faintest glow that is part of the night sky that connects all the light of all the galaxies that sparkle in a way that could only be if it was the way that it is. None of what I'm saying makes any sense it was just fun to say. I don't think I would like to be that small, because if understanding is compromised of so many steps that you'd die before you even got through 10% of them, then that would just be miserable.

[meoww]

Making a list of q's to ask to hear where I can get the answers. I don't know how to answer some basic questions like: What does it even mean when I say, I'm not a tree? What does it mean to say one thing is different from another? If everything on the planet was the same, except without the existence of humans, what would it be? We consider ourselves the narration, what's the backdrop without the story? How deeply are they really intertwined?

 

Basically instead of I think therefore I am, isn't it I am because I know I am not you? It seems like that makes more sense to me.