My breakdowns are still rather frequent. My intense emotions leave my composure fragile. And i'm still doing a lot of work to build up my esteem, confidence, critical thinking, and interdependence (rather than just dependence). It's not that i'm weak (though catch me in a particular moment and i'd say i am), but it's a struggle for me to not get caught up in the anxiety of uncertainty, or catastrophize horrible scenarios, or berate myself. i can spend hours in a day worrying about someone i love getting hurt, someone i love not liking me anymore, not being good at my job, being cornered, being lost. Historically, everything works out. Sometimes with no correlation to how much energy i expend.
My main focus should be accepting things the way they are, and trusting that i will always be able to move forward. No matter how badly i want to change certain things about my life, some things are just meant to be. i may writhe in discomfort about my crowded apartment in a seedy neighborhood with mounting messes, but it's much better than the chaotic dysfunctional home i came from. i'm starting a life with my wonderful, devoted, determined, passionate boyfriend, and our current home works with our finances right now, and our roommates are our friends, and we're learning to manage our messes, budgets, and routines, before we can move on to some fancier living. It's not my ideal, but it's completely appropriate for this point in our lives.
We both feel a bit held back by difficult families, and are trying to balance time with them and building ourselves up. We've both felt burdened by our parents and had to do a lot of work to dig ourselves out of the holes we were in. We've both grown a lot, but our ties remain because Ilya's parents still rely on him heavily due to their language barrier, and my parents still just have a great emotional hold on me. Most times when i start to unravel it has to do with a spat with mom, or dad's disapproval, or the unfairness of my sister's childhood, or how little i get to see my brother. The layers of turmoil i've felt with my family are deep, and rather easily activated. Try as i might to stay detached, level headed, focused, and hopeful, i can still be reduced to a whimpering puddle. i have a strong sense of how i think things should be, and i feel hurt when those expectations don't play themselves out. Never mind i've never even had the experience of things going the way i plan. Sometimes i suffer through disappointment, sometimes reality puts my dreams to shame. i don't know why i bother to have expectations at all.
But no matter how i fall apart, i am always provided with a means to put myself back together.
So, my most recent breakdown happened at work, kind of a scary place to become so vulnerable. The fortitude of my composure had been tested by an argument with my mother and grandmother, feeling the heaviness of being the one who shows up for my sister (this time for a school event), general feelings of anxiety, low self worth, and doubt, a therapy session right before work, and then rounds of high energy, loud, sweet, adorable, exhausting kids to teach and one particularly high stress incident. i couldn't find it in me to wait til i got home to start crying. Thankfully, my boss is a compassionate thoughtful woman, and took me into her office so i could let it out, talk a bit, and recompose myself. Once i stopped blubbering, i spilled to her a bit about where i come from - the pain of my mom's addiction, my rocky adolescence with hospital & boarding school intervention, the intense worry i have for my sister, some guilt for having my own stable fruitful life, but ultimately the strength and hope i posses that is clearly immutable. She listened very well, expressed sympathy for my hardship, told me that she sees a light in me, spotted it the first time we met, is excited to have me as part of the team, and wants to help bring out that light even more.
i'm very grateful for this moment with her, but it also puts me in the position i need to be very careful with. i need to stay professional, watch my boundaries, and check my transference with maternal-figure boss, lest i jeopardize my great standing with the company. i love my job, i love what i do, i love that the staff all feel like friends, and i would hate to lose it.
So i'm learning and growing from all this, and the key is really to just leave my past in the past, drop my baggage, don't bring it anywhere new. i need to stay aware and grateful of the things in my life that are reliable and joyful, and keep it simple - otherwise i'll reawaken the incessant yearning for more. More excitement, more attention, more validation, more love. That type of never feeling whole that led me to dive head first into the spiral of self destruction and ruled my life for years. i will not go back. i know the simple acts to maintain a defense against it, and every day i must follow through with at least one.
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