Hello From the Outside

Hello. It’s me.

Ok, ok…enough of the Adele innuendo. I am home from my brief sojourn away and I have to say that there was good and not so good about being away.

First the good: I did not have to deal with anything “Will” and it was so liberating! I thought that I would be completely torn up wondering what he was up to, if he was screwing around, even if he was missing me…🙄. Noooopppee!!! What happened was I was free, truly and completely, for the first time In. My. Entire. Life! I was of course in a severely limited environment with little to no outside contact but that is not what I mean. I mean free in the sense that I did not, one time, feel obligated to another person. Not responsible for someone else’s feelings or well-being. Unencumbered by the caretaking of anyone but myself. I let go. Entirely. God (or whomever our Higher Power may be) is the only One who has control so it is pointless to try to obtain it and an incredible deep breath when one realizes that no one else can have it over us.  I discovered that Will, in my reality, is superfluous to who I am and is not a necessity in my life going forward. I have no desire to jump back into the pool of co-dependence and love addiction that he thrives on.

The Not So Good: I was forced to face my abandonment issues and it was the most difficult thing I have ever done. I was taken back, through somatic experiencing, to my birth, my adoption, my childhood and teen years. It was ugly, heart-breaking, tremendously difficult and the pain was indescibable. But, I would do it all again for the clarity of mind and peace that I have now having gone through it. I gained an incredible amount of knowledge about why I chose Will in the first place and why I need not ever choose him again. I learned that my gut has always been right regarding my mother and my sister and that my decision to divorce myself from such unhealthy, toxic relationships was one of the best ones I have ever made. I learned that pain is truly the way to progress, as cliche as that sounds. And there was a whole helluvalot of pain. But there was much, much more progress. I literally and figuratively burned those things in my past that I no longer needed and said goodbye to the many things and several people who have held me back, held me down or held me responsible for their own flaws. I faced my own flaws, confronted them, and accepted myself for who I am.

Going Forward: I am going to live my life for me. I will no longer be abused by anyone in any regard. I am strong and will remain so because my worth is great. I am no longer broken. I will continue in treatment to help me through the challenging decisions and transitions that life holds for me in the near future that will help define my life in the long term.

My Most Valuable Lessons:

1.  I re-learned how to laugh. At the ridiculous, the silly, the wit and humor of others who can laugh at themselves, and at the absolutely absurd drama that people create for themselves when they are not in their right minds. Really. It’s  hilarious.
2. Hurt people, hurt others. And they will continue to do so when they cannot dull the pain through their addictions, through sobriety and long into recovery because it has then become a habit. Many, many years into recovery and hurt people may one day decide it is enough, but until then, their pain is too great so the hurt continues. I learned that I will stay away from these people and never become one.
3. Love does not conquer all…truth and trust does. And without truth and trust, completely and totally, love cannot survive. I learned not only to trust several people I met but to love them. I found this process amazingly fast and easy because of one thing: honesty. When one is truthful about themselves, the good, the bad and the ugly, others are willing to trust them. When trust is present, love is allowed to thrive. I found all three while I was away…truth, trust and love. I will never settle for anything less again. With myself or anyone else.
4. Most people are good and decent and want to better themselves. People I met were all fighting their own battles but most had one thing in common: they were where they were in life because of their own inability to discern other good people from the toxic ones and had all been exposed to the toxicity of these types of people in childhood. As a group, we all learned how to determine how to distinguish good from toxic and eliminate the toxic. That is a lesson not only learned but one that needs to be lived every single day. We were ALL there because we were too loving and caring of others and not enough of ourselves. And the ones we cared the most about, were the ones who damaged us all the most.

I know I will still have my struggles and I will still have my moments, but for the most part, this time, my running away was the absolute best thing I could have done..for my own peace of mind, my future and my health. There has been a hole in my life and I have sometimes fallen into it, or jumped into it and have even been pushed into it. It is time to get rid of the hole. Not only have I stopped digging, I am starting to fill it in.