Apologizing for being Me

I’m going to start by warning you that this post is about me. It may help people who have gone through something similar but it’s not about the people in my life who interact with me. This time it really is all about me.

I’ve been in serious therapy for several months working on identifying why I am the way I am, how it affects my life, how it affects those around me, and learning skills to improve my life. It all started when I felt like my life was out of control and I didn’t know who I was anymore.

The work has been hard but rewarding and I think some of those around me have been impressed. Some not so much. I’ve explored why I became a constant worrier and control freak and why I was so bossy. I’ve learned that I have to be aware my behavior affects all of the people around me. Not just me and not just a few.

The problem, as I’m beginning to notice, is that it seems that the focus has been on assuming that everything about me was wrong and needed to be changed. Of course, I am responsible for where my therapy is going. But now, I find myself feeling like all I do is apologize for being me. I mean, there are some aspects of me that might not be great but I feel like they make me who I am. Is it really necessary to change everything that might not be perfect?

For example, I really don’t like to hurt other peoples’ feelings. I will go to great lengths to try to avoid that. I will avoid discussions or tell small lies if it helps to protect someone’s feelings. Sometimes it can be a problem because, in the past, I’ve allowed myself to be manipulated into doing things I didn’t want to do in order to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. Now, I find myself using avoidance or those “little white lies”. Not a great solution but I don’t want to be someone who is comfortable hurting others.

Also, I don’t like conflict. I have examined why that is and understand it but I still have a great dislike of conflict. If someone says or does something rude, I’m likely to ignore it if possible. When someone is upset with me, I go into a very rational state and try to analyze the situation. It’s my way of avoiding conflict. I have found the only time I willingly engage in conflict is in defense or support of those I love. Unless it’s really necessary to achieve something important, I don’t see the point.

I like people who need me. I like to feel needed. I know that can lead to manipulation and abuse, but I feel good when I am able to help others. Is that wrong. Is that something about me that has to be changed?

Some people think I need to put up walls so that I won’t get used but I don’t like conflict and don’t want to hurt others’ feelings. And I like those things about myself. If I want to help other people, and I learn to and practice setting reasonable boundaries, isn’t that okay? And by the way, I am an adult. Don’t I get to decide these things for myself?

Becoming introspective about relationships

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Changing

I’m working on growing from the controlling, controlled person I had to be as a child to become a relaxed, happier person. It’s hard work that takes skills and support, but it’s working.

Old habits and patterns are being reformed for my needs today. I started therapy because I had come to a place in my life where I felt everything was out of control and I didn’t know who I was or who or what I wanted to be. I felt completely out of touch with reality. It was all because I felt I had lost complete control of my world and everything in it.

If you can’t understand what I’m describing, you’ve probably never been in a place where you felt you had to control everything and everyone around you in order to survive. That doesn’t mean you had a perfect life. It just means that you didn’t develop these particular coping skills.

I grew up thinking that I was born to be a perfectionist, a worrier, bossy, and stressful. I thought that that was how I was designed by God, or whoever created me, and that there was nothing I could do to change my behavior or personality. I was stuck with living with these traits and the negative results of them. It was a heavy burden from I learned at about the age of 6 or 7 into adulthood.

As a perfectionist, I never allowed myself the freedom to make a mistake. Of course, everyone makes mistakes but my mistakes came with intense guilt and self-punishment. I also was intensely hard on my siblings to strive not to make mistakes and hard on myself to cover for any mistakes they might make.

Naturally, this made me bossy. I’m the oldest child of five. I was naturally expected to be the leader. I was held responsible for my siblings. I often heard, “you’re the oldest, so….”. As a result, I felt it was not only my responsibility but my right to tell them what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Sometimes I think I even told them how to feel about it. This was my way of trying to maintain calm and peace in a chaotic atmosphere.

Since I really didn’t have any power to control everything and I certainly couldn’t be perfect, I felt intense stress and guilt most of the time. I even felt guilty about feeling guilty. I felt guilty about feeling stressed. I had an unrealistic idea about what I should be able to do and what life should look like. I worked constantly to achieve this unrealistic idea.

Many times, over the years, I hit a wall, but I always managed to force my way through or around it. Sometimes I even went to therapy about specific issues and was able to get help with those issues. Until about six months ago when I found myself at the bottom of a well with no idea what to do or what I wanted to do. Back to therapy I went.

I began working on why I thought I was the way I was and why I thought I had to be this way. A huge light went on when I understood that this was not who I was. This was just a set of skills that I had adopted to navigate a period of my life. If those skills were no longer (or never were) of use to me, I could change them. I could change!

That idea, I could change, was a life saver to me. It is what has made all the difference to me. It is the anchor in my therapy. Now, I can begin to work on what I want to change and how. It doesn’t mean this is easy. It isn’t.

Perhaps the hardest thing about therapy, for anyone, is that it requires one to admit they are wrong. I am wrong. I make mistakes. I expect others to cater to me. I impose my will on others. I am unreasonable. I need to look at my faults in order to find the best me I can be.

After making these admissions, I was able to create better connections with the people around me. I was then able to set reasonable boundaries for myself and for others. These boundaries set me free. Free from perfection, from overthinking, from overburdening myself, from guilt. They allow me the space to learn who I am and what I want. For the first time, I am giving myself permission to be me.

You’d think all of this would be great news. And it is, mostly. Some of it is hard for my friends and family to understand. I explain that nothing changes my love for them, but I love myself more. I think they can live with that. But, sometimes, I still find myself a little confused and afraid.

This new me is not someone I’m used to. I like her a lot. I feel so much better both physically and emotionally. I know I don’t ever want to go back but it still feels strange sometimes. Also, I find myself a little afraid that I’ll wake up and everything will be gone. I’ll be back to the old me, worried, stressed, controlling, etc.

My therapist says that I now have two choices. I can choose to behave the way I used to. Using the old tools I had and getting the old results that kept me in a state of worry, control, and overall stress. Or I can choose to use the new tools I am developing and set boundaries that liberate me to be the person I am now. Free to be happy, to grow, and to enjoy life and the people in my life that I love so very much without trying to control them. It’s just a matter of making the right choice until it becomes a habit, ingrained in me.

Transformation is never easy, I guess. Learning new habits takes time. I learned the old habits at a young age and kept them until I was 64 years old. Of course, I have to expect it will take a while to feel comfortable in the new habits. How long will it take? Will I ever really feel comfortable, or will I always feel like I have to be on guard? Only time will tell but I’m willing to do the work and make the changes necessary for my happiness and the happiness of those I love.

Positivity

Daily writing prompt

Describe your ideal week.

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I decided that I wanted to write something positive for a change. I had lots of positive feelings bubbling up but couldn’t get them to organize into something coherent. Then I saw the above writing prompt and decided this is a good place to start.

My ideal week. Actually, let’s be honest. We all have several ideas of what an ideal week would be depending on our energy levels. If I’m feeling high energy, I might want to go and do and see. If I’m low energy, I’d want to cocoon and recharge and comfort. So, let’s examine a couple of types of weeks I’ve had that have given me positive, pleasant feelings lately.

First, let’s start with what is most common for me. Being retired, I have more home time. I spend time with my husband and friends.

A typical ideal week would include time with my husband talking about our family, especially our son and his fiancée. Discussing the news, the comics, the letters to the editor, and the “dear Abby” type of letters in the newspaper. Planning our vacations. Since we’re both retired, we’re able to plan wonderful cruises and driving trips to places all over the world.

Time spent crocheting and knitting. I love creating afghans and children’s sweaters for new babies. I knit and crochet blankets for people I care for. Sometimes even for people I don’t even know but someone I care for knows. As I work on the project I think of the person and hope for love and good things for them. It brings me pleasure and peace while I do this.

No time spent cooking. I hate to cook. I don’t enjoy the act of cooking. I don’t enjoy figuring out what to make, gathering the ingredients, putting everything together, or serving it. Cleaning up after is just more work that goes with cooking. If I lived alone, I’d never cook again. So, an ideal week for me would mean I didn’t have to cook at all. That’s one of the things I like most about traveling.

Now, on to the high-energy ideal week. You can probably guess what that would mean. It would include lots of going places for pleasure. Most likely my husband and I would be travelling. And I would not be cooking!

We may be driving around someplace we’ve never been before; learning about a part of the U.S. or Canada that we’ve never seen before. We’ve enjoyed many such trips. There is so much to see and learn about the world around us if we only take the time to go.

Or we might be heading for a cruise. We have cruised to many destinations. Hawaii, Alaska, the British Isles, the Baltics, the Mediterranean, New Zealand and Australia. We still have many more on our list of to-dos. Panama Canal, Africa, back to Alaska, and so on.

If not traveling, I’d be spending time with friends having coffee, breakfast, lunch, or dinners. Talking and laughing about shared experiences and life’s foibles. Sharing our problems and big and small irritations. Knowing that I’m with someone I can share openly with and who will support me with love. And always leaving feeling better than when I arrived.

For me, any ideal week involves doing something for or with someone that I care about. That’s really what matters most.

Let Yourself Relax

Sometimes it’s nice to relax and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. That’s what I feel like doing now. Since I’ve been working through things in therapy, it’s much easier for me to do this and I’m grateful for that. After all, it really is the simple things that make life full and happy.

This morning I was the first one up, so I was able to enjoy some real quiet time. I enjoy that. I sip on my first cup of coffee and look out into my backyard. My yard backs onto a wildlife preserve so it is especially beautiful.

We have the woods and the creek with a cove that comes up behind our house. At this time of the year, the woods are fully green. You can’t see very far into them but sometimes you can see something looking out. We often see deer, fox, raccoons, and rabbits, just to name a few. They wander in and out of our yard and are such a pleasure to watch.

Depending on the tide, the cove will be full of water or mud flats or somewhere in between. It all has its own beauty. In all cases, we get to see the egrets. We get both white and blue egrets. I especially like when the young come out in the spring. They like to come into the yard and stand very still. It’s like we have egret statues around the yard! Sometimes during high tides, the water rises into our yard. Then we see the egrets standing in the water in our yard looking very much like they own the place.

We also have a nest of eagles we keep an eye on. They are so beautiful to watch soar across the sky. They can be very bossy pushing the egrets off the posts in the marsh whenever they decide they want to land on that spot. The egrets don’t fight for position.

In the spring, we sometimes get young foxes. Last year, we had three. They would come in the yard and play like puppies. Of course, our cats had to give them a wide berth.

The raccoons, turtles, and squirrels are particularly fun. It’s almost as if they know we are watching them. They perform for us and for the camera! The raccoons will hang from my bird feeders swinging around and then posing leaning against the pole waving at me.

All of this natural beauty and activity is such a wonderful way to start a day that I can’t help but feel good. With this for my surrounding world, how can I help but be happy? All I have to do is let myself relax and enjoy it.

The Journey Continues

Well, I’m still a work -in-progress. But aren’t we all? If there’s anyone out there who says, “I’m done growing, learning, developing. I’m who I’m going to be and there is nothing more to me.” then I feel sad for that person. What opportunities they will miss.

My journey began sixty-four years ago. It’s been a winding, up and down road. Much of it was difficult but much of it was wonderful. And I’m so lucky to have come to this place where I can learn to take the wonderful and leave the rest. I can find the best me I want to be.

Currently I’m learning about letting go of my need to control everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING! In the program I’m working I’m trying to identify a “higher power” to whom I can let go of control.

For this purposed, I’m calling my higher power “Power of Peace”. I believe in God, but for this program I want something extra. I want a power specifically designed to work with me becoming my best self. I decided on Power of Peace (POP) because I want a symbol of a force that can bring about positive change over many aspects of life.

It can be difficult for controlling people to give power over to someone or something else. After all, that’s pretty much the definition of being controlling, right? So, the suggestion is to start by giving up our self-hate, self-doubt, and fear. That sounds like a good idea to me. I think I’ll throw in my worry, self-blame, and hyper-responsibility, too.

Now, it’s really easy to type those words but not so easy to actually do what they say. So, here’s how it goes for me. Let’s look inside my brain for a minute. WARNING: It’s not pretty in there! I’ve told myself that I’ve turned over all that stuff to my POP. Then, someone calls me and asks me to do something for them. Of course, I have to help. But I have already promised to help another friend at the same time. And, I have appointments of my own that day, too. How can I possibly say no? I should just forget my own stuff. It’s not important. What kind of friend would I be? I must be a terrible friend. If I were a better person, I’d know how to take care of everything and everyone all the time…You get the picture?

So, after this soundtrack starts to run through my head, I catch it and stop it. Then I say, NO. I’m not doing this anymore. I handed all that crap to POP. I put boundaries in place that allow me to recognize that I matter and that I’m not responsible for solving everyone’s problems. I will do what I can do within my capacity (my therapist’s catch phrase, it works).

Suddenly, my breathing starts to slow down. I feel my chest loosen. The pain and tightness in my head lighten. I feel like I’m someone I can like. I wonder why it took me so long to discover this. I know that I can never go back to being that crazy person.

Let me be clear. This is a long journey and I have only just begun. I know that I will have setbacks and doubts. I know that it will not be easy to unlearn the coping skills I learned and used for sixty-four years. But I also know that I want to be happier, stronger, wiser, and healthier. Not just for myself but also for the people I love and who love me. Is there any better motivation?

My Journey To Discover Myself

Studying the tools of the Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families (ACA) guidebooks.

Let me start by saying that my childhood was not horror movie material. It’s telling won’t even make a terrifying book. But, there was dysfunction, stress, and conflict that affected how I react today. It is that reacting that I am trying to work on now.

Growing up the oldest of five children, I learned to be responsible for everything and everyone. I was that child that adults loved because they could pile all the responsibility on me and know that I could take it. That led to my controlling behavior and constant worrying. Is it any wonder to anyone that I had migraine headaches at eight years old?

As I grew up, I didn’t lose my learned behaviors, I simply perfected them. I became more and more controlling and worried about many more things. I spent hours agonizing about conversations I might have or had. I questioned every single thing I did or didn’t do. Every bite I ate or didn’t eat. Every item I bought or didn’t buy. Every gift I gave or didn’t give. Every word I spoke or didn’t speak.

Can you even imagine how exhausting such an existence would be? Add to that that I was drawn to people who controlled and judged my behavior and I never measured up. I failed eighteen years of inspections at home. Then I married a man with so many rules that even he admitted he couldn’t remember them all in order to write them down for me. That didn’t stop him from expecting me to remember them. So, no matter how much planning and preparation I thought I put into every day, I was destined to be a failure.

I got away from that marriage and into a great one but I still carried all the terrible coping skills and dysfunction from my childhood. Even though I was no longer living with the same dysfunction, I was still using the same type of behavior and strategies. I was still controlling, worried, and believed I was responsible for everything and everyone. I had migraines and trouble sleeping.

At some point in time, most people living this life are going to reach a breaking point. I hit mine about three months ago. I raised my white flag. Through in my towel. Yelled “chicken”. I just gave up.

I didn’t know how to navigate the world because I had lost all control. I didn’t understand the world if I couldn’t control it. I didn’t even know who I was or what I was. I was completely lost and adrift. I finally had to ask for help.

Now, I’m working with a great therapist who helps me see things I either don’t or won’t see. She gives me tools to deal with situations that I struggle with. She prepares me for situations that might arise as I learn, grow, and change. Without her, I couldn’t have made the progress I’ve made thus far.

The ACA books and online groups are my daily support. It’s there that I find that I’m neither crazy nor alone. The stories that are there are familiar. Some are much worse, and some seem to come right out of my own memory, but all have the same feeling. Because of the “sameness”, I can feel a sense of family with these total strangers. And I can find strength in their numbers.

When I read their struggles to overcome learned behaviors, to change relationships, and to become defenders of themselves, I believe that I too can do that. I can dig down and discover my inner child and become comfortable with who I am. I can learn to set healthy boundaries that will create strong, healthy, loving relationships.

With the support of my loved ones, my therapist, and my ACA family, I can be the best version of me. The true version of me. The version of me that I want to be.

My most recent journal assignment was to write a poem describing the exact opposite of myself. Here’s my entry:

Opposite of Me or Who I Wish To Be

Free and easy like a soft breeze

going nowhere and everywhere.

Spreading smiles and love and light.

No worries, weight, or hurt.

Strong and sure like the ocean.

Spreading over the earth.

Carrying life, wealth, and strength

to all who come upon it.

Wise and assured like the ages.

Giving comfort, advice, and solace.

Knowing truth and living it.

Despite the doubts all around.

In closing, I just want to say that my journey is about me and only me. I’m not the only one taking a journey like mine but my journey is mine to take. If I have said anything that touches you, I suggest you continue searching for your journey. We are all just people looking for the best lives we can live being the best people we can be. My best wishes are with you.

Everything Old is New Again

I’m back. It’s been a long while since I wrote or posted. Life just got by me. I let the things happening around me get to me. Now I’m in therapy and working on issues and find I need this blog.

Therapy…is that taboo or acceptable now? You know it goes in and out of favor. For me, it’s definitely in and has been since my mother died 29 years ago. I guess I used her as my therapist until then. So I’ve been in and out of therapy as I felt I needed it. This time I’ve also joined Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families (ACA). What a mouthful, huh? After exploring their online information, I couldn’t deny that I very closely identified with their members. What an eye-opening experience. And, no I didn’t have a horrible childhood. Even dysfunctional families can provide semi-normal childhoods.

So, therapy. I started, this time, because I felt my whole life was out of control and I didn’t know who I was. Really, had no idea who I was. What did I think, believe, want. My head was exploding and the world was chaos. My therapist was able to talk me into a calm place where I was able to see more clearly. I’m still exploring the answers to those questions, but now I know that I can find answers. I’ll probably always be looking for answers since we change as we age and as the world around us changes.

So, therapy. I started, this time, because I felt my whole life was out of control and I didn’t know who I was. Really, had no idea who I was. What did I think, believe, want. My head was exploding and the world was chaos.

My therapist was able to talk me into a calm place where I was able to see more clearly. I’m still exploring the answers to those questions, but now I know that I can find answers. I’ll probably always be looking for answers since we change as we age and as the world around us changes.

In therapy, I have learned to see things differently. I look at situations from different sides. I thought I did that before and, to some extent, I did but she’s shown me new ways to see things. She gave me tools to use in conversations so that I could be sure that I was listening to the other person and hearing what they were trying to say.

She’s given me tools to help me navigate relationships. I’ve always struggled with conflict and boundaries. I’ve never been able to stand up for myself and not back down when I do try to take a stand. I’ve always been the one who compromised, gave in, went along, sacrificed for the benefit of the others. Now I’m learning that that isn’t normal. That it isn’t required to be loved. That I shouldn’t have to do that.

In ACA, I’m learning some of the same things. I’m learning why I act the way I do. And I’m learning why those behaviors don’t serve me anymore and what I can do about it now. How to set boundaries and stick with them. How to understand who I am deep inside. How to become my real self. How to deal with the fallout from the changes that I must make to become the person I want to be.

Although I’m just starting this journey, just the little things I’ve done and seen have made me happier and lifted a weight from with my chest. This is something I didn’t even know I needed. It’s something I never knew was inside of me. I just knew I was unhappy, confused, angry, scared, and desperate among other feelings I can’t even identify. Now, all of those feelings have receded. They ebb and flow as I travel this journey.

My hope and prayer is that if I stick to my therapy and ACA, I can lose all the sadness, anger, fear, confusion, and desperation inside of me and find my “self”. I don’t know, but I have to try.