I know you like when I admit that I was wrong and you were right, at least I try to keep my cool when I’m thrown into a fire, and they go “I hate to say I told you so”, but they love to say they told me so…
I have been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what makes me tick. I’m finding out that a lot of the things that I feel are caused by repressed anger. And it’s not a great feeling. Depression and anxiety stem from anger that’s buried. Years and years of burying deep into my guts. If I had known that 100 years later I would be in this position, I would have just let it all out while it was happening. The thing is that no amount of therapy or talking it out will change anything that I’m going through right now. Those things won’t resolve years of damage that I’ve done to myself. For some ridiculous reason, I am an emotional hoarder and have chosen to let all of this stuff stick around and eat me alive. I haven’t given up hope on myself, it’s just that I’m tired and this all feels so stupid.
I never realized how angry I was until I started this healing journey. It never occurred to me that the feelings were related to anger. When I think about all of the times that I rage cried and explained to people “I’m not sad, I’m crying because I’m frustrated!” it seems that the writing was right there on the wall. I just chose to ignore it and blame something that seemed more logical. Of course I cry when things legitimately make me sad. But the crying I do when I’m angry is very different. It’s almost childlike. And when I do the mental inventory of all the times that I have big cried in my life, the majority of those times was because I was big fucking mad.
Lately I have been feeling like a walking trigger. Everything is bothering me. Because for so long I have been in this survival mode of making sure everyone else is okay. Making sure that I did what everyone else needed me to do for them while ignoring my own needs and never asking for help. And now that I’ve admitted to people that maybe I’m not alright all the time, they help me and I don’t want it. At least not in that way. I guess I spent my life, unconsciously, taking care of everything just so people would love me in the way that I really needed. Except that’s not how anything should work. And now I’m here, in this very stupid place, and it’s like mentally I’ve reverted back to a child like state where I just want to throw temper tantrums all day. Just like when I was a child and no one cared to listen, I’m still fucking here. And it’s just not okay.
Very recently I came to a huge realization. There has always been this nagging feeling of dread when it comes to taking care of anything involving money. It started off small and has just grown into this absolute monster that has completely consumed me. I am now at the point where it is crippling and making it more and more difficult to function. Anyway, last week something very basic happened, but it brought me to this revelation and I want to talk about it.
My grandmother is 101 years old. I have been taking care of her finances since her 85th birthday. As if handling my own financial problems wasn’t enough, I went and added another person into the mix. It’s my grandmother and want to do everything I can to make sure that she is taken care of, and what’s better than a hyper-vigilant anxiety ridden granddaughter when it comes to finances, right?! Anyway, she has been paying into a very small life insurance policy for the last 15 years and I am the beneficiary of it. Last week, she received the payout for it. It made perfect sense to me… after all of these years of quarterly payments, it’s paid off. They sent her the check, boom, we’re done. So, of course, I tell my mom about it, in passing, just saying I was going to deposit it into her account. My mother asks if it’s a real check. Why would they pay it out? You should call them, what if it’s a mistake? Don’t deposit anything without calling them first. Wait, what?!
On paper, there was no reason at all for me to question any of this. It said on the check stub exactly what it was for. The policy wasn’t some absurd amount that was going to send my grandmother into another tax bracket. It was tiny and she finished making payments on it because she is 100 and fucking 1 years old. So, like a CHOOCH I called them, because I was instantly filled with dread that somehow if I deposited this check without calling the company, that I would find out later that I was wrong, the check was fake and my grandmother was doomed. Fucking why?! I will tell you why. Because my whole life, I have been told to question every single thing when it comes to my decisions. That I am not a trustworthy person, even though I have been handling everything.
This is years of destroying any chance I ever had at believing that I can do anything without outside validation. I can’t be trusted to make big decisions because I don’t know any better, even after all of these years of being a fully functional adult. And the best part is… I have fucking allowed this. Without even knowing it, I have become this robot who seeks out validation for every decision that needs to be made. This stupid check arriving in the mail and the conversation that followed was enough to open my eyes to all of this.
I wasn’t this bad 5 years ago. I guess I’ve just been worn down into submission out of sheer exhaustion. Now that I’m thinking about it, there was a time where I did stand up for myself, but I picked my battles wisely. Standing on my laurels when it came to hills I would die on, and then allowing others to dictate my direction when it was a decision that I wasn’t 100% on anyway. Or if it was something I didn’t really want to do, I could easily shift blame to someone else not agreeing with it and that’s why I ultimately didn’t do it. Nice little system I had going there for a while.
Except this isn’t working anymore. I have zero faith in anything. I have become a shell of who I was, which wasn’t a whole lot to begin with. And now it seems I’m even in debt when it comes to my own self worth. Things are spiraling out of fucking control. And I’m glad that I am aware of it now. It’s just that I can’t let go of the fear and just trust myself. And it’s causing a LOT of internal problems for me. And it’s part of the reason I am in this mind frame now. I don’t trust anything that comes from me. I can’t make decisions about my own life without having a panic attack. That needs to change and I am working on it. This is a huge piece of the puzzle in this healing journey. Because I question every single thing that I do, with zero confidence to back it, asking for everyone’s approval before I do anything, and that is fucking bat-shit crazy.
It’s still really difficult for me to stand by my decisions. I hate giving people opportunities to tell me that they told me so. Because I feel like I have a lot of people in my life that are just waiting to smile at my errs in judgement. And that makes me really fucking sad. It’s not everyone, but it’s important people. And this is just another realization that I’ve stumbled upon that makes me so fucking sad. Because I really want to believe that I have people in my corner, but the ones that share my DNA seem to smirk when I do it wrong. It feels like people are waiting for me to fail so they can scoop me up when I do and show me that I really was never capable. What. The. Fuck.
This is why I have lived with this underlying victim mentality. And it has hindered my growth. It has set me back in so many aspects of my life. Because we all just want to be fucking saved, even if the feeling is unconscious. We just want people to know what we’re thinking without us having to say it or ask for it. The truth is that no one is going to save you. I’m not saying that hopelessly, I’m stating a fact. You have to be able to save yourself. You have to be able to write your story and have faith in yourself, even when you’re wrong. And I need to keep reminding myself of that. This is MY life. And I don’t know exactly where I lost control, but it’s time to take it back. I have to learn to be okay with the commentary that will come. And I have to be able to tell myself that whatever I was wrong about was a lesson and grow from it.
The anger and the sadness that have been consuming my life lately are starting to subside. Things are shifting and I am learning to let go of the feelings and memories that cause me pain. I have to stop associating current situations with the memories that I am harboring that caused similar reactions. When I see it happening, I now have the power to change the reaction. I can’t continue to hold on to resentment from things in my past. And I have to be able to turn those situations around now that I’m aware. Controlling what I can and letting go of what I can’t. It’s an insane process and I guess I better start showing up for it.
There will always be people ready to proudly tell you “I told you so” but that’s a them problem, not a you problem. There’s something a little bit wrong with finding joy in someone else’s mistakes. Again, that’s on them. So this is here now for me to continuously refer back to when I need it. And it’s here for you too in case you need a reminder. Everything will be alright. I need to be kind with myself and understand that life is a balance. Things aren’t happening to me, they’re happening for me.
I know it was another all over the place post, but it’s important to write it out here. It is important that I keep telling myself that my destiny is not to be an angry and miserable person. That all of this is happening now so that I can become the person I truly want to be. And most importantly, I don’t need any one else’s input when it comes to the life that I want to live, so it’s up to me to stop actively seeking it out in order to move forward.
As always, thanks for reading and here if you need me š
throw me into the fire, throw me in, pull me out again, “I hate to say I told you so” but they love to say they told me so…
Song name: TOLD YOU SO/ Artist: Paramore/ Year: 2017
TALKING ON EGGSHELLS 