Pain

There is a new writing challenge I have decided to take on. Are you ready to come with me?

Lets talk about PAIN.

Memories quickly flood my brain from the first skinned knee to the first loss suffered by a fragile heart. Pain is an incredible phenomenon there are different thresholds that the body and mind can take.

My pain was a part of my identity for a very long time. It shaped how I viewed myself and the world around me. The mental strain of being a child of sexual trauma - dysfunctional family settings, broken relationships - abuse and chemical dependency was all a part of my "pain" one related to the other. I stopped being a prisoner of my pain and started the process of healing those old emotional wounds.

Only the people closest to me were able to sense the traces of the girl of the past. 

What was I holding on to for so long? The disappointment of not feeling ever "good enough" not reaching the potential of what others had set as expectations for myself? Not getting the gratification of being loved unconditionally and accepted for who I was in my "onliness" I am the only me. Not perfect, Just. Me.

When I learned to let go of that, I began to experience freedom. I was able to lift the pressure from my chest - the spinning in my head slowed. My heart was no longer heavy.

Its not a permanent fix, there will be additional bouts of pain - but the resilience of the human spirit comes from true work, processing and commitment to freedom.

In my adolescent years the idea of self mutilation was something that I played and experimented with over the years. I was in an abusive relationship and chemically dependent on many different substances. My high school boyfriend would fight - physically hurting each other and to cope with the emotional damage I would then cause myself wounds and watch the blood leak from my body.

Physical pain is easier to endure and process - it makes sense you can see it touch it feel it - cause and effect. Emotional damages are a bit harder to process because it causes you to think out of self - and logically about what is happening in the world around you. It took me so many years to be able to process healthy and constructive growth.

The greatest gift that I gave myself was the ability to not need to numb out - pain. To feel it, understand it - learn and grow from it.

Pain is just a reminder, that you are still alive.

~daydreamer

Accountability

Well, it seems my messages have caught the eyes of some new readers. Thank you for noticing me. The answers that you sought for understanding have been here all along.

I am calling this entry - accountability - and I am certain it is a four letter word to some. Lets breakdown what accountability or being accountable really means.

Definition of accountability
: the quality or state of being accountable
especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions

Let me take a piece of humble pie. Let me show and display what it means to be accountable.

I am not perfect. I am at times ill tempered, short fused and demanding. I say things that hurt when my capacity to endure has been exceeded. I try to operate out of a place of love and often times it doesn't get read like that. I can get belligerent if I feel threatened.

But behaving inhumanely even if some one has crossed your lines does not make it okay. Trying to administer the same level of fire in a tempered moment of dissonance is damaging.  Allowing yourself to become irrational because of overwhelming emotions is not an excuse. Having any impairment does not make you exempt from responsibility.

I have hurt you. I held you to standards you were not ready to achieve - not by any true fault of your own. There are elements in your world that no one will ever be able to understand and the chemical changes in your brain may be irreparable. Mental health and addiction is disease. Not as popularly understood as cancer, polio, or missing limbs.

I was too close to see you as a human with impairment - I saw you instead as a threat to my well being, a danger to my heart. Unsafe. Monstrous. My fight or flight mentality went full blown, and I armored up and stepped into your battles. At first fighting for you and with you, then fighting for me and against you.

We could spend eternity pointing fingers - blaming each other. One more wrong than the other. One smarter than the other. One more flexible than the other. One more forgiving than the other. The ideas of cause and effect and operating from a reactionary space only did more damage to what we had promised to protect. Each other.

I should have never let my temper get in the way. I should have never spent my patience so rapidly. I should have never reacted to spin outs in the spiteful manners. I should have never said hateful things even if I was wounded. I should have never let dysfunction spoil my love.

Notice, I didn't say - I blame you, its your fault, its because you did this or that. You are not responsible for my reaction to difficult situations. I am. And I was wrong. It is never okay to treat anyone inhumanely. Regardless of circumstances.

This is my apology. As simple as that. I am sorry for my role in the destruction of us.

I needed to learn the hard way, I can not heal you. I can not change you. I can not under any circumstance sacrifice my well being, for yours. I am my own worst enemy when I take on the role of the fixer. I see only the mission to save a soul and nearly kill myself in the process.

We were human magnets.

You drawn to my spirit and my light
Me drawn to your need to be filled.

But what happens when you pour white paint into a can of black?

The white paint empties and the mess of black spills over the floors.

My capacity to self heal - is a painful process. But through it - my light and wings regenerate, and I set on my journey again.

~daydreamer