Some Thoughts That are HARD

I had a lot to think about and process last week. Things that people said, not at all in relation to me, really reflected what is going on in my life right now. This post is a train of thought related to the first thing that was said.

So I am very excited that our OOO center is having an 8 week WRAP class starting in 2 or 3 weeks. I keep bringing it up to drum up interest, to then go "But really I hardly know anything about it. Ask P. She's in charge." I've been totally putting her on the spot all the time. But I just have to say she did a GREAT sales pitch the last time! She said, "Everyone takes many steps forward in their recovery, but everyone also takes some steps back. WRAP is a tool to help you start taking steps forward again."

I got an upsetting email a week and a half ago that I have since responded to and taken care of, but I hadn't yet at that point. Her comment kind of hit the nail on the head. Hey, I'm human. I do stupid things A LOT, probably more then most people, but still, I'm human, and it is human to do stupid things. The important thing is that I'm taking some steps forward right now. A professor of mine, as well as Jonathan Mooney, once said something very simple, "Do the next right thing." I still have the print out she gave me of that somewhere.

It is important for me to focus on the fact that I am attempting to do this right now, although it is HARD to undo damage and heal scars. It unearths old wounds that are hard to deal with. I have to focus on the fact that I have a short range plan right now that I came up with all by myself :-) I have to focus on my support. I have to focus on the fact that in the last 2 weeks or so I have noticed some ENORMOUS progress (that unearthed some wounds, but hey, what can I do). I have to focus on the fact that I KICKED ASS in Annapolis last week.

Back in November SocialWorker24/7 wrote that "Therapy is a sloooooww process for most people. It requires a lot of baby steps, backwards steps, and no steps." At the time that she wrote this I was frustrated with my no steps. Now I am torn with my forward steps because they HURT and they are leaving me raw.

I received my diagnosis 26 months ago. I keep waiting for life to become easy, or at least easier, and it has not yet. I still feel stuck--as stuck as I did when I was 15. To borrow a phrase from Rob, now that I know what my monster is, why can't I tame it? My monster won't ever go away, in fact I actually don't even want it to go away, but it would be nice if it wasn't so damaging. I want to be able to work it to my advantage, as opposed to feeling as if it has all the power over me. As opposed to it always wreaking havoc on my life.

[image description: My Pet Monster was a popular toy in the '80s. We had the orange one, which this is a picture of. You can see the cuffs of the shackles in this picture, but unfortunately not the chain that broke apart in the middle when you pulled on it, just like the ADAPT dude!]