Mental Health

I see you, inner child.

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I’ve been doing the work (as per Nicole LaPera), and have been asked to write letter(s) to my inner child. And so, I begin.

Caretaker Sarah,

I see you there, putting others’ comforts and well-being above your own, because that’s what you did as a kid. You did all you could to be helpful and good, so dad and mom kept loving you, even though it wasn’t you they were angry at – they were mad at each other.

I see you, needing to be needed, giving and giving as a means to help you feel worthy.

I see you, not listening to your own needs out of fear of being selfish or rude.

I see your need for approval from others, and a self-worth that depends on what others think of you.

I see you apologizing when you’re not even at fault.

I see you doing everything to avoid conflict at all costs, wanting to keep the peace you could never find in your childhood, at times to your own detriment.

I see you, struggling through being a constant giver to your children, feeling selfish and hallow by dare considering scaling back your selflessness for the sake of your own sanity, and then hating yourself when doing it.

I see you, I hear you, I love you.

They were mad, but not with you.

Anxiously Attached Sarah,

I see you there, struggling with self-esteem, believing you’re not good enough for someone to stay. This is a fear instilled into you by your mother’s inconsistent parenting, toxic emotional responses, and bipolar tendencies. Your childhood was a time of reeling and on unsteady ground. Where could you stand if you didn’t know where you stood with her?

I see you and your need for constant reassurance.

I see you there, among a lifetime of settling. Anyone that will have you, gets you. And then you get fixated, in love with love.

I see you there, clingy and needy. Terrified of being alone and abandoned, you pull and you need and you need. But then you panic and you push and push – what if they leave you? What if they find someone better?

I see you and your anxiety and jealousy and reading too much into EVERYTHING when your person is not there.

I see you, always afraid you’re going to mess it all up, afraid to speak. Fear driving you to deny your own needs for the sake of keeping the course – a course driven by anxiety, worry, and need.

I see you, I hear you, I love you.

She was sick and unwell, and it had no reflection on you.

*

You are enough, Sarah. You are enough.

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Journaling, Mental Health

One way, and then another.

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(I wrote this yesterday and promptly forgot to post it. Please know that today was a better day, however.)

I am having a particularly shitty day.

I’m not here to talk about said day though, because we all have shitty days. We all have days we wish possessed a restart button. We all have days we’ve wanted desperately to be over. We all have been there, and it’s a (shitty) fact of life. A shitty day does not make me unique or special, it makes me human.

In hopes of being able to see myself past this day, I am here to write. Not about shitty days, but about an entirely different subject. One that if I put more focus on, could help me better understand how I operate, and could potentially eschew today’s grumblings about shitty days to another day.

Maybe?

I’ve started therapy again for the second time this year. It’s… been a lot.

There are two predominant reasons as to why I was driven back.

Firstly, my self-confidence is staggeringly low these days. I’ve lost a lot of weight since the beginning of March and I’m now at a size I haven’t seen since high school. Looking at my face in the mirror these days is a continual surprise, and I catch angles of my new figure in photos and am shocked. Despite that, my self-image and self-worth remain unchanged, stubbornly and frighteningly so. What I thought would be a reciprocal relationship of losing weight/loving myself – it has not panned out. My painfully deprecating sense of humour, pitiful self-worth, and floundering sense of self, all of it is still very much with me, 80+ pounds lost be damned. I don’t like it. I don’t like that I can’t be complimented without telling someone why they are wrong for doing so. I don’t like that my immediate gut reaction to men who are interested in me (and lately there has been one in particular who’s caught my eye) is to convince them as to why they are wrong for doing so. My self-confidence seems intent on sabotaging my very self, and I have to stop it. If I don’t, it threatens to push people away. It threatens to be my undoing.

Frankly, I refuse.  Fuck you, self. I’m better than that, and I need to start believing that.

Secondly, and said succinctly, I don’t know how to be alone. Said more specifically, being alone in the evenings is something I possess a staggeringly terrible capacity to tolerate. In the day time, work takes over my mental faculties. I can easily manage my emotions and needs. But once my kids go to bed in the evening and I am left to my own devices from 7:30-10:45PM, it’s a different story. It’s as if I forget that I have hobbies of my own, and I feel lost without someone to chat with and take up all of that “space”. I grab onto whomever (lately, that someone I mentioned earlier) will fill the void of that time chunk, seeking attention and conversation. Which is not bad, per say, but I don’t know how to fill that space on my own. If I don’t have someone there, it all falls apart. I try to distract myself with video games, books, and TV shows, but it’s only a temporary solution. Merely a Band-Aid for my deep-seated need for continuous companionship in my evenings, and if I lack it, I fall. Hard. Therein come waves of feelings of “less than” which start to bleed into my already shitty self-confidence, further perpetuating a cycle of sadness that I do not want.

That I do not want.

I want to be able to be alone (if need be). I want to not find it scarily open and empty anymore if I don’t have someone there to talk to in the evenings and take up the space.

I want to know how to take up that space on my own.

And if I could love/like/not dislike myself just a bit more in such motions?  

I’d like that, too.

A lot.

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Journaling, Mental Health

My first memory.

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I don’t have one.

I try. God, I try. I dig deep into the back of the dusty corner of my memory, but I know know not what is real or taken from a picture. It all feels too far removed for me to be sure. Strings I pull at, hoping I tug at *the* one which unlocks something of truth… but mere strings they remain.

I spoke with a good friend of mine once about this. Her earliest memory is not a memory, but someting taken from a photo. Outside of that, she doesn’t remember much else of her childhood. Her counselor suggested this could have been due to repression – a tampering down for the sake of trauma.

Knowing my childhood, I wonder the same.

I reach out to my brother and sister, curiously so. Do they remember? If so, what was their first? We don’t talk all that much these days, and this question they may find strange. I persist.

But before I hear back, I stop myself. There has to be *something*. Even if it took place at the age of, say, 12 — you have some recollection of your childhood. Why not try to write it out?

I remember long days spent on the very flat and large rock next to the spring wash, towels laid out with Jess and Rachel. Uno played for hours under a warm sun. Dips into the wash – chilly from the snowy runoff. Hair slowly drying in the sun as the hours crept leisurely along.

I remember rides with Aaron in his go-cart. A mad man he was, pedal floored as he raced around the rocky and wooded neighborhood, reckless for speed and thrill. I’d hold onto that red roll cage for the life of me, terrified I’d spill out onto the dusty roads. I still have a scar on my right knee as evidence of that having eventually happpened.

I remember sitting on Kimberly’s deck, drinking tea with far too much milk in it, pretending to be regal ladies. Trips inside her dark house to see what her mom had on the telly – often Supermarket Sweeps. Kim’s laughter at my learning that phone was in fact not spelled “fone”.

I remember my first crush, Jacob, and sleeping with his professional, wallet sized karate photo under my pillow for nights on end. I worshipped that photo. Jacob had no idea I existed, I was merely the younger sister of his sister’s best friend. Back then, tho, I could have sworn it was love.

I remember my dad whistling as he drove. All of us in the back, covered bed of his truck, on the carpeted built in that was dangerously unsafe but perfectly acceptable by the 90’s standards. On the radio would be his Jazz CDs, and like a bird he’d whistle their every note. His radar on the dash occasionally beeping in tune.

I remember my mom’s big, wooden, roll top desk. She didn’t use it all that much, there sitting against the window, but I found it magical. Afternoons I’d spend at it, pretending to play secretary. I’d bring out her ledger books and pens, acting as if I could balance them (spoiler alert: I could not).

I struggle to evoke memories that directly involve my mom, For those that I do, I remember the fighting. I remember the perpetuation of harm. I remember after the most heated of arguments, leaving the house with my dad and siblings, all of us saying goodbye to mom. Again. She was leaving this time. Really leaving. She’d be going back to Canada. She’d finally have enough.

But she was always still there when we got back.

I don’t know what of these are my first memories. I know not the starting point of my childhood recollection.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps, nearing the age of 40, it’s inconsequential in the scheme of things.

I still have yet to hear back from my siblings.

Maybe they don’t remember, either.

Maybe.

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Journaling, Mental Health

Mother.

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Are you her?

Have you become her?

A lifetime of trying

All directions opposite

Has it happened?

The frustration

You feel it.

The anger

You recognize it.

The passive aggressiveness

You’ve been named it.

It’s her

It’s you

The bad guy.

You don’t want it, but

You’ve become it.  

Achingly so.

You don’t want it.

You don’t want it.

You don’t want it.

You want peace.

You need peace.

You crave peace.

Is that a lie?

Are you a lie?

Who are you?

To lay blame

How easy it would be

Trying circumstances

Stressful realities

Lies to cover

A means to survive

Continued existence

To see the next day

For which,

You are her.

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Journaling, Mental Health, The magic (in the mess). ♡

Life and it’s meaning.

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What Are You Willing to Struggle for? Fulfillment involves effort, trial-and-error, failure and learning.

On a surface level, and because I cannot think of a better answer, my children. I will struggle through and for my children. Learning that selfless type of sacrificing was the gift of motherhood, however. I was a person before motherhood, and I continue to be one beyond it.

Attempting to answer this right now in a way that is beyond my children, however, is… beyond me. I am deeply in the throes of toddlerhood these days. Much of the time I am mentally worn, exhausted, tired, and overwhelmed. Struggling (beyond the struggle right now that is making it through the weekend sane and in-tact) is a worrying thing for me to consider.

So, to answer the question, I am willing to hold on and struggle to make it to my kids’ bedtime. I am willing to struggle until I get that chance to breath, to sit down, and be me – not mom, not nurse, not chef, not maid – or the million other identities of motherhood. After my kid’s bedtime is the one period during my day in which I can be selfish, listen to my own needs, and do *exactly* it is that I want to do. For that, and for who I can be who I need to be for my children, I will struggle through.

Do I somewhat cringe at the selfish type of person this makes me feel like? Yes. Will that change my answer? Not likely, if I am being honest. Right now, the capacity I have for struggling is limited to that which fosters my own survival. That is not something I can’t be sorry for. In time, I hope, want, and need this answer to evolve. To think beyond me and to the world at large.

In time.

What Did Your 8-Year-Old Self Love Doing? Remember the joy of doing things for the fun of it? No rewards, no impressing anyone, just for yourself.

I collected rocks around this time. I loved rocks. I had a rock tumbler, and dutifully I collected prized stones that I hoped would tumble into treasures. I used all of my (paltry) allowance on buying those shiny, colourful rocks at those wooden cart kiosks you’d randomly find in stores in the 90s. I’d hold my rocks, sort them, and keep them in special boxes. Rocks were my *thing* and to this day they are a small pleasure of mine. I sadly let my greater love of rocks die at this age, however, when a friend of my father’s tried to quiz me about what were the types of rocks he had found, stating that I should know it, and I shamefully couldn’t answer. I didn’t feel worthy of loving rocks anymore at that point.

Playing secretary was my second love. My mom, who was my dad’s secretary for his door company, had this giant wooden desk at home full of ledgers and papers and pens and highlighters and those old school printing calculators. I would sit there and pretend the afternoon away. Organizing the bits, pretending to take phone calls, writing down pertinent information, ensuring everything was organized. I loved that sense of order.

Lastly, there was an off and on stint around this age with interior decorating. I got obsessed with organizing my room in certain ways and ensuring everything had a proper place. I decided I wanted to do interior decorating for a hot minute as a result. I didn’t realize at this time that it wasn’t the decoration I was there for (I’ve always been terrible at having a cohesive aesthetic). I was there for creating order, sense, and peace in my environments.

What Makes You Forget to Eat? When are you are so immersed in an activity that time passes without you realizing? Psychologist call this flow.

Housing systems in video games (must have a social element/*fuck* The Sims). I find it in the placing of items, the tweaking for perfect alignment, the striving towards some type of cohesion (even if my sense of aesthetic may suck) – it is gloriously soul nourishing and fun.

Spreadsheets. Sorting data. Learning from this data. Fixing and organizing meta-tags, adding in missing information to systems, and creating a clearly aligned cohesive system. For my brain and it’s OCD’ish needs, but also, for a world of more beautifully aligned spreadsheets and data. :>

Writing. While it’ll never be book quality, making meaning onto pages like these. The purposeful stringing together of (carefully chosen) words to create the metaphor/soliloquy/meaning I was going for, and my personal realizations and becomings in its wake.

Lastly, reading. Fictional fantasy/sci-fi nerdery. Following the lives of strong female leads into other worlds and existences that I could only dream of.

How Are You Going to Save the World? You may not end world hunger, but you can make a difference. Instead of focusing too much on finding yourself, lose yourself in something larger.

This question. I have sat with it, wrestled with it, fought myself against it, left it, returned to it, and struggled with it. I’ve never been able to answer it and for too long I’ve let that *be* my answer. But… the following quote has left me in pause.    

“It’s fine to struggle against the constraints of human nature, hoping to mitigate the worst of what’s to come, but it’s just as important to fight smaller, more local battles that you have some realistic hope of winning. Keep doing the right thing for the planet, yes, but also keep trying to save what you love specifically—a community, an institution, a wild place, a species that’s in trouble—and take heart in your small successes. Any good thing you do now is arguably a hedge against the hotter future, but the really meaningful thing is that it’s good today. As long as you have something to love, you have something to hope for.”

  • Jonathan Franzen

I’ve got something to love.

So, think globally, yet act locally. And if I follow my heart, it leads to helping fight the fight of protecting BC’s endangered old-growth forests.

Learning how I can *utilize* my skillsets (particularly those in my second and third answers) in this regard to best help, however? That learning journey awaits me.

If You Knew You Were Going to Die One Year from Today, What Would You Do and How Would You Want to be Remembered? How do you really want to spend your time? What do you want your legacy to be?

One year, hey?

I’d want to spend it loving. Loving my children, loving those in my life that matter to me, and loving myself (and possibly as loving trees, too, ‘cause I am me and I am a *little* extra).

I’ve never thought or believed I needed a legacy. It feels presumptuous. Beyond those in my life that are important to me, I do not need to be remembered. I am no trail blazer. There are far greater acts and efforts that came before me and will follow me. Let them have the stage.

But, in those minds of those I care for, I hope to be remembered as a light. As a hope. As a supporter, defender, and lover. As someone who was good at her job, loved what she did, always wanted to learn, and tried to help others. If they also happen to remember me as a (loving) troll, doomsponge, and being far too eager at times than I ought to be, that’s okay, too. :>

Perhaps these are not the highest of ideals to achieve for in what I leave behind for the world… but, they are me. <3

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