Weathering The Storm
When I was younger, I was something of a people-pleaser. Not the kind of person that allows random strangers to walk over them — no, I was definitely not a pushover to outsiders to my life — but someone who allowed those I considered myself closest with to take advantage of me, abuse my trust and my love, and take little pieces of me with them as they inevitably disappeared from my life.
Throughout my childhood and most of my life, I was left void of consistent and legitimate relationships — be they familial, platonic, or romantic connections. And I have tried for a very long time to act as though I’m okay with the cards I was dealt, the circumstances I was expected to endure…but I’m not. Whether I like it or not, being raised in the absence of legitimate love or affection or any semblance of healthy, functioning relationships left me vulnerable to being taken advantage of by the same type of manipulators that I was raised by. I wasn’t equipped to discern affection from emotional exploitation, friendship from twisted convenience, advice from harmful comparisons of past trauma. I allowed others to influence my thoughts, decisions, and feelings. I left myself exposed to friendships of convenience and — not knowing the need for or existence of healthy boundaries — felt parts of my soul fall away along with the false friends who slowly vanished from my life. As much as I wish I could say that I’ve learned and grown and overcome all of these gaps in healthy emotional intelligence, I continue to discover new ways that I’ve been set up to be hurt.
You see, when I first left my childhood home for college, I didn’t explore my sexuality or experience new relationships or develop new friendships as many people do. No, I locked my emotions and my sexuality and my thoughts so far back in my subconscious that I didn’t even know to look for them until I finished my degree, came out to my birth family and the world, and began living for my own happiness and not that of others’. I didn’t even realize that I’d suppressed all of my emotions and thoughts until relatively recently. Again, I had buried that so deep that I didn’t even know it was there. I moved through my life over the last few years as a shell of a person, running from the life I hated but too afraid to slow down long enough to find out what I could be running toward.
Every trial of my life over the past year has left me with the expectation that I’d figured it all out, that I was ready to move forward unrestrained. And that’s partially true — I’ve recovered and grown more than I could’ve ever imagined a year ago — but I’ve realized that I’m not going to wake up one day and suddenly have resolved all of my issues. Although it was not my choice to take on these issues, it is my burden to resolve them.
Learning how to build different types of healthy relationships and maintaining positive emotional health is one thing I’ve focused much of my time on since moving across the country nearly two months ago. Even though I preached about letting go of people who were never intended to stay in your life forever, I’ve recently caught myself permitting toxic words and people to linger, and I’ve noticed my mental health slipping because of it. I understood that by breaking down the fortress around my mind, I would have to learn to set healthy, evolving boundaries with people in my life, but I think I tried to avoid it. I think when I ceased contact with so many toxic individuals, I led myself to believe that everyone left in my life was infallible and needed nary a boundary. I allowed myself to get caught up with the beginning of a new chapter in a new place and forgot to check in on myself, to identify my needs, to find new vices, to prioritize my own wellbeing. I found myself on a precipice of a dark place that I’ve been to time and again in my life, opening my eyes just in time to decide whether I would wake up and fight for the life I’ve given myself the opportunity to build, or allow the ghosts of my past to pull me back into the shadows. And I have to say, it’s not an easy decision to make sometimes. Recovery and growth and the act of reconstructing a new life for yourself are physically and mentally exhausting, so it’s easy to want to give in.
As frightening as it often seems, I don’t think I’ll ever be fully free of the darkness always fighting to catch up to me — but that’s okay. It’s important to realize that there is a difference between hiding or running from your problems, and learning to live and grow in spite of them. Trauma doesn’t just go away. And we’re fools if we buy into the toxically positive mindset that life is fair, that life is pretty and perfect and fun and that the good always outweighs the bad. That’s just simply not the case. Some of us have infinitely more trauma and pain than others, and some people never have the chance to learn to heal from their past.
When I made the decision to uproot the only life I’d ever known and move across the country to give myself a fresh start, I understood that a new place didn’t necessarily mean more happiness or better circumstances; I knew I would have to fight tooth and nail to create the life I’ve always envisioned for myself, and it wasn’t going to be easy. For the past few weeks, part of why I got so tangled up in the darkness that always threatens to drag me back down was that I was struggling with what needed to happen for me to continue moving forward. Even though I’m already living a drastically different life than I was before, there were small things I was refusing to let go of. I was inadvertently forcing myself to tolerate certain words and actions that were harmful to my mental health, maintaining relationships with people who no longer fit into my life, and latching onto mindsets and habits and activities that no longer bring me joy. And rather than begin to deal with this, I fell into the old habit of suppressing my emotions and refusing to acknowledge the real reason I was starting to spiral. Because even when something or someone is toxic to us and no longer an important piece in our lives, we get so easily caught up in the comfort of consistency and predictability — even if doing so causes us psychological and emotional strife.
I caught myself slipping into the comfortability of negative habits and realized that I’m not quite finished with emotional healing as I previously thought. I know that healing from trauma and maintaining positive mental health is something that takes constant work and adaptation to new circumstances, but I let myself believe that it was more simple — that after just a short time of reflection and self-discovery and growth I was healed. I’m reminded of a quote by Haruki Murakami in Kafka on the Shore: “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” Progress isn’t linear and I’m going to stumble through this next chapter as I learn what healthy boundaries and new emotional experiences mean for me, but I’m eager to continue discovering parts of myself for the first time. Once again, it’s time to have faith in my inner strength, accept the vast unknown that lies ahead, and weather whatever storm comes next.
— G.C.
