One of the things I love most about reading is the process of thought from another persons perspective. You are allowed an opportunity to see things in ways you would never allow yourself to in reality, and sometimes it opens up your mind.
I know like most people I get stuck in a routine of thought, ways I view the world and stubbornly stick to opinions because I've stated it one way before, or because that was what I was exposed to and what is expected of me. But I have decided that I am fickle and that is good. I'm allowed to change my mind and should constantly. How else do we grow, learn, better ourselves?
I have trouble admitting my mistakes or more accurately I have trouble hearing people agree that I have made mistakes. It makes me extremely uncomfortable when I know I did something wrong and that people saw it at the time but I did not.
I was so angry after I realized I was sick, I treated people badly. I was cruel and snappish and I know I began to respond to people in an off-putting way. I was irritated by anyone's ignorance and I had no tolerance for it. I never wished my pain on anyone but I hated that I couldn't find a way to explain it, and that people couldn't see how hard the most basic things were for me. Instead of forgiving people of their ignorance and finding a way to either educate them or let it go I became acidic and I tortured everyone with my own struggles. It was wrong, but at the time I couldn't see it. I'm not sure if anyone really told me what I was doing either, most people just gave up trying to talk to me or if they said anything it was to point out how I was letting my illness define me. That was something I could not hear. I think its also the wrong approach, because in a way it does define you, and it does change you, and you have no control over most of that. When someone tells you that you let your illness define you they have made you culpable. They make you solely responsible for your illness and that is unfair, and comes at a time when you are most vulnerable to self-hate, shame, and guilt. That can rot a person.
We don't need absolution we need compassion. The only way is to allow us to tell our stories of who we were. To admit that we have changed, we are not the same and to find acceptance in that change.
I think the biggest roadblock to my own personal healing was knowing I was not the same person, that I would never be the same person and feeling as if I wasn't allowed to lament her passing. You wouldn't refuse someone their grief for a loved one. Why is it so hard to allow a person to grieve themselves? I had a certain kind of potential, a certain path I cultivated for years and that all disappeared over-night, like losing a limb or a parent. All my guides had been broken and I needed to start over, but I felt stuck trying to be the same person, I was defined by the same goals.
I have realized I am no longer the same person, I have made mistakes and those mistakes have changed me, but I will never make those mistakes again because I am a different person.
This blog has been so healthy for me, I was missing a crucial piece, the ability to speak my story, without apology or filter or well meaning but potentially harmful advice, and it is releasing me from my own closed-mindedness, and yours.
I am not blaming anyone for my inability to heal, I am only asking that maybe you can learn from your mistakes as well. Help the next person while they grieve, accept they have lost something integral to themselves and acknowledge their changes, good and bad. Try to love them for who they are not what they could have been. And this is advice I would give to anyone when you are interacting with someone grieving, don't forget their past or pretend like it never happened. We need those memories just as much as we need to make new ones.
I think I'm finally heading in the right direction, it was a whole lot of hurt and hard work and it will be a whole lot more but I know that I am a better person for it, even if I'd never choose it in a million life-times and maybe I can't know who I am today, but maybe it's enough to know I'm not who I was before.