When I walk along the shoreline,
On the beach close to home,
I always notice, and always pick up
All the broken seashells.
Have you noticed how they shine?
Some wink, some shrines
In the sunlight, how they tell their story proudly
To everyone in the world who takes the time to notice.
Not pity,
Just notice.
Like the rhymes in this poetry,
They are broken, yet beautiful.
I believe this man is doing an incredibly brave thing here. It is daunting enough to be diagnosed with mental illness, but to then accept it, work with it and showcase it in all its chaotic glory is truly brave and beautiful. I am so thankful for people like these who, through their bravery, let’s the rest of us know that it’s okay not to be okay. Sometimes it’s even beautiful. Thank you Gareth Jones.
I went to boot camp this morning. It felt really good. Hubby encouraged me to go and that was the last push I needed. He says I would never have done it just for me. I would have the intent but not the conviction to push through, which would keep me stuck in a loop of thinking, wishing and planning a lot but not doing. Why is it so difficult for me to do things for myself? Just for me? Because it makes me happy? Why does it always have to be such a fight? If I don’t make money from it or don’t make somebody else happy because of it or don’t gain tangible results from it (as in a clean house) I don’t do it. Hubby is right. I really can be such a dick 2 myself. I need to write this down to remember that getting up and letting myself relax and think of nothing other than how to survive the next exercise is okay. Not just okay. I’m desperate for it. I need it. It makes me happy. And I deserve happy.
Thanks for bringing this up Jack. When you’ve been raised in a home where only perfection will earn you love and your only choice always was ‘be perfect’ or be ‘unloved’ it’s really difficult to let go of this voice inside of yourself that always relentlessly whispers lies – demanding perfectionism in everything you do.
I often still catch myself out – I’ll often push myself harder than anybody should, demand more, be satisfied with less. I dismiss my positive qualities and annihilated myself for my bad ones. Like a really bad parent. I struggle to have compassion for myself. And lately I’ve noticed that I also struggle to have compassion for others.
Sometimes I don’t even try because I’m certain I’ll fail. Other times I try things that no person in their right mind with my resources at the time would’ve and I make myself get to the other side. Failure is not an option.
I think this ‘trait’ or flaw has earned me a lot of treasures in life. It’s how I started my business with zero clients and no money, freshly defeated by my precious career and turned it into something resembling a stable future. It’s also earned me a lot of heartbreak. It’s why I expect the unexpectable from others, it’s why I can judge the hell out of those I love around me. It’s how I almost always feel that everyone around is not doing enough, committed enough, worthy enough. It’s how I’ve lost every person that I’ve ever liked enough to attempt to have a relationship with. And so… I’m constantly torn up by perfectionist expectations and yet I’m never good enough. And in reality it results in me never being good enough for people I reach out to. This must be how one makes ones own nightmares into reality – without even realising it at the time.
They say it’s lonely at the top. I can tell you from experience it’s a lot lonelier at the bottom after you’ve fallen off the previous high.
I suspect I need to focus on developing more compassion as an antidote to perfectionism. I am not yet sure if I deserve it but I know the people around me definitely do. And that is who I am at my core – a caretaker, a protector, a loyalist. I love with an intensity that I can only describe as painful. So then why do I struggle with compassion? Isn’t that the ultimate perpetual torture?
My world is a confusion of colour
A cacophony of excitement
A delicious drama
An endless restless incestuous pool of resentment
Where up is never up
And down is never down
Yet up is higher up than any man has ever gone before
And down is down lower than any human should ever be allowed to be
In my world I’m the chronic patient in a never ending prism
The sweet innocent victim,
The horrible inhumane whore,
The torturer, the victim, the person crying in the corner
And the one that upset him
It’s really difficult to be me
The only certainty
Is that nothing will ever be the same
Again
But then
I pick myself up and I try to push on
Onwards and upwards
Because that is what good humans do
And when I return I’ll be the good human coming home, the victor,
The proud one,
That’s what I tell myself
But no matter how hard I try, how far I reach, how much I give,
How much I scream or grit my teeth
I never come home
Instead the unending ocean of loneliness, hopelessness and emptiness always finds me
So yeah I mean I’ve been pretty happy/ productive over the last few weeks. I got an earth work farm which is great. I’ve set some goals and am progressing well towards reaching them. Hell, I even exercised. But today I got my period and with it the worst back pain in the world. It just made everything a bit more difficult and slow… And now I find I’m feeling really dissatisfied with myself the world and everything… Maybe that’s part of the BPd thing. I dunno… I do kinda feel that I’m being a bot rough on myself. I mean I didn’t do nothing, just less and maybe I didn’t even do less. Maybe I just feel like I did less. I think maybe a good nightly routine could fix some of my issues. Can anyone recommend one?
Today I tried a new app called accomplish. I do think it helped to take time the night before to set my intentions for the next day. I didn’t magically double in productivity but I did feel calmer… More together.. I think. I’m not in bed by time but I exercised! I’m so proud of myself! Have really been struggling to find motivation to do this and this morning it was like some spark of my old self was back – the person that enjoys exercise, and breathing heavy, and the challenge and believes that there are adventures to be prepared for. I’d like to see more of her again… My work task is not done, but I do think taking the time to “pack” the rest of the day neatly into boxes with clear intentions did help my brain to reclaim some strategic thinking paths and now I have a plan for tomorrow and how to make it even better than today… I’m going to strategically tackle work with the end goal in mind. My mind will be having work for breakfast tomorrow. I specialise in finding the shortest route to the clearest answer. I musn’t forget that. I can do this.
On totally unrelated note… Just as I was getting desperate today my husband got out of bed and his behavior started resembling more of his best self. I am grateful for that.
I can’t believe I fell for it again. Oh my goodness I am speechless and intensely frustrated and disappointed in myself. When will I learn? Because of my business I see an average of 5 new people per week. These people have usually found me on LinkedIn, google or have been referred through word of mouth. They request meetings and I meet with them in order to hear all about their problems so I can tell them how to make it go away. Whether they hire my firm to help them with making the problem go away is up to them, but most of them end up hiring us because of the trust and respect built in the first meeting. So this is how I found this guy that wanted to talk to me about a “business opportunity”. An hour later I end up signing up for Amway’s network marketing scheme. I told him I would only “try” it if he was willing to help me with my business in return. He agreed quite quickly, buy when asked he said it was because he had nothing to lose by agreeing. In hind sight I should’ve let him do some of his work first. Signs of good faith are lost on the faithless so it would’ve been a good test. And I would’ve nothing to lose…
Anyway so at the second meeting I gave him some leads, made notes as he spoke, received my box with hopelessly overpriced product, found out more about all the different stupid meetings he expected me to attend and then… When he pressed me for a time and date that we could have a product launch at my house I said that I would give it, but only after he had signed up 10 students for my online accounting course… This was when the surprise happened. He looked away, but I think he was trying to cover up anger or something similar, he attacked my business model, said that “let’s not make the two conditional” and said my first trainee might not have left if there were some incentives for passive income in my business model. I said I would think about the time and the date. But after coming home I felt very moody, unhappy, frustrated and I didn’t really know why… Until I though about it some more because I had to… It was affecting my ability to interact with my husband. This is when I realized I felt tricked, unhappy, upset, disappointed, disgusted, shamed, let down mostly by this person but also by myself.. It was a familiar feeling which is why there was so much of it. I realized the person showed his true colors only to me on the second meeting. I really believed he had integrity and a genuine interest in my business as well as a willingness to help out… But I was wrong… Again. I fell for another person that just wants to use and manipulate and abuse me… Again. Why is it so natural to me? Anyway, at least, and I guess I am proud of myself for this, as soon as I realized this and radically accepted the reality of the situation (even though I wanted to keep believing that my first impression was correct and valid and that there was some merit in what I had done) I texted him to let him know this thing is just not going to work for me as I don’t have the energy to invest in two businesses right now. I didn’t hear anything back although I did see that he read the message. I guess this morning now I still feel shamed, shameful, embarrassed, but after having written this I am proud of myself for radically accepting the new facts and getting rid of the person. I wouldn’t have done this before. I would’ve perhaps made excuses not to see him or just kept of paying the monthly fee pretending that it doesn’t matter to me whilst at the back of my mind the shameful secret would be calling me, mocking me everyday every hour… Until… I didn’t go down that road this time. My behavior is different, consciously changed, and I took the time to write down and understand what happened so hopefully this is how learning happens… Yes, they fooled me twice, and a million times before that, but this time, perhaps I’ve learnt enough to not fall for it again next time… Let’s see. I am slightly cautiously optimistic. 😊
She was not the type of girl destined to end up in a place like this. She got out of the Uber with a tiny but determined sigh. She was tired. It was written on her face. And yet she looked immaculate, not fancy, but in her fitted black dress and with her tinted smart glasses, minimal make-up and no fuss hairstyle she looked like she was heading for the boardroom, not… Her thoughts spiraled down the abyss in her mind. You can do this. You have to do this. You don’t have a choice. You’ve survived worse before you can do this as well. Just get through it. She looked up at the groom white grey building. The sky was an weary light blue, like there wasn’t enough blue go around but someone used it to paint the sky anyway. The large red suitcase that the Uber driver took out of the boot for her was the only hint that she wasn’t heading towards a board meeting.
I guess I will never forget that day.
It was a sad day but also a new one. See, I wasn’t destined to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital, I wasn’t raised that way. I was bred and raised to last, to shoulder all the pain of my childhood home, to achieve, to hide my feelings because they were invalid and untrue anyway, to be strong, to be someone, to be something that my parents would be proud of… And this… They would not be proud of this… They did not even know about this… And wasn’t planning on telling them.. Ever.
She reached for the suitcase, thanked the driver, smiled a half hearted but genuine smile and proceeded towards the large glass door with the black picket fence. At the door a security guard stood silently with a blank looking piece of paper on the table next to him that she guessed he was using as a logbook. She walked up to him. “I am here to check in”. He instructed her to write down her details before issuing her a tag with access to the building. He nodded towards the door and opened it for her. She felt like Alice walking through the looking glass. What horrors awaited her on the other side she did not know. She was a rush job. Her therapist had urged her to see the admitting psychiatrist th3 day before. A brand new person that had told her the only option for her was admission and as soon as possible. She had managed to arrange for leave from work. She was doing something she never did… Taking off from work for herself. Because she could not function as herself any longer. Not in this horrendous world in which she lived anyway…
So it’s been about 3 weeks since I decided that I should journal everyday. . . Blank space. Crickets. Exactly. That is pretty much where it stopped. I could say that I’ve been super busy and I’ve been keeping up with some of the other tasks on my list but the truth is… What is the truth? I’ve been catching myself thinking that I really should do some journalling… So the internal reminder is there. But everytime I think about it I have this profound sense of being very uncomfortable, maybe even anxious, like I know I should block the thought because… Bad things happen when I take care of myself. I’ve stuck with some of the other positive habits.. I’m gardening often-ish, I’m cleaning, uncluttering and listing things for sale everyday… That works. That comes ‘naturally’. I’ve actively avoided exercise, journalling, giving credit to myself, affirming myself, giving small yet meaningful gifts to my husband and I’m now at a point where even spending time with my husband is becoming ‘difficult’… Because I’m so unhappy? I feel forgotten, left on the side of the road, kicked to the curb. Do you get what I’m saying? God, it’s worse than I thought. How deep does this brainwashing go? Mom and dad, what have you done to me?
Hope Whispers 