Today on the blog I’m writing something of a sequel to the previous blog about Finding Balance/Saying No. You may have noticed that this blog post, although published a couple of weeks after the previous one, is still published in a shorter time frame than the month I’ve had between blog posts lately.
I’m trying to take my own advice seriously–I’m even having a little success at it! Hooray! Soon I’ll probably catch up with all the little things (and some not-so-little things) that fell by the wayside while I was trying to learn how to find a new balance. There will definitely be a new chapter of Lady of Weeds in next week’s newsletter (and two proper newsletters per month again).
That said, on with this week’s blog! It’s again a more personal blog, so if you’re here for writing stuff or book stuff, you might want to skip it and wait for next week’s blog instead.
If there’s anything I’ve learned over the last year, it’s that our minds can play very weird tricks on us. My mind, in particular, can play tricks on me. Unfortunately, it tends to take a long time before I realise those tricks for what they are–much less how to deal with them.
The first time I understood that was the day I realised that no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many times I told myself that I just needed to forgive my husband and try to be a better wife, he would always be abusive again the next time. It was nothing to do with me. I couldn’t change it, I couldn’t stop it. It would happen again, and again, and again. I’d let myself get into the train of thought that if I could somehow be a good enough Christian, or a good enough wife, he would change.
It gave me the strength to stand up to the verbal abuse next time, and lay down ultimatums.
The next time I understood the treachery of my own mind was when I found myself feeling sorry for my ex-husband because he had to get a job now that we were separated and I was no longer financially supporting him. I actually felt sorry for him having to go to all that awful trouble–remorse leadening me as if I was the worst person in the world for causing him that trouble.
And that day, it struck me, suddenly and shockingly, that I was feeling sorry for him having to do a normal thing that every other human has to do. I’d been so tied up with his thoughts, his feelings, his anger and his demands, and for so long, that I’d gotten out of the habit of thinking of any other consideration other than what he would like, what wouldn’t make him angry–what would help me to survive another day or week before he blew up again.
It really shocked me to find myself thinking that. I’d already begun, through the process of separation from him, to find how he’d wormed his way into my head and thoughts, but that was the final straw that freed me from any guilt that I might still have felt about being kicked out–of being not a good enough wife to keep my husband’s love and care.
The latest occasion was much more recently. I’ve struggled with rosacea for roughly the last two years, from a combination of stress, diet, and allergic reactions, and lately I’ve had not just the time but the money to go to a doctor about it. That led to me getting medications that have slowly begun to help control the problem. I was two weeks into the medication when I began to see a change; a lessening of the red bumps on my face, and a more even skin tone.
It was also two weeks in when I began to find myself getting anxious. I couldn’t understand why I was struggling with anxiety again. I’d begun to heal slowly over the past six or seven months separated from my husband, after the first horrible weeks, and in general I’d been much less anxious and stressed.
I didn’t understand the resurgence of anxiety until I found myself wondering one day, if it was okay for me to be getting better. My brain was actually wondering if it was okay to use medication to get better from a sickness I had struggled with for years. Through a combination of my husband’s manipulation and selfishness, and the way that behaviour had eventually helped warped my mind, I had come to a place where I somehow believed it wasn’t okay for me to be healthy, or happy, or even safe.
My own mind had turned on itself.
I know I’m not the only one out there who struggles with this frame of mind, so I wanted to broadcast it to all you guys out there as a reminder: It’s okay to be happy. It’s okay to be healthy. It’s okay to want to be safe. You don’t have to live your life sick, or in pain, or in a dangerous situation. You can’t change the world, or another person, or sickness in your body. That’s up to God, and medical science. Things like medicine are there for you to live the best life you can live. It’s okay for you to look after yourself. It’s okay for you to want to do that, no matter what anyone tries to tell you. No matter what your own mind tries to tell you.
Don’t do what I did. Don’t bring yourself to the point of a mental breakdown. Take care of yourself. It’s okay.
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