A voyage for self through the swells of life’s ocean

Who am I to be writing about my stuff and publishing it to the world? What makes me think that anyone would be interested in anything that I have to say? There are so many reasons not to do it. What will people think of me? What if they don't like my stuff or worse, me? I am a terrible speller  and what if I miss a mistake and people think I am stupid?  What if they think I am just whinging? The list goes on and on “what if..??? What if..??” but at the core of them all is my fear of leaving myself vulnerable and exposed to being judged by the world, rejected or dismissed.

It has taken me over 4 years in therapy to be comfortable enough to share my fear of judgment and rejection. To be honest it took me the first 3 years to feel safe enough to acknowledge it myself. I have always felt that everyone else knows something that I don't.  In school I always felt that I was behind everyone else trying to catch up, socially and emotionally as much as academically. I felt that I was always on the outside looking in, that I wasn’t worthy of a place. I can still, and often do feel “other”. Not in the world, but experiencing it through others. Watching through a window but not in it. This has been my internal script for a substantial part of my life.  I developed a very skilled mask of calm indifference to convince myself, and others, that I was either up to speed or just not bothered and doing fine. In fact what was going on inside was my harshest critic nipping away with thoughts like “your just so stupid” “your good at nothing” “who wants to here what you have to say?” “Keep your head down or they will see just how stupid you are”. The walls of defence were built reinforced to protect me from pain and rejection, but as so often happens, the defence becomes immovable and impenetrable, becoming a barrier to joy and love as well as pain and rejection.

Stupid is a word that I feel really uncomfortable using.  It is one that I have fought against strongly because if I don’t defend myself against it, it would consume me. It is the word that, if I am honest, hits me hardest because I believe it. I have got the label welded to my core and no matter how much I achieve or do to show otherwise, it is still there, ready to jump out in stark relief when I slip or “need brought down a peg or two”. It’s the perfect stick to beat myself with as it cuts the deepest.  

As much as everything I have written so far is truth and really very raw, I have the feeling that I am getting distracted from the real issue.  I’m not entirely sure what that is yet, I am hoping it will reveal itself to you, and me, as I write.  

While I have been thinking about words and the significance they have for me, I have been reminded of a word that I never, ever use.  I don’t often have the courage to challenge someone’s word choice, but I have in the past asked someone not to use this word because I find it so offensive.  It is not what is considered a swear word by society, yet when used to describe an individual, it has the power to strip them of their humanity.  When a person or group are described as “scum” I  can feel anger rising in me. Unlike stupid, it is not a world that I use to punish and shame myself, but it has the same impact. It is to describe someone as less than human, not worthy of space or time. A nothingness.  Too awful for society, unacceptable and to be discarded.  I am aware that when others use the word they probably don’t mean this level of dehumanisation, but it is what is implied and I can’t bare it. 

Having just read the last paragraph I reolise that although I don’t call myself “scum” I do, in my weakest ,darkest ,loneliest moments feel everything that I have just described.  I think the label of stupid that I give myself is my way of hiding the label that I truly feel is mine. 

I feel an urge just now to run away from this very dark and painful reality by reassuring you, the reader and myself, that this is not the whole of me. That although I have lived in this dark place it doesn’t define me, I am not controlled by it or reduced because of it. I don't currently have the fear of it consuming me.  The familiar feeling of sitting at the top of a precipice that there is no way back from doesn't hold the same level of terror that it has in the past. I have days where I feel so low, worn down, useless, weak and not good enough that I visit this dark place.  The difference now is that I have a grappling hook tenaciously holding onto the top of the cliff face.  I am aware that these negative and severe thought are my core beliefs but I also know that they are not alone.  I know that some days I am strong, I am enough, I am resilient and I have a positive impact.  I am worthy.  

I see it very much like grief and loss, that it never goes, but can take up more or less space in your life.   Some days regardless of how long ago the loss, it can be all encompassing and another day it can be a more manageable size, allowing more space to see and feel a fuller spectrum of emotions and experiences. I see my darkness, my depression in the same way.  It is always and always will be a part of me, but sometimes it will be small and can be slipped onto a shelf at the back of my awareness. But it can also come creeping up, growing in size until its too big to be disregarded.  My hope is to be able to see it creeping and swelling up before it blinds and paralyses, so I can allow it expression and space on my terms, allowing space for me to be more whole hearted. All together with nothing hidden or denied to myself.  That is the dream.

I still find it hard to believe myself when I say “you are worthy” but thankfully I believe God . When I discovered that God knew all of my inner blackness and still loved me was a turning point for me.  I say discover, it really wasn’t like switching on a light, it took me a considerable amount of time to hear it and accept it was for me too and not just the shiny, smiling, sorted people around me in church. It took just as long to reolise that the shiny sorted folk around me, weren’t all that sorted and were just as flawed and in need as me. When I was able to form the thought “why not me?” I was on the road to recovery.  

I use to think that grace was something that ballet dancers had, I had no idea of it’s true awesomeness. To be given something with love, with no expectations, no strings attached, no fuss, no drama and no judgment.  Nothing I had done earned me anything, just as nothing I had done eliminated my chances of receiving the gift.  The fact that I can do nothing to earn his love, but that I have it already, has been such a powerful and life changing revelation. I don't need to be enough, it doesn't matter what others think, it is God that matters. I know that this may sound alien to some reading this and I get that.  I went through life , and still do I am afraid, trying to earn the approval of society, the universe, a person or myself and if I were reading this 20 years ago I don’t know if I would have been able to connect, but I hope I would have. 

For me, regardless of where I am emotionally I know that God is there. I am never alone. I am always loved. I am never worthless, always worthy. I am so thankful and grateful for the blessing of the protection of his love from the abyss because if I do fall in, this time I won’t be in there alone. The shadows in the darkness are made by the light that comes in with you.    

It has taken me 2 months to write this post. I started it in March and have been avoiding it ever since.  It was too close, too raw to finish. I think I was afraid of what would come out, what I would see in writing. But as usually happens it is not as scary as imagined.  It’s curious the route that this post has taken. Although I felt it was disconnected and bitty with no flow, I can now see that there is a very real and natural flow. The significance of the words “stupid” and “scum” being connected had never occurred to me before. That my self-judgment as stupid has been my defence against feeling . The defences are built to stop pain, so to feel displays weakness. The defence wasn’t good enough, I’m not good enough. The use of the word “scum’ triggers my terror of being unseen, unloved, unworthy of life.  Although these deep and traumatic feelings are part of my story and part of me, they are exactly that, a part, not the whole. I am me because I have experienced these things. I am me because of all the good in my life, all the good I have done and seen as well as all the darkness I have felt, experienced and seen.  I feel uplifted and lighter finishing this post. I am able to see and believe that I am not where I once was. I am on the road to whole hearted living, accepting all aspects of my being, even the ones that have been forbidden in the past, love, joy and fulfilment. No longer will shame be the figurehead at the bow, leading and determining my direction. I surrender that to God with relief and peace.