I'm usually not one for New Year Resolutions. I think we can all remember at one time or another making a resolution, and then getting to the end of the following year and realising we actually didn't accomplish anything like we'd set out to. So I guess for me this is more about what goals I want to see myself work towards. I definitely want to get my Anxiety under control and have been taking some pretty big steps towards that. Steps that I never in a million years thought I would be able to do. Thursday is the day I go to do my mental health plan and start making an appointment to see a Psychologist. Which I am pretty stoked about. But this post is less about all the goals and more about some realisations I have made in the past couple of weeks. Its been playing on my mind a fair bit so what better way to get it out then to blog about it huh.
It stemmed from a book I have been reading about Overcoming panic and Anxiety. It has been a really great book because it has brought so many thoughts and realisations to me. I love that it has made me think outside the square so to speak.
"So many people have commented to me that in times of a major stress they were fine. They were able to look after everyone else, do everything that needed to be done and they can't understand why they are now having problems. And that is the problem. They were not taking care of themselves".
For a long time I wondered why. Why me? Why did I get Anxiety. One minute I'm fine, then the next I'm not. And I want to know why. When I read this paragraph the other day I stopped and had the biggest lightbulb moment. For a long long time now I've always been the person that puts everybody else before myself. Even when going through crappy moments myself, I have always managed to make sure everybody else is ok. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this hasn't been a recent thing. Not even in say the past 'couple' of years. This has been going on for a LONG time.
At the time of my sexual abuse (and even to this day) I put everybody else BEFORE myself. I kept my mouth shut about it. I can remember 3 separate occasions of abuse, whether or not there was more and I blocked it, I'm not sure. But I know that I never said a word. And not for myself, but for everyone else. I didn't want my mother to be stressed, because there were times when I was growing up that stress would affect her that badly that she would be hospitalised. I didn't want to be the cause for her having to go back to hospital. Then of course I kept it quiet for my dad. If he had of found out he would of literally spent the rest of his life in Jail. Sadly, this isn't an exaggeration of parents finding out that someone has abused their child and says "they'll kill him". This is literally what he would of done. And so it snowballed from there the reasons why I didn't want to say anything. Even in my 12 year old rationale, it was much better for 1 person to suffer, rather than a whole bunch of other people be stressed and upset as well.
And for as long as I can remember I have always put people first. Put myself second. Solved other peoples problems. Put tonnes and TONNES of time into other peoples problems and how I can help them...... Its only now that I realise most of that is probably just me putting off having to put in the hard work of sorting my own problems out. I've realised that in the past I have put way too much pressure on myself. Expecting to just "deal" with things that have happened to me and just 'move on'. For a long time I was able to say to people "yes I've had a crappy upbringing etc and I've lived through different types of abuse, but so have lots of other people, I'm fine, you just have to get on with life and not dwell on it". Its now that I see I WASN'T dealing at all. I wasn't as tough as what I thought. They say everything happens for a reason don't they. Well obviously I needed to STOP and acknowledge a few things. Acknowledge the things that happened to me and acknowledge that I need to for ONCE put myself first. And its not selfish to look after myself and my own mental health. Like I once thought. I struggle with the notion of not putting other people before me. Its a foreign notion. I am trying though. I can still listen to people's problems obviously. But there needs to be a line and I need to not take it on board and take it personally. Lots of realisations...But I'm glad I'm having them...
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