After I wrote the last blog, I felt the most terrible guilt and shame. Why had I exposed my weaknesses, selfishness, failure? I went to delete it and then saw people were reading it and got scared and I suppose defaulted to 'if in doubt don't' and then tortured myself some more, and so it continued. Unable to decide whether to delete or not, and unable to forgive myself for what I'd written... Quickly I came to think why this was, what was it that was really bothering me?
Year after year, I try and fail at Christmas, I feel hurt, rejected, and useless, and then I resort to the same old coping patterns... And I need to take ownership over those mistakes, and make changes. I am 30 years old now, not 15. My family cannot control my choices, and I want to choose a healthy and recovered life that is true to my values. I fight very passionately for this 11 months of the year, it is time to make that 12, for myself, my boyfriend, my wonderful friends, and for everything and everyone that I love and believe in.
This morning I read a blog about instagram and recovery and the more I think about it, the more this spoke to the point for me...
I go home, and what people are seeking feels like the instagram version, and that's what I try to give them. But that isn't real. More than that, it is damaging and perpetuates the whole thing. It reinforces the lies, the perfectionism, the secrecy and shame. Mental illness of any kind is messy and involves emotions. Trying to force it to be tidy and clean and neat is invalidating and shaming. We can do it to ourselves, others can do it to us. Ultimately, if we really chase after freedom, we need to search deep down, be brave and find places where we can be safe with the shameful messy stuff, where we can find the support and encouragement to change that.
I am extraordinarily lucky to have the best friend a person could ask for - the kind who marches the streets with you all night when you're suicidal, spontaneously swims in a freezing sea with you at midnight on your birthday, and loves you when you have no idea how to love yourself and rejoices with you when you can. When everything went wrong this Christmas I text at 2am from Czech republic and was painfully honest with her, and she was both wonderfully supportive and incredibly warm and honest in return. THIS is what recovery and life is about - honest and meaningful connections, truth and love, hard work and mess, and - in the case of recovery - the risky, messy reality that is that deep down fight for change. I am so incredibly lucky to have her in my life and loving me.... her and many others. I am fantastically blessed with my friends and boyfriend. I know this because I let them see my distress and know my struggles and they respond with love and kindness and compassion and support; I let them see my joy, happiness, and excitement, and they respond with elation and kindness and sweetness and praise. This is the stuff of life. And it is a million miles from the pretty fruit salads of instagram and the torturous expectations of my parents. These perfect pictures and wishes are borne out of love, but personally I find them harmful, and if there is one resolution I have for this year, it is to be stronger in turning my back on this. To have the courage to stand up and say 'no' when I need to, and the courage to stand up and say 'yes' when I really have to.
Sometimes we have to do what we need to just to get by, sometimes that isn't perfect, but we learn and grow and the next time we do a little better. 3 years ago I returned from Christmas and overdosed, this year I returned and restarted yoga, bought (and got hooked on) Homeland, and went a bit laundry-crazy. Perhaps it wasn't the perfect Christmas, but change happens in pieces and when I look at it like that, that's a damn big piece, and if I can change that much, I can definitely do some more.
No more trying to be the perfect daughter. And no more beating myself for not looking like instagram and actually eating food that looks a bit less pretty and a bit more like a normal meal. Facing up to our mess and being honest about where we are being overly self-critical, and where we are being passive and living in denial is the only way to move forward towards the lives we dream of and chase.
This year is going to be a year of change, growth, imperfection, mess, and recovery. I will eat meals that look a bit ugly, run in the sea in the rain, cry when I need to, and laugh when I want to. I will be honest where I can, and keep myself as safe as possible where I can't. And I will indulge my frivolous delight in pretty things and buy myself flowers each month :-)
