The first thing to come to my mind when someone mentions the
past is un-comfortableness; I shift within my own skin. I’m not entirely sure
why either, there’s not actually many, if indeed any things I have done in my
life that I truly regret. I try to live my life in what I believe is a moral
way, I try to treat people as I would like to be treated, I try my best to not
hurt people.
When I look into my past it’s mostly a blur, the majority of
my childhood I can’t really remember and it’s probably better that way, there’s
lots of painful memories that I don’t need to carry with me on a day to day
basis.
However, what I have come into contact with, a lot in my
life is people who ignore their past, who keep the door closed, that
keep those doors locked up tight because they contain so many demons that to
open the door would be to fall apart completely.
Since first experiencing depression I had to face certain
demons from my past that affected my sense of self, things that I felt made me a
bad person. These issues ran so far into my psyche, they felt like huge monstrosities
that could never be defeated; but with time, and some help from a very astute counsellor
who actually knew how I ticked and could just tell me off when I was thinking
in (quite frankly) stupid ways; I managed to start to rewrite my programming!
Blame is a big part of why I had felt so powerless, for
whatever reason I have never been much of a blamer, though I am a rabid navel
gazer, and an absolute idiot when it comes to blaming myself, I wouldn’t really
ever say “Person (a) hurt me, and that’s not right and it’s horrible that it
happened”. I had somehow explained it all away by saying “It’s ok because it
made me who I am now...” For someone to hurt you right at the core of your
being is never ok. It may be explainable or forgivable but it’s never enough to
just chalk it up to experience and say “Well, better it happened to me than
somebody else!”
I had truly ignored my own self worth because I never
thought I was worth enough to not apologise, to not be hurt, and used, and
exploited, I even made myself feel guilt for things that were not my fault in
order to keep the “peace” while selling my own soul like some sort of emotional
punching bag prostitute. I sell myself short at this point, it’s not just
something I did, I embraced it as a huge part of who I am, what I was “for”.
I’ve never known how to be anything else; I
took this forward into my adult relationships, and went wrong in oh so many
places because of it.
As I started to move forward I started to feel in much more
control of my life and of myself, I finally felt that I had more of a handle on
the emotions I felt and the anxiety that had plagued me for as long as I can
remember, I no longer felt that I was at constant risk of my world falling down
around me and felt safe.
I’ve had a lot of upheaval since this time, I’m back on the
same medication I was when I first got depression, which I had worked so hard
to come off, I felt like a bit of a failure. This is again because real life
hit, and I didn’t feel in any way cushioned from the big horrible black world.
I felt at risk of losing everyone that had ever loved me,
that maybe I was the worst person in the world, I felt as if everything I was
being destroyed and that I couldn’t keep hold of myself at all, I felt lost in
the darkness and didn’t know how to get out.
After this mental breakdown my body followed in an
alarmingly (and thankfully) rare MS attack, I had to stay in bed, I had to face
my demons, I could no longer run.
Now I realise that this was an incredibly formative period,
that I was entirely broken and hadn’t any foundation, I had to look at who I
was and what I want. This has been a very scary period in my life but now, with
a few months behind me I can start to take stock of all the emotional shrapnel
that was fired at me, I can start to remove it and put myself back together,
piece by piece. Build myself into the sort of person I want to be.
Most important of all, I have started to be able to look at
past relationships, be those, lover, friend, parent, etc. and say....
“You hurt me a lot and that’s in no way ok, it’s not easy,
or reasonable, or preferable to anybody else being hurt, but I see the good things that my time with you gave me, I see who
it made me into and I am proud, because that
makes me who I am today! Not what has happened and what has been done to me,
but the way I react to the the world around me, I now know I am worth more than how I have been treated in the past. I don't need to hurt those who hurt
me in order to make it better!”
Sometimes the battles we fight with ourselves are the much
greater battles, I don’t need to retaliate every time someone in my
life tries to hurt me, because I am starting to know who I am. Regardless of
what and who other people think of me, that person is worthwhile. That is why I
am writing this, that is why I no longer need the false safety net of being
sorry for everything that can ever, possibly be considered my fault because
people might not like me, or love me anymore.
I can start to love myself, for my strength, and my
tenacity, and the fact that I can be shaken to my core, at looking at the
decisions I have made and live with them, the fact that I can dream without dreaming of monsters now I have stopped running is a demonstation of that to myself. I am an ok person; I can be my own safety net! I refuse
to be a victim anymore.
My past suddenly no longer scares me anywhere near as much
as it did, that’s what the future is for!
Ceri - Womble of Cambridge
