I'll get by with a little help...

I couldn't get out of the funk I was in. Not alone, anyway.  I decided to reach out for help and found my therapist, Alosia.  She knows my family but is not close enough to have concrete opinions and expectations.  Also, I trust her.  She has a very similarly off-beat view of spirituality/life in general and that helps me to be completely open with her. 

Mid-way through our first conversation, she asked me if I realized that I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  I was stunned.  I knew of the disorder, but attributed it to those who had been through "real suffering" or "real terror".  She helped me to understand that my experiences also fit those descriptions, in addition to whatever minimizing label I had given them.  It sounds odd, but it almost made me feel better to know that all that I've been through.  All that I've silently suffered with, and even my weight and painful reflexes to being scared or startled, have a CAUSE.  With a cause, comes a treatment or cure, right?

It turns out that this process is much more difficult than I would prefer.  It's hard getting in touch with painful feelings that I had so "successfully" stifled all of these years.  I wear the face of a confident woman taking care of everything herself.  In fact, it's a lack of trust that others can or would look out for my best interest if I let them in... all the way in.  It made me so sad to discover that.  I thought I was not wanting to be a burden (which is still true), but to find that it's about me not trusting them NOT to hurt me? So sad.  This in itself motivated me to continue the process.

I am at a stand still, with decisions that need to be made before I know exactly how to move forward.  I'm still going to therapy and things are becoming clearer.  In the meantime, I feel more safe and more sure of my boundaries.

2010 was a shitty year in some aspects, but really it laid the groundwork for much better things to come.  With that, I will be focusing this blog on Gratitude as much as possible for 2011.  I know I'm ready.