Deep Breath........

I've not really felt the need to create a blog until today. I confess......I started out doing it because other people I know do it as well. But as I created the template, as I searched through photos that spoke to me and my situation.....I felt more confident that this was the right step for me at this time. I belong to an online survivors group which has really served my need for blogging to this point but I think this is something more personal I can do to help me get my thoughts out.

So my intro sums it up.....For some reason, I want to "be" perfect. Which is a laugh. I'm so far from perfect. I'm a freaking disaster, really. Yet I cling to these super high expectations and ideals. I do not want to accept that I am limited by human qualities. I don't want to feel. I don't want to sleep. I don't want to need. I listen to my therapist tell me I am a "human-doing" instead of a "human-being"....that I possess virtually no capacity to relax and be with myself. I nod as she reminds me how I need to do that. And how I need to feel my feelings. I listen and I nod, and I silently, secretly try to figure out a way around that. Sure....everyone else needs to do those things. But surely not me. Surely, if I keep dancing around all of that, the way I've been doing for 30+ years now....SURELY those same stupid actions will eventually produce a different result, right? I will find the way to transcend my human-ness and be able to filter through all those icky feelings without actually having to FEEL them. Why do we cling to the familiar even when it's the worst possible thing we can do for ourselves??

I am a survivor of abuse....mental, emotional, physical and sexual. At the hands of many. My father, my brother, my mother. MYSELF. Acquaintances, strangers, bosses, boyfriends, my ex-husband. Anyone I allowed into my circle was basically invited to hurt me. It's the only way I knew how to relate.

I am an addict....formerly of shopping, sex, internet obsession (including creating multiple persona's) and presently of food and SI. It seems I always need to have something to obsess over in my quest to avoid being with myself and allowing those feelings to come through.

I have been in and out of therapy for over 20 years. How utterly depressing that I'm not OVER this yet. I feel like a failure. All this stuff I know in my head that won't take the journey down to my heart to be accepted, believed and integrated. I try to hard to intellectualize something that makes absolutely no sense. Because if I can "think" it, I don't have to "feel" it. I'm feeling particularly motivated in my journey right now. I'm very reflective, I'm looking back, I'm looking forward. I'm willing to try some different things to make progress. Something different.....something new. How utterly horrifying.