Gotta Get Up, Gotta Get Out

I’ve always felt different, not in the cool way but in the “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things doesn’t belong,” kinda way. I’ve always been shy and I’ve always been horribly awkward in social situations. Nothing makes me happier than to sit back and watch others interact…. I let life pass me by though.

If you were to meet me you would think that I’m an intelligent, well put together person who is beginning a successful life. However, that’s never how I’ve felt about myself. On the inside I’m a tornado sucking it all in, then spitting out emotion and thought haphazardly.

I started to wonder why I felt this way so I looked to my past. I didn’t have a great childhood. I had the necessities and then some but emotionally I was kinda on my own. I come from an abusive home; physical and emotional. Nobody knew for years and then it all blew up. The physical abuse stopped and it became the family dirt swept under the rug.

I’ve dealt with it on and off for years. Now I’m 25 and I seem to have let the emotional damage creep into every aspect of my life. Every time I start to succeed, I start to feel a lot of anxiety and then I self-sabotage like nobody’s business. It took me five and a half years to complete my undergrad and the longer I went, the lower my GPA became. I’ve shut out most of my friends. Sometimes it was a good thing because I chose people who were horrible for me, sometimes because I couldn’t stand them seeing me vulnerable and sometimes I lost friends because I just couldn’t handle another person in my life. I’ve had a few relationships. Some have been so horrible, I look back and think, “What were you thinking trusting that person?!” My most recent relationship was with a man who was kind and loving and mostly understanding, but we just couldn’t make it work. We are both on journeys of inner healing and at very different places in those journeys. It breaks my heart to not be with him but it encourages me that there are people like him in the world and that I can get healthy in order to deserve a relationship with someone like him…

A few months ago I began counseling. It’s so difficult and painful. Most days I want to curl in a ball and just cry, but I’ve decided to adopt the ole AA motto and live each day a day at a time. My goal is to continue to write, to feel, to try new things and most importantly to not let missteps become huge setbacks. I’d like to share my progress. Harry Nilsson says you gotta get up, gotta get out so that’s what I’m going to try to do.