Older, Wiser, Saltier, Happier?
This post is a brain dump. By recapping the last couple years and some things I learned, I’m hoping to clarify for myself what finally got me to this splendid place. Something definitely clicked a little while ago.
I definitely critically examined every deeply rooted belief I could think of over the last 25 months. When confronted with new evidence, I decided a lot of them were total garbage. Every time I found a belief that was either never true, no longer true, or didn’t serve me, I worked to unlearn it. It’s been a long couple years, and the process hasn’t been linear, by any stretch.
I seem to have transitioned into a new phase of being the last few months. It’s been long enough that I’m pretty sure it’s not just a mood swing.
I think I spent the last two years in ‘The Dark Night Of the Soul” (aka emotional hellscape, midlife crisis) and now I feel like maybe I’ve made it through? Two years ago, everything fell apart. I found myself in a terrible mental health crisis as I stared at the smoking crater that had been my life. Things I’d always been able to count on and believe in, gone. Everything I’d valued about myself and my life, gone. This undid decades of therapy and I was confronted again by every damn thing I thought I’d processed over the years, which was excruciating. Turns out I’d just slapped some spackle over it and hung a picture over the damage.
Whoops.
Thanks to all the therapy and work over the years, there were things I knew on a cognitive level. I could say all the things that should be true. (Like, it’s okay to take care of yourself first, it’s okay to take time for yourself, you don’t owe toxic people your time or energy, etc.) I just never felt them until recently. Completely buying into ‘fake it ’til you make it,’ I tried really hard, with the best of intentions. I just never really made it. (When I use the word toxic, I mean people/situations that aren’t good for me, cause me stress, or constantly cause negative feelings in the pit of my stomach. I’m sure the word means plenty of other things to plenty of other people.)
I’m in a spacious place right now. I don’t want to learn anything, take any courses, do any more therapy, listen to informative podcasts, or read another self-help or psychology book. I don’t want to think about things that happened in the past, or what might happen in the future. Not because I’m in a terrible place and none of this is fixable. I’ve just done so much inner work for so long, I just don’t think there’s any more learning or personal growth to be wrung out of the sponge right now.
Events and experiences in the past don’t matter to me very much anymore. I’m only interested in today. Sometimes I plan our dinners a week in advance, but that’s all the future thinking I’m interested in. Maybe today will be a great day. Maybe it’s going to suck. Doesn’t really matter, either way. There’s likely another day tomorrow.
You know you’ve experienced some growth when situations that once would have sent you into an anxious stress spiral barely blip your radar anymore.
For the last while, things that should have (and definitely have in the past) sent me spinning earn only a shrug and nothing more. Somehow, I’m now able to stay out of my head and not ruminate when something brushes against one of my triggers. For the first time in my life that I can remember, I don’t fall down an obsessive rabbit hole. I don’t spend days catastrophizing, expecting the worst case scenario. I just don’t care enough anymore to have an emotional response, and I don’t mean that in a bad way.
Most of the things I’ve been emotionally reactive to are things that shouldn’t have provoked a strong physical/emotional response anyway. The other day, I was once again faced with a situation that has thrown me into anxiety attacks for over a decade. I said, “Things will work out however they need to work out. We’ll deal with it then.”
Pardon me who why when where what the all encompassing fvk?
Want a fun fact about spending your entire life anxious and running on stress? When you can’t find it anymore, you’ll spend time looking for it.
Not because it ever felt good, but because it’s familiar. You just get used to it. You even think, “Well that’s just how I am. I’m intense.” It’s weird suddenly having the dark spectres of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disappear. Ever had a tooth pulled? You know how you just can’t seem to keep from poking your tongue to the socket, like you’re subconsciously making sure the problem tooth is really gone?
It’s like that.
Around the same time I made the zen statement about things working out how they needed to, someone in my life crossed a boundary. (Again.) I reinforced the boundary, because enough already. They’re upset and I’m receiving the silent treatment.
I explained why the boundary was necessary. That was really courteous of me, because I’ve learned that we don’t owe people explanations for the boundaries we set. Nevertheless, they were very unhappy. I reached out via text a few times right after, and I’ve received no response.
Prior me would lose sleep that I’d upset someone and they were upset with me. I would have phoned to try and smooth things over. Even if I wasn’t at fault, I would have tripped all over myself apologizing. I probably would have sent a fruit basket.
After they ignored my several texts, I talked to someone close about it. They suggested I phone to straighten things out.
Nope.
I hadn’t been rude. I’d made them aware of the situation not that long ago, and if they didn’t take me seriously or didn’t understand, that’s a whole lot of ‘not my problem.’
Other people’s reactions to my boundaries and limitations also aren’t my problem.
Possibly, they were upset because they felt bad about what they did. Prior Me would have spent time and energy reassuring them. They didn’t need to feel bad about doing something that could potentially cause me actual harm! Please forgive me for making you feel bad about making me feel bad. Forgive me for having the audacity to politely call you out on your shitty behaviour.
Current Me realizes that managing other people’s feelings is not my problem.
Even in the case that they feel bad, the silent treatment is petty and passive aggressive AF and…
Not my problem.
I spent about three minutes anxious. I spent another seven running it by someone else and examining if I’d been in the wrong and should apologize. (It happens) Ultimately, I concluded that I hadn’t erred, shrugged as I realized I couldn’t muster a care, and I was done giving it any brain space until now as I write about it.
Part of the reason I’m no longer triggered by certain situations that aren’t in my control is that I’ve realized in my lifetime, every awful thing I ever feared, except losing my daughter or husband, has come to pass, Every…goddamned…one.
All awful, yet I’m still standing.
I’ve always found a way to pivot or rebuild and keep going so there’s not much left for me to fear except the deaths of my most loved ones.
Life goes on, and so have I.
There’s so much that I wasted a ton of time, energy, and stress on for absolutely no pay off. I look back at the first 40 years of my life and I barely recognize who she was. The last two years have been the hardest, which is saying something. I lost a lot, but it left me with two lists: people and things I truly care about.
They’ve been extensively edited over the last two years, and now they’re both very short lists.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad about pre-forties me, even though she makes me cringe a bit. (Pretty high-strung, that chick.) Prior Me just adapted and became a product of environments and life experiences. (I talked more about that here.) It wasn’t a case of ‘adjust your mindset, choose to not be anxious.’ I had to be on alert all the time so I was, and I struggled to turn that off even in safe environments with safe people. (My brain and body were often on two different pages. I talked about that here.) Frankly, I think it might indicate that I’m a pretty smart cookie. Maybe my ancestors only needed to be mauled once by a sabre-toothed tiger to learn, and then passed on the gift of hyper-vigilance through genetics.
Now that I’ve started to unlearn some behaviours that don’t benefit me any longer, I’m better because of it.
My goal now is to be the person I needed when I was younger, for myself. I needed kindness, a soft place to land, and someone to put me first. I needed someone I could rely on to advocate and care for me, but it’s not too late. I’m getting better at boundaries and resisting my urge to people-please, which I’ve always done even to my own detriment.
I always did what I needed to do to feel safe, but I’ve been safe for a long time. Time to unlearn some adaptations.
I’m learning to say no, without anxiety joining the chat. I’m already booking a few medical teams for next year, and when asked if there could be some kind of deal or discount, the answer is simply no. Book us or don’t, but the cost is the cost.
For years, I hated the thought of losing the opportunity to make money so deep discounts, if requested, were plentiful. I figured making a small amount of money was better than making no money, right? Then, this past summer, my company was hired by a couple events that just paid. No negotiations, no sob story about how their event didn’t make much money, not even a raised eyebrow at our rates. (Which are lower than the industry standard anyway.) In 2019, I got screwed out of so much money it bankrupted me, and then I didn’t work for two years. That fixed my fear of (once again) losing my financial stability.
Been there, did that, still standing.
I can’t and won’t live the rest of my life making myself stressed and miserable so no one else feels stressed and miserable. It feels like self-betrayal of the highest form to deny what I need to be okay, for everyone else’s benefit. I have basic human rights that I don’t need to ‘earn’, even though it took me a very long time to figure that out.
I have a right to be happy, relaxed, and treated with basic decency and respect. Just like every other human being.
For too long, I felt like wanting to just be happy was entitled. Like, who was I to think I deserved to be happy? I almost thought being happy was some kind of weakness or character flaw. My belief was that I didn’t have any value as a human being unless I was worried sick about and taking care of everyone and everything, running myself into the ground to be everyone’s dependable rock. I held the belief that the only way to be worthy was to endure every hardship thrown at me, and even seek out and handle hard situations to spare others.
Over the past couple years of rebuilding myself and my life, I learned why I developed the belief that the more miserable and stressed out I was, the better of a person I was. It was exhausting, making sure I was ON all the time, taking care of everyone and everything, like I was campaigning for some kind of martyr award. Making simple, human mistakes would often send me into a nauseated, tachycardic anxiety spiral. Inside, I’ve been a dumpster fire of a human being.
I unlearned the belief that there was something inherently wrong with me that attracted all flavour of meanies, narcissists and abusers. I don’t attract them, I just tolerated too much and let them stay in my sphere too long.
Human beings gravitate towards the familiar, even when the familiar sucks.
Over the last two years, for the first time I haven’t had 20 tasks on my daily to-do list. I actually spend some time everyday just chilling out, watching TV, writing, or reading, and the world hasn’t ended. Sometimes, the few things on my list don’t get done that day because I just don’t feel like it.
Nobody cares, and the world hasn’t spun off its axis.
I’m more unplugged than I used to be. I spend way less time on social media, keeping up on current events, and getting involved in what’s going on with everyone else. I just don’t care, truth be told. I’ve had a lot to deal with, so I don’t have any extra bandwidth available. I have precisely zero interest in being involved in anyone’s drama, letting anyone create drama for me, rescuing anyone, or saving the world.
I’m saving myself instead, and it’s about damned time.
Running myself ragged worrying about everyone and everything else doesn’t make me more worthy or valuable as a human being. I have value as a human being just because I exist. My whole life, my self-worth was completely dependant on performance. If I worked the hardest, if I was the smartest, the most driven, the most tireless, the most giving, the most accommodating, the most permissive, the most reliable, the most emotionally controlled, the most pulled together, the strongest…then maybe I had some value.
What an utter load of bullshit, and to anyone and everyone who ever nurtured that in me for their own benefit :
I’ve lost all interest in thinking about past traumatic events. Things that happened (or things people chose to perpetrate) happened as they did, and they’re over. I survived and I’m still here, so I just want to stop carrying the baggage. It’s time.
Even the perpetrators are largely irrelevant to me now.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no saint. I still look forward to the day I hear that my monster ex is dead. He’ll die alone and miserable, and part of me delights in that. He deserves to reap every awful thing he ever sowed, so obviously I’m not that enlightened. A smaller part of me thinks that being who he is, with the sick psyche he so obviously has, is punishment enough.
A much smaller part. I’m a little more evolved these days, but fvck that guy.
I’ve had several non-romantic relationships over the course of my life that were very tumultuous. For their duration, I defaulted to try harder, give more, put up with more, tolerate more, blame myself for every issue, be even more patient, change. If I loved hard enough and forgave enough, we’d get to a place where they stopped being mean, manipulative, selfish, or toxic, because I’d proven myself as loyal and unconditionally loving.
I learned that it doesn’t matter how hard you love someone or how much you want them to love you back, it doesn’t change them. Sacrificing yourself for relationships in which you’re treated like garbage changes you though.
I’ve since realized that the people I was afraid of losing, weren’t a loss after all once I finally pulled the plug for my own sanity and self-respect. I don’t need to prove myself as worthy of respectful, caring, two-way interaction, and I never did. I don’t engage in one-sided relationships anymore, period. Never again will I continuously ‘audition’ for the role of friend or try to forge relationships with those who’ve made it clear they aren’t that interested in connection. I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. There are people who love me for who and how I am, and I don’t need to put on a dog-and-pony show to impress. I no longer believe that I have to ‘pay dues’ or earn anyone’s regard through hard work and hurt feelings.
I’m sad for Prior Me ever believing that.
Novel concept: how’s about getting into relationships that don’t need constant apologies or forgiveness? Now I have a small, beloved circle that creates no drama. They’re just regular people who have good days and bad days, good things and bad things happen, and they’re all capable of managing their lives without needing a codependent hero to save them.
I no longer waste energy trying to build relationships with people who don’t give a crap. I don’t give a crap anymore either, and the relationships that matter to me are better since I put my priorities and efforts where they belong.
When I moved in with my now (favourite) husband, I realized the concept that relationships are painfully hard work and love hurts…are two more bullshit beliefs I bought into. Have he and I had to go through hard things? Of course, and I’m sure there will be more. We’ve had our big conflicts too, but our relationship isn’t hard to be in. It isn’t painful. I don’t have to constantly forgive him, because he doesn’t constantly do things that need apologies or forgiveness. Our relationship doesn’t break my heart, make me feel bad, or strangle my soul. Neither of us has to walk on eggshells nor put on fronts of any kind. We can disagree with each other (quite passionately since we’re the two most stubborn people I know) without yelling, name-calling, insulting, belittling, mocking, threatening, shoving, throwing things, or hitting.
Things that happened in the past just don’t matter to me very much anymore. I’m only interested in today, although occasionally I plan our dinners a week in advance. That’s as much looking into the future as I’m interested in because it’s ultimately not in my control.
Maybe today will be a great day. Maybe it’s going to suck. Doesn’t really matter, chances are good there’s another day tomorrow.
Once upon a time, I had a gift. I had an unrivalled capability to stuff rage, resentment, despair, etc. down into the ever expanding ball of shitty feelings in my belly. That ball and running at high levels of stress were caustic, and I’m pretty sure it contributed to developing my auto-immune disease.
These days, I don’t do things unless there’s some kind of benefit and I don’t do things that have negative effects on me or my life in general. I try to keep in mind:
“Just because I could endure it, doesn’t mean I have to or should.”
I keep looking for the fight-or-flight response that was active in me all the time and it’s not there. Occasionally I feel it spark, and I’m able to snuff it in a hurry. I’ve learned to stay in my body, and traumatic response doesn’t live there anymore. A beautiful thing I saw online awhile ago said, “Your body is not a coffin for pain to be buried in.” (Iya Eh-hee-may)
Something else I learned about myself in the last two years? I’m a very good paramedic, partly because the more heinous a situation was, the calmer I was handling it. Nerves of steel? Not really. I dissociate like a mofu, and I used to do it at the drop of a hat. Helpful for ‘holy shit’ calls as a paramedic, helpful for surviving awful things…less than helpful when trying to process trauma.
I’ve been letting go the last few months. Junk and possessions that I don’t want anymore, old hurts and expectations, how I thought my life would be, traumatic experiences and betrayals, and anything tangible or emotional that doesn’t serve me. I’m clearing space on so many levels.
Breathing room, space and stillness don’t make me nervous anymore.
I can’t credit taking new medications, more medications, illicit drugs, or drinking more. (Although I considered it for awhile.) I don’t know exactly what changed my internal landscape so thoroughly. Sleeping better helped, I’m sure, and probably being wilfully isolated helped too. (I’m a little too empathetic and I get really affected emotionally by other people.)
Maybe it’s that I’m another year older or I finally realized I don’t owe anyone a damn thing. (I paid alllll my dues, thanks very much.) It’s possible I finally snapped and realized that my life wasn’t working for me even before my brain broke, I got screwed over by a few people I thought were friends, I lost all my money, Covid shut my industry down, and MS became a forever part of my life. There’s a good chance that since everything I’ve ever feared (minus the previously mentioned exceptions) has come to pass and I survived it all, there’s nothing left to be anxious about.
I do giggle at the picture of my very last, dried out fvck falling off and gently wafting to the ground onto the pile with all the rest that I’ve shed over the last few years.
Whatever caused the change isn’t super relevant at this point, it’s the result that matters. Briefly, I wished I’d figured all of this out earlier in life but I realized pretty quickly that I couldn’t have. There were either pieces to the puzzle that I only found recently, or I had to go through more things to get here. If I could have reached this place earlier, I would have. It wasn’t for a lack of desire or effort.
I’m sure there will be times when things hit me like a truck again. Things aren’t gone, they’re just better managed right now, much like the MS. It’s not gone either, it’s just managed. There’s no guarantee I won’t have more flare-ups. All I can do is go about my business and deal with flare-ups if and when they happen.
I didn’t abandon every belief, though. For two years, I forgot some while I was struggling to get my feet back under me but when I remembered my belief that I’m unbreakable, the game changed.
