Fricken Life...

Sometimes people tell me how strong I am because I reveal things about myself that others might not.  But like everything else in life, it really it is more complex than that. I think part of it is all the growth I've done in the last year. I've worked really hard to like myself more, to get in touch with what I want in life and from others.Nothing like a personal tragedy to throw your world into a mess of self realizations.  But some of it comes from a place not so expected. It comes from a place of self protection. I've come to realize that if I am more honest, with not only myself, but with those around me, that I no longer have to wonder if they like me for who I am.  My self disclosure, therefore, allows me to trust more - an issue I struggle with.  Of course, being the complicated creature I am, this disclosure is in itself is not perfect. I have a hard time admitting in some areas of my life that I'm less than perfect. That slowly ingrained part that has unrealistic expectations of myself prevents me at times from not only admitting my mistakes to others, but to myself as well. And this is why the last few days have been so hard on me.
A little background first:  I had a very rough spring semester last year. I had of course, felt that I was invincible and could pull of the semester in the same fashion I had pulled off my whole college career. I survived an anxiety disorder, babies, miscarriages, buying a house, family drama...all life could throw at me and still stay above a B average. So naturally why couldn't I do it this time around? right? Well as life does sometimes, it said to me - yeah right, think again woman! The court proceedings over the man that killed my brother constantly threw me into confusion and grief. Keeping focused on school or anything felt harder and harder.  I thought I was just being not strong enough. That was until the therapist I had been seeing weekly for a year recommended I take the step up from my Dr., to a psychiatrist for medication.  This had taken some time to do as some of my mood stuff could have been connected to my brother.  Not to my surprise really, instead, I was diagnosed Bipolar II. I won't go into what that is, but will say that it made sense to both me and my therapist it turns out. It explained so much of the high emotional ups and downs in my life - even though my childhood was crisis after crisis and makes some things a little fuzzy on what was at fault when. Since I have been struggling with ongoing mood swings and adjusting medication.  I ended the semester taking Incompletes for my classes - I concentrated on attending classes and keeping up with content. It was all I had in me to do at the time.  I even had to ask for help from my professors.
        On to now:  It's hard to admit, but although I've had the entire summer to work on my missing work, I haven't done much at all. It's hard to look back and say it was one thing or another. I could say it was that one hypomanic phase I had where I drank a little too much and was a little too social and wrapped up in doing things that were fun - but that lasted only two weeks. No the truth is that I just didn't. And now I'm approaching deadlines with a fury of studying.  Just when I start to think...ok. I can still pull this off, my instructor in charge of my internship hands me the crappy news. I can't enter into my internship with the Incompletes still left unfinished. If I do everything by September sometime I still get the grades, but I can't intern. So now my putting things off throws all my plans out the window. The next internship that would be possible is not until summer again he tells me. How can my family survive two semesters. We had been living on excess aid and an awarded stipend, only one more semester would have been fine - now what? It's so hard to admit that I really messed things up. That much longer till I get a good paying job and even worse now I have to find a crappy job in the meantime. It's a scary thing not knowing how much financial strain I have put on the family now or how things will turn out. I think about Christmas for the kids, doing the rotation of payments to bills (just enough so they don't get really mad), having to be unhappy with whatever work I can get. It feels terrible.  And I cried alot over my stupidity.
                                                                              
   Just as much as I have these feelings, though, I have another set of feelings that set in for a moment or two. The feeling that says "fuck it! I've worked way harder in my life than most people ever have to think of. I've had to be responsible way too early for not only myself but for other people too.  I've done good with my life till now and never messed it up. I deserve this mistake. "  I start to think about all the stories that are wrapped into those few sentences. And for that moment I think I'm one hundred percent right. I had the kind of childhood that may not have been filled with physical abuse, but that really messed up how I see the world. Plenty of emotional and psychological abuse done so cleverly at times, it took me a long time to even call it that. I was forced to be an adult incredibly too early and take care of everyone else - when all I needed was someone to take care of me.  I was never taught to do things from a place of empowering  independence or for my own need's as the family needed me to do whatever I could for them.I'm scared of success because I don't know what it looks like. Even today I never trust what a family member says to me fully. "I'm going to get you this for your birthday" - not going to happen. "we had to move again because the landlord has some college kids willing to pay more for the house" - not true. And these are the smallest of lies I dealt with. Although I'm finally learning to separate myself from all that madness that was my raising and to create healthy boundaries with my family - the truth is that all of that still sits in me somewhere,. Sure I've gotten over most of the specific incidents, but not the effects it has had on me, And this is where the "I'm due" shit comes from. Not only was it hard to survive childhood and somehow be strong enough to do well at the time; but it has remained hard (even in a good marriage) to do all the normal things in life since then. I know now some things were a struggle because of my mood disorder (again a present from my family - gotta love genetics) but I know so much more was due to the garbage I carried around from them.  As a result, my adult life has been a very hard road, as I've had to struggle with the smallest steps to create the bigger successes. From making friends, to college, to balancing a family and work, all of it seemed to have to come from so much internal work and courage. I've been constantly scared and unsure of what I was doing, and scared to take any credit for the successes. This brings me back to the "fuck it" moment. Why should I, in all I've had to do, be the one to struggle again? Why can't someone save me? Why can't I just take some time and not think, not deal with the harder things in  my life like expectations and deadlines? When do I get to just be!? I want to walk around with a big sign telling everyone how hard it was for me, what I've lived through, so they get it - get why it would be called a success for me to have come this far.

The facts are that crappy childhood, hard lessons, diagnosis, or bad hair day - it doesn't matter. It's still my responsibility to pick up and try again.  I still have to admit that this time it was my own doing and I must get myself out of it. I also have to do it in a way of self acceptance (this is the hard part) and allow myself this human mistake and grow from it.
Thanks for "listening".