Help is a Four-Letter Word

I realized something today. I realized just how much I’ve needed something that I fought every step of the way. Today, I’m going to bare my soul.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve had the worst life. I don’t even know if I would call it bad, in terms of others’ points of view. I know people who have had bad lives, rough lives, as I prefer to call them because being alive is a gift no matter how bad, but I have gone through more than I should have. I won’t go into the details of that, but I will say that it left me with many scars, and many emotional wounds that have yet to heal.

I started seeing a counselor about a month back. I was scared to go, it took pushing aside every ounce of pride that I had that I could do it myself, work through my issues, overcome my anxiety—anxiety that surrounds me many hours of every day—and tackle those underlying issues. I had an appointment scheduled for today. I got the call that she was out sick. No big deal, right? We rescheduled and all should be fine.

Honestly, I was crushed. I didn’t realize just how nice it is to have someone to dump on, someone who says things I need to hear. Someone who is impressed by my coping skills, that I already implement the majority of the tactics that they have been trained to recommend to people who suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. It’s nice not to be judged for not doing things the way most people do them, for being a bit behind on the social scale, on the mom scale, on doing things that the average, everyday person already knows and does.

I’m learning, I’m growing, I’m really proud of myself. I finally see myself in a better place, I can visualize being where I want to be instead of just dreaming and fantasizing about it wistfully and wishing it would happen. I know it’s possible. I know that with hard work and learning to harness my stubborn determination I can be in a career that isn’t fast food or retail. I can be an awesome mom. I can get out and do things without feeling sick every minute I’m out of the house. My stubbornness used to drive me to get out, but it has always been a relief to get back into my safe area, my comfort zone. Most times, I didn’t want to leave it to begin with.

Now, I have four comfort zones: school, work, the bookstore, and my counselor’s office. I go out to coffee, I go shopping and am excited about it, I joined the Phi Theta Kappa honor society by invitation, an opportunity I passed up in Oregon because I just didn’t feel good enough.

Ironically enough, I now sometimes feel stifled at home. I moved here to be with my boyfriend, and although moving was the best decision I ever made, sometimes I feel like I’m a miserable let down to him. It’s at home I feel the biggest ball of nervous energy. My boyfriend has in his mind a certain ideal of what a family should be like, and though I try hard, sometimes I just can’t get it right, and definitely not consistently as of yet. And so, when he pokes at my wounds (unintentionally, mind you) I tune out. I turn off. Instead of hating myself, I simply feel…nothing. In a way, I guess that’s growing. It’s nice not to feel angry and frustrated all the time, and yet, I’m terrified that I don’t know how simply to feel happy or content. Before I started growing it was either angry or ecstatic, there was no middle ground. Now, when I’m not angry, most times I merely live in a gray fog. I hate it. I guess a part of me is still punishing myself for…well…I don’t know why I do that anymore.

I never learned to manage my emotions; I kept things hidden away because in my family and in my life, it was always like that. And I’m learning to realize that the only person who can really manage my feelings and emotions is me, and I shouldn’t give other people that control all the time. Others may influence emotions, but they should never be in control of them.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. As cliché as it is, there is some truth to it. I’m thirty-six years of age, and it’s really hard for me to make some of the changes I need to make. Unfortunately, I can see the start of the same trend in my kids. My poor, beautiful boys who have had to suffer through my mess with me. My poor teenage son who often winds up on my boyfriend’s shit-list because he uses negative attention to get his way. Well, what my hon doesn’t understand, is that I don’t want to discuss my son with him, I don’t want to address those issues with him, because, quite frankly, I’m the one that made him that way with my stubborn determination to do things myself. If I had sought out help earlier, if I’d made more of an effort back when my kids were young…

But what-ifs get you nowhere. I can’t plan for teenage Armageddon the way my boyfriend does. I don’t want to think of myself as failing before I even get a chance to try. So we fight. He wants to plan for the worst; I want to try to curb the problem before it gets to that point. Why plan for something that won’t happen, right? Part of it is I panic when I think about failing. If I fail my boy, I fail myself. All this time, money, and effort to be a better person, to learn to deal with real life in a real way will be wasted. I want to help my sons to not grow up like…well…like me. I want them to have a solid grasp on their feelings, a true understanding of how things should be, to be prepared to enter the big, challenging world that waits for them when they leave home.
There are so many things I could add to all this, so many things I could say, but this is enough. I’m more terrified that if I don’t take care of myself I’ll screw up my kids than I am of anything else. However, I’m not just doing this for them; I’m finally doing it for me.

There is no shame in getting help. There is no shame in finding someone you trust (even if you have to pay for it) who is trained to deal with such things, to be a sounding board.

There is no shame in change or growth or accepting that sometimes you can’t do it on your own.

On that note, I’m going to get ready to step outside my comfort zone, drag my pre-teen down to the pool, and spend some quality one-on-one time with him before Wednesday when my teen comes home from his summer with the grandparents.

I’ll leave you all to your regularly scheduled whatever, but remember…

"Help" may be a four-letter word, but that doesn’t make it evil.

Have a great rest of the week, all!