For Those Who Know Part 3: Slack

We made it to Part 3 (AKA- the old Part 2). Hooray!

I've actually been really excited about this post because it's not nearly as heavy as my last post (which is another reason that writing that one was so difficult). No, this post is all about not being so freaking hard on yourself! This is my "cut yourself some slack for crying out loud" post.

Look. I know how it is. Your world has been turned upside-down, stomped on, and has shattered into approximately a bajillion pieces (my math skills are impressive, I know *brushes off shoulder*). This has left you pretty messed up, I'm not going to sugar-coat it.

I don't know about you, but I cried more in the first few months since my ex's arrest than I have in pretty much the rest of my life combined. And that's saying something, because I'm a pretty emotional person anyway. You can ask anyone that knows me and they will attest to that.

So let's look at those first months:

I sobbed at least once pretty much every day. I sobbed on friends, roommates, and sometimes even strangers. I struggled to eat regular meals and would take forever to motivate myself to eat anything at all a lot of the time. And when I did eat, I could hardly eat anything at all before I had to call it quits. I had nightmares constantly. Nightmares about being molested by faceless strangers, nightmares about being molested by people that I know, nightmares about seeing my ex and/or his family and not knowing what to do or how to react, etc.

I lost my job because I started to feel really sick ALL THE TIME. I have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) which means that stress=sick. So crazy-felony-stress=all-the-nausea, all-the-time. It was all I could do to get out of bed and stay out of bed without feeling like passing out. I actually did almost pass out one day. I also stopped taking birth control since I was no longer going to get married, and my periods became absolutely horrendous. So on top of the nausea, light-headedness, headaches, and fatigue, I also got to add in a few days a month where I felt like I was legit dying.

I majorly struggled in social situations. My friends were super great at making sure that they kept inviting me to things, and I would try to go a lot of the time. But more often than not, I would leave after only about 15-20 minutes because I just couldn't people anymore and I felt really sad all of a sudden. So I would go home.

And I felt really sad all of a sudden ALL THE TIME. Just, out of the blue, for no particular reason. I could have been having a fantastic day and feeling relatively cheerful and then my emotions would just be like "Enough of that. Let's cry." And then there were triggers. I could be doing okay and then would be triggered by the smallest thing and would then feel off for the rest of the day and nothing seemed to be able to fully snap me out of it again.

I spent more time than I'd like to admit laying on the floor and staring at the ceiling.

That was my life for the few couple months of this year.

The next couple of months I improved a bit, but in those months anxiety attacks were added to the mix. My hands and sometimes my legs would get super shaky and would just be that way for long periods of time. During this time, I also had to say goodbye to the majority of my core support (because they either graduated or went home on their off-track), and had to move apartment complexes, meaning all new roommates, none of which had gone through the felony with me. Oh, and I tried to take some classes. That didn't go well and I ended up only taking 2 credits.

I still didn't have a regular job (though I was super blessed with a cleaning job and some babysitting jobs).

I started to sob all the time again. I felt much more alone. I started consistently staying up past 3 AM, trying to distract myself from sad, negative thoughts. Nightmares were still definitely a thing.

In many ways, it seemed like I was getting worse, not better.

And during those first sixish months, I had it in my head that I would get better and be fairly okay by Fall semester 2017 (so this semester). HA.

This semester I still randomly feel like crying sometimes (not as much for that little bit that I was in a relationship, but before and after). I still get triggered sometimes and start to feel really anxious. I still have nightmares and super struggle to get myself to bed because I really don't want to have nightmares. I still have times where I have a hard time eating three good meals a day. I still get pretty bad headaches and get dizzy all the time. I still don't always feel super up to being social (though I have improved a ton there) and have a hard time spending time with people that I don't already know.

But wait. It's been almost 11 months since my ex was arrested! Shouldn't I be better now?!

No.

Because I can't put a timeline on my healing (no matter how hard I try to at times...)

I talk about this in my post called The Prideful "Should," so I'm not going to get into that too much, but let me just say it again. There is no timeline for healing. So stop trying to make one.

One of the first things that I would ask doctors, therapists, or people who have had broken engagements is "So how long until I'll be okay? How long until I'm better?"

Unfortunately, emotional wounds aren't like physical wounds. No one can tell me "Keep your heart in that cast for a month and then come back in and we'll take it off. Then just start exercising it and it'll be good as new in a couple of months!"

It would be great if that's how that worked, but it's not.

I want so badly to just be healed already so that I can move on with my life. I want to be able to be a full-time student again and to hold a proper job again (I'm currently job searching, but am honestly kind of terrified of getting a job and then not being able to keep up with it. I've got a couple of promising options that I'm looking at though).

I want to be able to listen to whatever the heck I want without being triggered. I want to be able to sleep without nightmares, and actually be able to consistently get to bed at a decent time and then get up at a decent time of the morning and stay up.

I want to be able to do all of the things that used to be second nature but aren't anymore. Things that I never really had to think about before. Things that I took for granted that I could do so easily before.

And I will absolutely get there! But I don't know when and trying to set a date for when I'll "be fine" again only stresses me out even more.

And it's hard, because I'll have periods of time where I am doing a ton better! And it's like "Sweet! I'm finally making some progress!" And then whoosh I plummet again. It's like I take one step forward and then a dive-bomb off a cliff backward. And then the pain hurts with a renewed vigor because it's fresh again. Because the pain does kind of dull over time. Not that it goes away, but you kind of become numb to it a bit. And then you start to do better. And then you crash again and the whole process starts all over again with that terrible pain.

And because you started to feel better, then you feel crazy guilty for being down again. You feel like you're weak.

I feel straight-up pathetic more often than not. I feel like I'm just the biggest wreck. Like I'm barely keeping my head above water before being pushed back down to where I feel like I'm drowning again.

But I always resurface because I never succumb to drowning. I keep fighting my way back up.

And that's the thing. You feel so weak because you no longer seem capable of doing ordinary things without massive effort. It's like your drowning in a mere inch of water. But the fact that you are still even trying to function is nothing to turn your nose up at!

Let me share parts of a conversation between me and a friend who went through a traumatic abuse situation as well. I feel like I can't really write it out better here than what I said to her then.

Her: I was doing pretty good for two weeks and then last week was terrible and I cried nearly constantly and couldn’t function. I was so frustrated that my progress seemed to be going in the wrong direction!

Me: Let me tell you right now, it's completely okay that you are not okay. It's the worst feeling, but you're going to feel sad and broken and useless at times and you need to be accepting of that. What you have gone through is hell. What you ARE going through is hell. So it's completely okay for you to break down at times as long as you keep getting back up every single day and do your best. And sometimes your best might be hardly anything at all. And that's okay too.

Her: Thank you. Sometimes I feel guilty for not being ok. Someone told me the other day that happiness is a choice so I need to choose to be happy. I have tried that and I feel terrible about myself because the majority of the time it does not work. I cannot simply choose happiness all the time right now. And then I feel weak. So thank you for explaining that my emotions are normal. And that I’m not a failure for not being able to immediately use the atonement to fix my broken heart, and that it’s normal for me to be sad a lot.

Me: Oh hun, I still have breakdowns sometimes. Not nearly as often, and usually not nearly as bad as they used to be, but they still happen.  And that's okay. Happiness absolutely is a choice, but it's not a black and white choice between happiness and despair. It's choosing to FIND happiness in the midst of the despair. It's allowing yourself to laugh for a minute in between crying sessions.

You are absolutely not a failure, weak, or abnormal for feeling the way that you do right now. It literally is completely okay.

.........

It is SO easy to feel so helpless. But you have to remember that you literally have been through hell and that is not an easy trip. Think of it this way. If you had a friend that served in Afghanistan and saw his friends die, was imprisoned, etc. Would you expect him to just be fine and dandy when he got home? Probably not. 

You have been through your own war zone. I don't know your situation exactly of course, but I feel like I can probably relate. You have watched the man that you love die. You have lost him to the enemy and realized that you lost him a long time ago in all reality. You have felt a prisoner in your own [relationship]. You have felt the fear of doing or saying the wrong thing. 

You and your soldier friend would be a lot more similar than you thought.

So please cut yourself some slack. This is NOT an easy path to be on. So it is 100% okay to not be fine right now. And it's okay if you're not fine tomorrow, or two weeks from now, or five months from now. The healing process is slow and gradual, but it IS happening. Heavenly Father really is there, taking every step of this long road with you. And you can be assured that Jesus Christ knows exactly how to help you to make it through this hour. This day. This week. This year. This trial. He knows because He has personally experienced it. He literally knows what YOUR unique broken heart feels like. He also knows of your incredible potential. And He will lead you, step by step, until you reach that potential. And you don't have to be okay to do good things. I'm not okay even still, but I have been able to help people throughout this whole thing. 

I hope that what I'm saying makes sense. Because the guilt is so real. I know it is. I still struggle against it at times. But I know that I'm doing what I can (even if I feel like I SHOULD be able to do so much more), and I know that Heavenly Father is so proud of me for my efforts, as small as they seem to be.

I need you all to know that if you are still working towards healing, then you are doing a great job. You are doing SO much better than you think. I know because I have talked to a lot of you. And you feel very broken right now. And you feel weak and like you don't know what to do. But I see you keep going on with your lives anyway. 

People look at me and tell me that I'm so strong. If you are one of those people, let me let you in on a (not so) secret. I don't feel strong at all. 

So if you can look at me and see strength, even though you know that I still cry lots and that I struggle constantly, then do me a huge favor and look in the mirror and see that same kind of strength in yourself. That which is so easy to see in others is so hard to find in yourself. I know. But just because it's hard to see, doesn't mean that it's not there.

Feeling sad, crying, struggling to do everyday tasks, etc. do not mean that you are not strong. You can be strong and cry. You can be strong and struggle. Really, these things prove that you ARE so strong because you keep right on going even when things are so hard! And like I said in Part 1, even if all you accomplish is getting out of bed and eating a bowl of cereal. That's still an accomplishment! And just because you don't accomplish much today, doesn't mean that that's it for you because there is always tomorrow! And the next day. And the next.

So please, please, PLEASE. Do me a ginormous favor and cut yourself some slack. As long as you are striving to move forward, you are totally okay if you're not okay. 

Don't push yourself so hard that you fall on your face. Be honest with yourself. If you are feeling anxious/sad/whatever, trying to plow over it is very rarely going to be successful. Own up to it instead. Take a minute to breathe. Allow yourself to feel what you're feeling and then gauge what you can and cannot viably handle right now. And if you can't handle much, don't beat yourself up about it! 

When I'm really struggling, I often will try to ignore it. But I've found that it does me a lot more good if I just admit it. Sometimes that means letting whoever I'm with know that I'm struggling. Sometimes it means biting the bullet and reaching out to someone for help or comfort, whether that be them coming over to hold me while I cry, play games with me, or not come over at all but just talk to me on the phone so that I can think about them for a while instead of myself. 

Sometimes it means giving myself a break to read or watch a video before finishing working on something. Sometimes it simply means that I need to stop and take some deep breaths so that I don't subconsciously start hyperventilating. 

Whatever the case may be, I always feel a lot better after facing my emotions head on than ever I do when I try to shove them under the rug.

I don't know when I'll be "better." I don't know when I'll be healed. And that sucks and I hate it, but that's just how it is. But I still won't quit. Not ever. I'm going to keep doing my best to open my heart and mind to God, keep seeking support from my friends (even if I feel bad about it at times), and keep seeking the professional help that I need as well. 

A friend sent this article for me to read after I had talked to his wife about being sad about my recent break up. I just wanted to share a little snippet (and then you should click on the link and read the rest ;) )

For months I prayed for instructions on how I could stop hurting and what I needed to do—in other words, how I could have more control over what was happening. I knew I was responsible for how I reacted to my trials, but I wanted to be responsible for more than my behavior. I also wanted to control the pain. Many attempts to decide that I was all better only set me up for disappointment and a feeling of failure when I stumbled upon additional hard days.

I hate to tell you this, but you can't decide how and when your healing will happen. And you won't ever heal if you're caught up with an impossible deadline. That only adds more stress and more reasons to feel down. 

So don't set a date for your healing. Set goals. Figure out what you want to be able to accomplish next and work towards that. Take your life one step at a time. Worry about today and leave tomorrow for tomorrow. 

And remember that while you definitely should be doing your best to heal, driving yourself too hard will only wear you down further. So take a step back, take a nice, deep breath, and cut yourself some dang slack! You truly are incredible.

(To be continued...)

PS- Read this right now: Drops of Awesome

The title sounds funny, but my second trainer on my mission showed this to me and it's changed my life. 

Every. Single. Little. thing that you do is worth something. Don't you ever forget that.