Before you read this: If you are in my Group with Chuck on Tuesdays, this may be somewhat discouraging or triggering if you don't make it all the way through. I warn you now, because I love you guys, and I don't want to be the reason you slip on your Journey. Really, though, it's good, and it was good for me to get this out and remind myself of why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm honest, see? (:
I (literally) have not stopped or slowed down for a second since last Friday night. If I'm not talking out loud, I'm texting 90% of the people in my phone. I'm making plans to hang out. I'm going for drives and singing all the songs on the radio and on all the CDs in my car because I literally won't let my brain slow down enough to comprehend and process all that's going on in my life.
Hi, I'm Jes. I'm a runner. I run from my problems. When I go running to clear my head, I really go running and yell at myself for getting so winded (even though I have asthma, and it just happens) or for not running fast enough or far enough or just well enough. I'm truly my own worst critic. I am never good enough for me.
So now that you guys are all caught up there, I can sort of talk about all the rest of this. Before group meeting on Tuesday, I had my private session with Chuck. And the thing I love about Chuck is that he gives me the exact same advice that my parents give me, that Jim gives me, that my friends give me...and for some reason, I just don't take the advice to heart until he sits me down, makes me shut up and shut down, and look him in the eyes and listen. I don't know what it is about that old man, but he gets through to me somehow. I mean, I guess someone, somewhere had to, eventually! Chuck said that he still has trouble understanding why I don't just run from my problems, but I run from my Good Things. I avoid my friends after I tell them something or after they say something nice to me. I avoid talking to anyone that might get under my skin or in my head. I shut down. I just do it. I don't know why, either. I guess I just need to feel like I'm the only person on this earth that can know who I am. Given that the people that I trusted most in my life have found ways to let me down or leave my life, I guess it doesn't really surprise me. What does surprise me is just how scared I've been lately.
So Chuck sits me down, and asks me what's been going on, basically. I told him that I've been dreading my best friend's "ten minutes" that she's gotten to literally sit down and talk for 10 minutes straight - whenever she wants to, wherever and however - and I am not allowed to say a word. I have to focus and pay attention to what she's saying and literally take it to heart. If she's saying nice things, I can't walk away. If she's giving me criticisms, I have to process them but not take anything the wrong way. I can't interrupt or justify anything in any way. I have to sit and listen. Chuck says he thinks I should award 3 people that have been major pillars in my life in the last 6 months 5 minutes, and give Lindsey an extra 5 because she's been interrupted by me too many times. And then, to give one person 10 minutes. One person who may not really know me that well, but who may have a lot to say to me. And they get pretty much the same rules as Lindsey does - you have 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes to sit and say whatever you want to me, and I can't respond, have a rebuttal, or otherwise interrupt. You can set ground rules before you start speaking - maybe you don't want me to look at you while you talk, maybe you want me to keep eye contact the whole time, maybe you want to say things for five minutes and then we never talk about it again. Whatever. Your rules, not mine.
And then, at the end of each set of 5 minutes (or whatever), I have to journal about it. I have to sit in my own silence and think and process and write.
Chuck hasn't been very clear about what this is supposed to accomplish, but he so rarely gives me actual tasks to do, I am going to do this one. I've already decided who I'm going to talk to about it, and if they don't want to, that's fine. I just don't know what I need in my life, so I'm going to take advice from someone who might.
But, now, my real explanation. Like I said, I've been dealing with a lot. I've had a lot of Tuff Stuff stomping around in my brain and pulling at my heart and just crawling under my skin. I've been trying to do everything in my power to ignore it, and I kind of just Volcano Effect'd and it erupted inside of me. After Crossroad on Monday, I started my car and burst into tears. I'm not usually a crier. I'm a doer. I want to go run, or clean, or something. I went home and ran and then bit all of the heads off of my entire bag of Swedish fish because I had nothing to clean. Frustration, it turns out, is not a productive emotion of mine. Tuesday, I was worse, because I had had all of those feelings, and then didn't do anything with them. Today was really just the worst. I felt like I annoyed everyone I came into contact with. Anytime someone said anything nice, I wanted to cry. A friend tweeted that she was proud of me today, when I gave her my NEDAwareness week bracelet I made her, and I went into the bathroom and bawled. I have no idea what's been wrong with me. It's not even like, for girl reasons either!
I think a lot of it was because of what the 30 hour famine my sorority did (as a fundraiser), and where my mind went and the stuff I thought about during those 30 hours. My body hated me. I hated me. I felt so incredibly selfish, that I had willingly gone without food for days just because I wanted to look a certain way. I wanted to be something else. I didn't want to be me. I have never felt as selfish as I did in those hours. And I think that's when I got torn down, and when my volcano started to overflow a little bit. I was just so ashamed.
And then Monday, not one, but two, of my friends talked to me about the way I sell myself short, and how it's "just something [I] have a tendency to do." That made me feel even more selfish. I don't really know why, but I just really hated myself. It almost put me back in a place I shouldn't be ever again. It's funny, too, to me, the way I was so mad at myself that I was willing to fall back into the old patterns that I was mad at myself for having in the first place. A Vicious Cycle.
And I guess that's really still where I am. I am still struggling to deal with my emotions, and I may not until I'm finally just pushed to a point where I can literally ignore them no longer. But I'm Jes, and that's what I do. I don't want to lie and say, "Oh, yeah, but I'm totally fine now." The truth is, I'm not. I need to talk to someone, to vent, to cry, to yell, to do whatever it is that Jeses do when they need to get these things out of them. I feel horrible, because I feel like I need to be completely honest with a couple of my other friends and let them in on My Horrible Secret, which isn't even a bad secret - it was something totally out of my control...once, anyway - but one that I just don't know how I feel about it. It's that secret that eats at me all the time, that repeats over and over that I'm not good enough, that I'm not x enough, it wouldn't have even happened if I had been better more this more that more anything than what I was, and am.
I guess this is the part where I remind everyone that I am not a victim - I'm a survivor. It's still a long, windy, bumpy road, and I stumble a lot. I have the bumps and scrapes and bruises and scars to prove it. But my point is really not to be discouraged. I'm still surviving. No, it's not easy, but I know it will get better. I have to remember who has my life engraved in the palms of His hands. (Isaiah 49:16)
My point is that I'm a fighter, and if I can stand and fight, so can you.
Psalm 142:3
2 Samuel 22:33
I love you, Group Guys and Gals. I know this week has been tough & trying, but I believe in all of you. And really, anyone else reading this, too. I believe in you, too, and I know that whatever struggles you are going through now, you will emerge victorious from them, and find a way to turn those struggles into something that glorifies God and the way He works in your life.
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