On Forgiveness

"You're going to have to figure out a way to forgive him. And yourself."

My therapist told me this one Sunday morning. We had spent the session talking about my trust issues which mostly stem from a relationship gone awry. Someone I trusted betrayed that trust and I hadn't been the same since. 

And even though I talk a good game about being above past slights, the truth is, I carried this shit around for way longer than I should have. It impacted past relationships and potential ones. I built a protective shell around myself and kept others out. It's self preservation for sure. But it also prevented me from, well, living.

And so, that same weekend, I deleted my ex from my social media accounts. I would post things and he would comment and his comments left me riled and annoyed. "You don't get to comment on my life," I'd think but never say. And when your mental state is already questionable, constant reminders of the person who didn't think you were good enough? Not at all helpful. 

Why would I friend/follow this person on social media? That's an excellent question. There's a joke during the first episode of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt where Gretchen admits to going with the Rev. Richard Wayne Gary Wanye because, "I didn't want to be rude." This is ridiculous. But it's also the reason I allowed this person access to my life. 

I didn't want to be that girl who held on to the slights and pains of the past. The problem? I was that girl. And pretending like things were okay didn't make them okay. Sometimes people have done you so wrong that their very presence is toxic to you. It's not rude to boot them from your life - it's survival. And so that's what I did. 

Then, at a friend's suggestion, I wrote him a letter of forgiveness. I'm not going to lie, there was a considerable level of vitriol in this "forgiveness" letter. First, I have no intention of sending him this letter. But second, and most importantly, the letter was less about forgiving him and more about forgiving me. A lot of my anger was at myself. I allowed him to mistreat me. I allowed him to continue to have power over me. Subconsciously, this was my own fault. 

As a result of this thinking, I made the decision to close myself off. I wouldn't give people the opportunity to hurt me. I'd walk away first. I'd laugh when a guy asked me out. I built up that protective shell. But in shutting out the bad, I also shut out the good. Not every guy is like my ex. In order to experience the good, I had to let the good in. I had to break away that shell. 

I never expected I'd meet someone so soon after I decided to open myself up. It's only been a few months but it's been great. Do those self doubts come up? Yes. But I feel comfortable enough with him to be able to talk about these things. I decided that I was worth loving. And that part of forgiving myself has been the best part of all. 

The stroke

If I had to pinpoint the moment that kicked off my current ongoing episode of depression, it was Mothers Day weekend 2014. There are a number of contributing factors. But that Saturday? I feel like that's where it started. 

That's the day I witnessed my grandmother suffer a severe stroke. 

She'd been recovering from having a pacemaker put in. And she woke up that Saturday with nausea and vomiting. A lot of my family members were at a breast cancer walk. I had blown out a tire the day before and was having it replaced. My mom went and took care of my grandmother. 

The visiting nurse came, my grandmother took a nap, my mom made her some soup. She went to babysit my niece and nephew. I dropped my sister off at work, brought my mom a coffee, and went back to my grandmother's. 

My grandmother had woken up and was reheating the soup. She ate and said she wanted to go back to bed. Knowing she'd been vomiting, I told her that wasn't the greatest idea. She asked if we could sit on the porch. 

So I went ahead, opening doors. She followed slowly behind. She got to the back door, went to take the step down and froze. Then she collapsed onto me. 

At this point my cousin had made it to the house with her boyfriend. I called to them for help and they tried to get my grandmother seated while I called 911. My mother told me later that she knew the ambulance was for my grandmother. 

I rode with her in the ambulance, not understanding what had happened, sobbing uncontrollably, feeling like I had done something wrong. I kept apologizing to her in the emergency room and she just stared back at me, unable to speak. She'd suffered a severe stroke on the left side of her brain. They were able to repair it but she lost the ability to communicate clearly and she lost the ability to move the right side of her body. 

My family members kept telling me they were so thankful I was there and that I had saved her life. We got another year with her before she had a second stroke she didn't recover from. But it's hard to feel good about that day, even two years later. It was hard to look at her and not feel sad and guilty, even though I know there was nothing I could have done differently. 

She felt trapped within her body during that yearlong attempt at recovery. And I felt like I sentenced her to that. And I wonder if that feeling will ever go away. I wonder if this weekend will ever feel like a happy one. I feel ... well a lot of different things. And I don't know how to deal with it except to cry. So that's what I do today. I cry. I get it out of my system. And then I'll put on a brave face and pretend like everything is okay. And maybe next Mothers Day weekend it will be. 

The struggle never really goes away

When we last left you, I was in a pretty good place. Or at least, I thought I was. And some really good things have happened since I last updated. I'm in a pretty awesome relationship. I won my weight class at my first power lifting competition (I was the only one in my weight class... but I was one of the heaviest lifters out of all the women). I got into graduate school. Lots of good stuff. 

But there's one place I'm still struggling: food. And it's an obvious struggle because I've gained back more weight than I anticipated. And I'm on this cycle I haven't been able to stop. I've been self-medicating with food. I will eat like its my last meal. 

This is obviously a problem for a number of reasons. The biggest and most important is that I got into a healthy lifestyle because my health was at risk. And my health improved. My lab results were good. I was physically capable of things I couldn't do before. But now I feel like I'm eating worse than before I started. I'm putting myself back at risk for all of the things I was trying to avoid. 

I also worked really hard to get into shape. And now I've undone a lot of it. And it makes me feel like I've wasted my time. 

So now I'm on this cycle. I feel bad so I eat. Then I feel bad again. And then I eat more. Then I feel bad. And because I'm eating crappy, I physically feel crappy and it's hard to find the motivation to exercise. And then I feel bad that I didn't. And then I eat. At some point it has to stop. 

So this is where I'm at. Still battling depression. Still battling binge eating. And I know it probably doesn't make sense to a lot of people. My life is actually pretty good. What do I have to be depressed about? But that's the thing with mental illness. It doesn't make sense. And that's what makes it so difficult to overcome. But I am determined to do so.