Writing Excersise #2: Coping

After reading this chapter, I am somewhat confused, intrigued, and scared. I never knew that many of the ways that I deal with things could be considered coping. I have always that the only way I coped was pushing it back into a box of sorts and locking it up. Sure, it got lose from time to time, but for the most part I have always just put it away. That was honestly the only way I knew how to deal with it, not to mention the only way that I felt like I wasn't going to go crazy. Like I said, I never knew so many of the little things that I do daily can be looked at as a coping mechanism. Even E has pointed out somethings that I do that she views as a way coping. The best way I can describe these discoveries is to make a list. Which, by the way, I have been told that my constant need for structure and order is another way of coping.

• I'll start my need for structure, order, and consistency. I always thought my love for math, history, lists, outlines, and the like was just something that I just enjoyed. But the morning I am learning, not only about myself, but about recovery and healing, is telling me that I enjoy those things because they are always the same. They never change, they never leave. 2 + 2 will always be 4 no matter how you change it. The Civil War will always be an American war on American soil. Lists and outlines are my way of organizing my thoughts and feelings. They are way of weeding out bad thoughts, ways of possibly getting embarrassed, or not making sense. I can write and rewrite until I am happy with the outcome and feel comfortable about whatever it is I am going to do with it. Beneath all of that, I have been told that it is a way of making things my own. Of taking control of the situations and feeling comfortable with the fact that I can always rely on the consistency of the known, instead of fearing the unpredictability of a situation.
  
• Next is my ability to fake things. I touched on this a couple of times, but the ability I have of being able to fake adaption to any situation is both a good and a bad thing for me. The good being that I can walk into just about any situation and deal with it. Anything from a job to a bar, I have always been known for my way of walking into a room like I own it. The bad is that on the inside on all of those situations I am dying inside. Constantly questioning what people are thinking of me, if they are looking at me, why I am there, and how am I going to deal with this without people knowing that I am freaking out on the inside. 75% of people, even my very close friends and family, have, or had, any idea that I was truly like that. Hell, even the people I consider to be closet to me and have complete and total trust in didn't know how bad I was until the last few years. It always amazes people how scared of everyday life I truly am. To me, it is just another day. Another fake smile that I put on until I am by myself.
  
• I am that friend that everyone comes to for help, support and honesty. I had never thought anything other than I was just one of those people that enjoy seeing others happy and figuring out those problems with them to feel useful. I had honestly never thought any more of it than that. But from what I have read and been told, it is my way of trying to help everyone and not face my own fears and problems. My need to make sure people are happy and taken care of is my way of securing that others aren't hurting like I am. To make sure that everyone close to me is secure in their life and that no problems can get to them without going through me first. My severe protection of my friends is my way of saying that nothing will hurt them, or me, again. While this can be a great thing, and I do enjoy being there for the ones I care about, it ables me to push my own fears and problems to the back of my mind. Knowing what they are going through makes it easier for me to say that my problems are nothing compared to them, not to mention that they don't need to hear my fears when they have so much going on in their own lives. Until recently I never realized how true that actually was, but it is.

I started writing this about 3 weeks ago.... for some reason it never got finished. I don't know where I am at this point. E had told me to expect to go through a period of non-activity. I didn't realize that she meant it was going to stop me from being able to write or enjoy a book, but it did. I don't know when I am going to finish it. But I know I will, at some point. I go back to E on Monday, maybe that will get me back in the deal with it mode that I was in.

Wonders never cease

Why is it that some days it seems like everyone in the world is dealing with one type of sadness or another? I wake up each day to convince myself that I can make it through another day, and that I made the right decision to start my journey to recovery. Everyday it’s a little easier to believe that I did make the right decision, at the same time it’s still not any easier to deal with the pain that I now can’t seem to push away. But it’s days like today, that no matter how hard my life truly is, I am reminded that I am not the only one with pain and suffering, though it may feel like it at times.

My co-worker and friend Z took a long awaited trip this past weekend to see her fiancé. She was so excited all of last week, almost to the point of annoyance to those of us not in one of those happy relationships. Not only was it the first time in nearly two months that she had seen him, but it was also her first plane ride. Needless to say, she was elated for Friday to come. When she came in this morning, of course my first question to her was about her weekend. I could tell by looking at her that something was off, but honestly put it off to her being tired from the weekend and late flight last night. When she made eye contact I could tell then that she had been crying. It turns out that her weekend was not anything like what she expected. Early Saturday night she overheard her fiancé talking with a friend. His friend was trying to convince him to tell her about something, and he was saying that he didn’t know how. Apparently, her fiancé had a one night stand not too long ago. Needless to say, she was not only pissed, but crushed as well. This was the man she planned on marrying. The man she had loved for the past four years. All of the sudden her world was falling around her. She gave him back the ring and spent the remainder of her weekend alone in a hotel in a stranger city. All I could tell her was that no matter what anyone says or does for her nothing will be ok until her heart and head decides it’s time. That it’s ok to be upset and angry and that no one can blame her for being upset or distracted. The good thing is that she is young and has plenty of time in life to fall in love again. Who knows this may be a great thing for her, or so I can only hope for her.

Today my brother’s uncle passed away after a long, hard battle with cancer. He was put into a hospice last night after being told that there wasn’t much else they could do for him. Basically his body was rejecting it’s self and all they could do for him was make him as peaceful as possible. J, his mother, and brother had planned to leave Wednesday or Thursday to go to see him, thinking that it probably wouldn’t be much longer before he passed. No one expected to be leaving to attend a funeral. Now, as it turns out J, C, J’s parents, and siblings will all be leaving very early Wednesday morning to make arrangements and help with preparations. Though I myself had never met Uncle M, I have heard so many stories of his generosity, carefree ways, and loving attitude that I know he will be very dearly missed.

It’s time like this, that I step back and realize that while, yes, I am hurting more than I have in a long time, I am not the only one. I am not saying that my pain, or theirs, is any more or less than the other, but it’s sometimes a shock to be reminded that everyone suffers in one way or another, more often than most people care to realize most of the time. While these two stories are very different in nature, they both share a common quality. Both J and Z lost a loved one this weekend, and nothing will ever replace that spot in their hearts. I can only hope that the pain fades with time.

~*In Memory of Uncle M: Rest in Peace*~

To be or not to be a .... bully??

As I am sitting here tonight I am amazed at the things I am hearing. My niece, Kelly, has just told my brother and sister the truth of a fight that she was involved in on Friday. This past weekend was her weekend to be with her mother, further known as WD (Womb donor), so they just found out about it tonight. I am not amazed because she was involved in a fight, the fact that she lied, or even the fact that WD did not find it necessary to let anyone know until tonight when J went to pick her up. What I am amazed at is the fact that Kelly picked on this little girl in her class until that little girl pushed her down and shoved grass into her mouth. While this is something all children go through at one point or another in their lives, it just really disappoints me that it was my little Kelly. She, herself, was picked on so badly last year that she came home in tears almost everyday for a week because she was not wearing name brand shoes. She cried and begged J and C to help her in some sort of way, to make this boy stop picking on her. Now, almost a year later she was the one doing the bullying. It makes me sad that the lesson and pain of what she went through didn't stick with her.

J and C try to explain and get the point across that it's not nice or right to pick on anyone. That you don't know what kind of problems or pain it could cause for them, whether it be now or in the future. Hearing that really made me think of my childhood and how much I was picked on for being overweight, not wearing the right kind of clothes, or not living in the right city. I wanted her to understand what J and C were telling her, so I asked if I could tell the story, hoping that maybe it would help her get the point they were trying to make, also that it would make her understand that as little as something may seem to you it could mean so much more to someone else.

The story I told Kelly was one of where I was in the sixth grade. I was basically the new girl in a new middle school, from a neighboring town that was not thought of all that highly by this school. As I said before I was always overweight and it was a constant joke to some. At the time, my favorite color was purple and I had a all purple outfit that I loved to wear. Hell, I even had purple Keds to match, I thought it was awesome. One day as I was coming out of literature class I heard a chorus of three to four girls singing "How now purple cow! You're so fat, you are a cow! How now purple cow!" To this day, I will not wear purple. I hate just about anything having to do with the color purple. How silly is that? At twenty-eight years old, I still refuse to have anything to do with a color, no less, because of something mean that was said to me in the sixth grade! Yet, at the same time, I know that it really did affect me more than I understand. I associate the color purple with mean, being over weight, and a childhood that I want to run away from. If only I could save her from the pain that could be caused by her getting picked on and the trouble that it will cause when she gets in trouble or possibly loses friends for being the bully herself. Then again, we all have to learn our lessons ourselves in one way or another. I just truly hopes she understands that this could have been a whole lot worse, especially if she was the one getting picked on.