The Shadow And The Sun

"Quote of the day by Friedrich Nietzsche: 'We have to be careful that in throwing out the devil, we don’t throw out the best part of ourselves...' what the German philosopher teaches about human nature and self-acceptance..." - Google News Article Intro 

The best I can determine, it was the convergence of 12 hours of "Healing From Complex Trauma" podcasts over 723 miles along with 323 plus "self help books" consumed over 2,082 months, and 10,000 tiny little cuts delivered "in love for my own good" over a lifetime.  The fallout.

Add in 3 rainy camping days, 2 months later, 1 fateful counseling appointment topped with very little sleep and a shit ton of major life decisions and what do you get?  Yesterday... and a massive headache.

My real question? Why the hell won't I just quit? Why do I keep trying and trying so hard? Why won't I just let go of wanting something, anything more of my life?  Why is what I get not enough? 

"Step out, step out of the sun if you keep getting burned..." It's a line from a song.  Dear Evan Hansen.  That's the play.  Saw it for the first time on Mother's Day this year.  "Tap, tap, tapping on the glass. Waving through a window..." The words just keep going through my little head. Suicide.  That's the theme. But that's not what I wanted to write about when I started this post a month ago.  It has evolved.

The Sinner, that's what I wanted to reflect on.  A TV series on Netflix.  I came across a YouTube video of a guy talking about it, the show, saying it was pretty good.  Bill Pullman.  Jessica Beil.  The show was pretty good.  Yeah, it was, but man was it dark.

The shadow that the sun casts.  The shadow that lies within us all.  Process that.  I am.  The brighter the light the darker the shadow... that's my metaphor, that's my life.  It's all there.  It's all part of me and it won't budge.  I'm trying to learn what to do with it.  

Self actualization is not for the faint of heart, I realize that but when I feel like I am being, at best thoroughly misunderstood, at worst, gaslit by my/our own couples therapist (it's just a feeling), I don't know where to turn.  

My first instincts are, flight and freeze (I rarely fight, I often fawn).  The next is to turn on myself, to slay the wicked wench that relentlessly seeks to be understood, yet keeps ending up marginalized.  "When you're falling in a forest, and there's nobody around, do you ever really crash, or even make a sound?" Repeat.

I do not make myself out to be some sort of a saint.  I don't. I am the sinner.  I have literally experienced, if only once removed, every tragedy on the trail of Harry the detective.  I've been corrupted and distorted and I guess the best I can say is that I am paying for it now.  Sin. Karma.  Whatever you call it, I've made my bed over and over and over again.  I can't seem to lie down though.  Instead, I try to make believe I am the sun. I am doing the best I can.

I believe I have goodness inside of me that shines down on those I encounter.  I believe that I make the world a better place.  I believe I bring happiness and joy.  I believe this is my soul mission, so I keep trying.  I try so hard. But I fail.  I am not seen. I am not understood.  Why am I not ok with this?

I know that there are people who love me, at least they love the me they see, who they think I am.  I think of them when I think of ending it all, the greatest sin, they say.  I think, in the end, they would all get on alright without me.  No one expects anything great of me, except maybe they do just expect me to be around.  It's enough for them.  Why does it feel like it's not enough for me, to just exist?

Bandaids. All it seems I've ever been able to find to remedy this feeling is so many god damned bandaids. At times like this I feel so broken beyond repair, there aren't enough bandaids in the world.  Except love.  I get relief when I know love, except sometimes the love hurts.  Sometimes the love seems so far away.  It can not reach through my shadows.

The love that heals me is the love that emanates from my very own heart TO those I love.  When I can remember to lower my walls, my own love can heal me as I use it to love others.  But when my trust is violated, when I am met with some opposing force from someone who is supposed to care for me, I flee. CPTSD.  I freeze.  I try.

The Good Life and the Fully Functioning Person 

"He is more able to live fully in and with each and all of his feelings and reactions. He makes increasing use of all his organic equipment to sense, as accurately as possible, the existential situation within and without. He makes use of all of the information his nervous system can thus supply, using it in awareness, but recognizing that his total organism may be, and often is, wiser than his awareness. He is more able to permit his total organism to function freely in all its complexity in selecting, from the multitude of possibilities, that behavior which in this moment of time will be most generally and genuinely satisfying. He is able to put more trust in his organism in this functioning, not because it is infallible, but because he can be fully open to the consequences of each of his actions and correct them if they prove to be less than satisfying."  From On Becoming a Person, a collection of essays by Carl Rogers published in 1961.

I am trying to make use of all of this psychological drama bullshit that keeps rearing it's fugly head inside of me.  It is dark.  Some days the darkest.

So, I keep trying to be the sun and warm my own cold shadow.  I do it for my son and my grandson, two of the brightest lights in my world.  That is why I will not quit.  

There has got to be something for me to offer, I reason.  I forget.  I can't see it..Maybe me and my nothingness is enough, I think.  It doesn't feel like it. 

If I really take my own medicine, then I believe it is.  I just wish the world would give me some confirmation ($$$).  But then again, I am not here for the world.  

To the world I am invisible.  

It's up to me to deal with it.  

I will. 

NOT.

Again. 🌞

Just me and Mrs. Plath, waving through a window.  I'm giving her a hug. It's all going to be ok Sylvia.