I’ve learned many lessons this year, and due to me being a stubborn fool I always learn them the hard way.
The combination of the loss of my relationship and associated grief caused me go to what is normally my safe space, using all of my energy to find anyone to replace that feeling. This summer I got that out of my system and was able to take a hard look at myself and see just how toxic that was. Not just to me, but to those I encountered as well.
Therapy has been extremely helpful at looking within myself, finding out the causes of these behaviors in my life and more importantly how to change them for the better. I don’t see myself ending therapy for quite some time. Most of the time I enter therapy to “fix” a problem, but my mindset has changed, and my life has changed. I’m not out to fix a problem, but rather to pivot how I react to adversary, how I react to those situations that isn’t 100% agreeable with my wants. Like many, I am a creature of habit and look to examples of my childhood as the answer to such situations.
Unfortunately in many cases I was never presented with the right examples as a child. I was given every example of what not to do, what not to be. Some of those examples seemed to have snuck in there though, to the detriment of so much and many in my life.
With almost all of my personal relationships, whether they be friendships or romantic entanglements, I’ve never been the kind of person who enjoyed or respected boundaries. I’m 100% in or not in at all. I may not release my deepest and darkest secrets to a person, but they will know all of me, heart and soul.
I’m finding those boundaries to be in some ways as exciting as they are fulfilling. It shows that I respect the other person, and in turn it shows the same respect for me. It gives me time to reflect on interactions, and think of what I did right, what I could do better, and in some cases what I did wrong. This also provides the energy and time to still focus on myself instead of reverting to the toxic behavior of throwing my entire self into another, which has been only a detriment to me in the past.
We all live in our own timeline, and for most of my life I have compared it to others. Sometimes that comparison has fueled toxic behaviors. I now finally feel free to be me and merely exist as I wish, as I want. This is something that usually fills me with anxiety and loneliness, but now it provides me with a feeling of peace and self security that I’m not sure I’ve felt before.
Through writing this, I have discovered some more things about myself that do need to be improved and/or changed to further actualize these changes, but we are all works in progress. If we stop learning, if we stop advancing, don’t we stop experiencing what it is to be human?