Dear, guys – welcome back to Letters From Liz.
Can I be honest with you guys? This week has been mentally draining for plenty of reasons. Despite it being that time of the month which always leaves me in some sort of depressive episode, this week particular is a hard one to get through without reflecting and feeling immensely sad. I’m grateful that this week, out of all weeks, I’ll be at therapy, talking things out, in hopes that talking to someone about these thoughts and feelings will help me get through the rest of the week.
With that being said, I want to talk about some deeper things in this month’s installment of:
Let’s just say I’ve been dreading for this time to come, and no distractions will be able to help me out around this time.
The past couple of months have been honestly a test of survival for me. It’s been a test of being alone, living my life day-by-day, without the things in it that were crucial parts of my days. It’s like when a part of your routine just stops happening, it feels like you hit this reset button on your life and now you don’t remember how it felt like to have certain parts of your day in your day anymore.
I have to be honest with you all: I don’t know how I’ve made it this far without being self-destructive. Maybe it’s therapy reminding me that I’m worth more than I think I am and that things do get better. Maybe it’s the routine I’ve developed at my job that has now given me some sort of distraction from the negative thoughts in my head. Maybe I’m just learning how to get day-by-day with just me to comfort myself.
At the beginning of this major change, I was having suicidal thoughts and self-harmed one night after sitting in my thoughts. Since then, I’ve made a safety plan with my therapist in order to help prevent myself from self-harming again, but I can’t sit here and say that I’ve been willing to actually sit myself down and process everything that has happened in the last couple of months.
It’s like I’m scared of opening up my bottled emotions because the mess will be too big for me to clean up. But, I feel like I’m just filling up that bottle more by not allowing myself to feel these things.
I’m afraid of crying over my loss. I’m afraid that I will miss the person I was before my major loss in my life. I’m afraid of even moving forward and being okay because my heart is still so tied up in this major loss. I’m also afraid that my safety plan won’t work, and that I will end up hurting myself.
So, I decided to distract myself and protect myself from myself by not allowing myself to reflect, which is not good.
I don’t know when I started to become fearful of feeling, but it’s like every time I start to feel any sort of emotion that’s sadness, I immediately hold back and distract myself until I just forget about it. And I’m aware that I’m doing that because then I won’t have these moments when I ask myself if I’m just faking that I’m alright or am I really alright.
If I have to ask myself that question, chances are it’s the former.
My point being is that I need to learn how to process my emotions without fearing for the worst; I have to stop thinking that if my emotions spill out and fall all over, I’m bound to cut myself so bad that I’ll end up in the hospital. I’m not even exaggerating. It’s honestly times like this that I wonder if I’m actually getting better for if I’m just masking my true nature really well. Like, I’m surprised that I haven’t resorted to alcohol or drugs to help me not feel things anymore. I’m surprised I haven’t got addicted to anything harmful just so I wasn’t able to process my major loss. But, I’m also very upset that I’ve allowed myself to completely mask how I truly feel about this major event in my life.
I don’t know if there are any of you like me out there, but if there are, I hope you allow yourself to start feeling again. I hope that you stop sitting on your emotions in hopes that you’ll just forget about them as time progresses. I hope that whatever is troubling you this week that you get through it in one piece, with at least one genuine smile, and with at least one genuine good day under your belt.
I hope I am able to start processing my emotions, even if it temporarily leaves me in a bad headspace. Things like this are not meant to be easy, especially when it’s your first time going through something major in your life.
난 당신이 그리워요.
Things will get better.
Letters From Liz. 