Make up your mind to be well

"Catch me, I'm falling."

That line from the song he played for me is haunting me. It plays over again and again and again in my head, but it doesn't bother me. It gives me something to think about.

I'm messed up. Seriously, really messed up. I don't know what it is...maybe you can't really put a label on it. But I have big problems, and it's time to admit that. I need more than just friends - don't get me wrong, friends help. They really do. But friends can't fix me.

I love my friends, an incredible amount. I think we all know that. So far this year, they've kept me going, kept me positive, kept me hopeful. I have so much fun with my friends, and I share everything with them (well...almost everything, and some more than others). They're the ones I rely on for hugs, for held hands, for eye contact. But friends can't fix me.

I want to say it's kind of funny, but it's not. It's odd, but not to me. It's crazy, but not to me. So I'll settle for this:  It might be interesting to you, if you don't know me as well as some...ugh. This is making no sense. But I'm not hitting the backspace, because I'm leaving this post as it is (except, of course, for grammatical mistakes). Okay, so. Instead of prefacing it, I'm just going to say it. Someone mentioned me in his weekly report to Mandi last week, saying that I'm always so positive and how it helps keep the rest of the staff positive too. It made me sooooo happy seeing that. I'm really glad that I can help others to be happier - that's what I enjoy most.

But having someone say that I'm great at being positive means that I'm really good at pretending.

Truth is, I'd sacrifice my own happiness any day to make the people around me happy. If someone I love is going to be made happy, I will be miserable (without showing it) if that's what it takes. Because even when I'm miserable, I'm so relieved that someone else is happy that my own feelings don't really make a difference. I just want to make other people happy.

I'm a terrible liar - anyone who knows me can tell you that. But I'm great at pretending to be happy.

I'm sick of the excuses, though. It's not just being sad. It's not PMS. It's not stress. It's not a lack of sleep. Those are the excuses I give to everyone. All those might be true at one time or another, but there's more going on with me. So it's time to do something about it. (This entire paragraph may sound full of determination, but trust me, it's not. I'm terrified, nervous, and dreading this.)

I haven't really been able to see the real problems with my relationship with Ryan before. All I thought was that he was satisfied, and I wasn't. It was good enough for him, but I wanted more. When I've told my friends about it, they've all been horrified, couldn't believe that I had gone through that, told me I didn't deserve it. But I never really believed them. I've said things about it being a terrible relationship, something that no one should have to deal with...but in all honesty, I never really believed it. It took the person who knows me best saying it for me to realize that it's true - it was an emotionally abusive relationship. He had so much control over me, and I still can't let it go. I see all the signs, but I've never accepted that they were true before.

It's time to stop making excuses. It's time to be well.




(Again, you could read that with a sense of determination, but you shouldn't. It's more reluctance and defeat.)




PS - happy 100th post to me...