Old Patterns Up For Grabs…

Prepare for the worst, second guessing what will happen, what others will say/do. When I find myself caught up in the worry about a situation… yes, these old patterns still linger.
My adult head knows this is a complete waste of my energy, needless, self-imposed suffering. We can’t possibly know what someone is going to spring on us anyway. Or what they think is important, or what will anger or please them. How can we know?

Oh, but when I was a child, I was convinced I knew. I knew. I don’t think it’s any great mystery how I came to be like this. I grew up with a survival mentality. To the core. The notion that I could count on absolutely no-one to keep me safe. Because of this BS, I believed I could create safety for myself. This entailed creating a false sense of safety by fabricating my own reality – with preparedness, hyper-vigilance, anticipating everyone’s needs, thinking of and projecting possible scenarios – so I could prepare. There would be less surprises. And I could RELAX. BREATHE.

THIS. This is how I survived. Expecting people to do/be/have/feel a certain way – so I could “manage” them. Expecting people to be useless, expecting people to be liars, expecting people to use me, keep me small and insignificant and humiliated. If I could get into their head/body and figure out their “crazy” before they could ruin/exploit/scare/scar me – I could strategically protect myself. Really? Quite the predicament for a small little girl who just wants to be seen, cherished, believed and heard. Pretty exhausting swimming upstream. Definitely wanted to drown, would have been easier.

Expectation and constant pressure, part of my cellular make-up, made for tremendous suffering. I expected for things to be different. Always. I was forever disappointed. I seriously lost Hope (my middle name, go figure) and left my body early on in my life. I lived on autopilot as far back as I can remember. All the reals taking a backseat to staying alive and part of a dumb-ass family unit. One built on lies, betrayal, indifference, non-reality, isolation – the list is long.

As an adult, I do the work. The work it takes to continuously undo the patterns that were so necessary for my survival – but hurting me today. This is how I take responsibility for my own mental health. This is how I take responsibility for my own mental health. They don’t give a fuck how I struggle to shuck off their influence on my life. I have to do the caring. The learning of self-love. The forgiveness of how I give up on even myself, just like they did. The way I obsess about how encounters with people will go – trying to control the world and its contents. Forgiveness for myself for being human, for being spiteful, for being full of delicious revenge, for continuing to be controlling.

Extracting the patterns that still want to keep me loyal to mistreatment. Patterns that drive me to mistreat myself as I live in the pressure of trying to control things/people. The best, sweetest revenge is when we get a glimpse of our own magnificence. This changes everything. I wish this for all.