On not keeping it together

Offering yourself what you need:: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MAy 30th 2022

One of my best friends Uzma often tells me how she does not understand how I’ve been through everything I have and that I am still okay. It feels validating as a comment, because Uzma sees me.

When I was raped, I kept working.

When I found out my partner cheated on me and I had given up my home to move to Los Angeles permanently with him, I kept working.

When I was an undiagnosed autistic person who could barely function, I still somehow hit the deadlines or compensated in ways that made any accommodations I was given worth it for others.

When my dad abused me as a child and teenager, I kept on going. When he crossed the lines when I was an adult, and I didn’t yet know how to put boundaries and not feel guilty, I also kept going.

When my brother did mostly everything an addict could and would do, I got up and I kept working. Heart broken, abandoned, scared out of my mind, overstimulated and lonely in this sibling-hood that means the world to me… I kept going.

When I went through benzo withdrawal (a physical withdrawal that is compared to heroin and then some often), I lost 40 pounds and only slept 10 minutes a day for 2-3 months and I still was the one who paid the bills.

After I got vaccinated for the second time at the beginning of February, I got a mass cells reaction - meaning inflammation because of an immune response. I started feeling shit again.

And it lead me to do functional medicine testing to see what was really going on.

My tests came back with some wild results. One of them being, I have an immune response each time I have lemon or lime. Shannon and I started laughing our asses off when I got the results. I’ve literally been drinking lemon water all day long for years.

I also got other answers to things I never got the root cause of.

Which led me to realize… I don’t want to keep going this time. I don’t want to be faced with hard shit, and just keep business as usual.

So I decided to do a brave thing - I told people.

My brother is going through a sobriety process for the first time ever recently. It’s quite a big deal. But as I watched my mother have proper context for him, meaning, he is an addict because he was abused, I suddenly felt myself get peeved. I did not expect to have such strong feelings about this and have it challenge me so much. But it’s been confronting.

It’s hard to say I am jealous because he is getting the care he needs. There is a part of me that is jealous that people don’t see him as invincible, yes. There is another part of me that is happy for him and for my mom. They both don’t deserve the stress they are under. AND a real part of me started screaming simultaneously.

I am happy he gets what he needs, even if I never got it myself. But I was jealous about something: how he didn’t have to keep it together.

There have been times in therapy where I have told my practitioner that I am envious that he’s the one who gets to die and not me when he’s been so sick, we didn’t know if he would be there by morning. Sometimes in the throes of the grief of my brother’s life and of the relationship with my brother, I have only felt envy that it was him that got to go - whether that was literal or metaphorical. I know that sounds dark, and that’s circa Emily Beatrix 2014, to write such a personal statement, but I want to. I was not suicidal in that comment, I was expressing the burden of having to keep going when I too, have been abused, and I too am tired, and I too want to show everyone how much pain I am in and have people see it. I crave to be handled with care. Yet, that’s seldom been my case.

A few weeks ago, I sat in front of my mother and I told her, with my eye sockets filled with water: you never worried about me the way you worry about him. You were never scared when it came to me, because you knew I would never let anything happen to me. You knew I would be okay. You don’t know if he’s going to be okay. But do you know how hard that is, to be indestructible like I am? To be the one who is never broken? To be the one no one worries about?

People have, at times, allowed themselves to treat me worse because the impact of their actions doesn’t have that bad of consequences. I was pouring from my core when I went on to explain my ex, imagine he would have had multiple affairs on someone who wasn’t going to be able to recover? How that could and would have haunted him differently? I remember when I found out, he told me that I was going to be okay because I had been through worse.

Then I started crying more as I was speaking my heart to my mum. Why was I bringing this up? It’s been 3 years now. But it still stood: imagine he had more consideration because he would have had to watch the consequences of his actions more? I was fine. I got up. Got myself a new life. He knew I had me. He knew I would be okay. I have always been okay.

I brought her up too… I said, you know how much your actions have an impact on your son. You know what you do or don’t do could be a matter of life and death, you recognize your power here. But with me, you were more careless, you knew it wouldn’t be the end of the world with me if you didn’t show up. I would survive it. I’d be here by morning. I would find other resources and carry on. You could betray me, and I would forgive you. It’s just how I am.

And then my tears got more intense, which I didn’t even know was possible and

I said,

But I am tired. I don’t think I can do it anymore. Not be affected by life. By people. By events.

Just because I am strong and resilient does not mean that I should be treated with less respect. Just because I can handle it doesn’t mean I should have to.

I am sick again. I am tired. I’ve been feeling unsafe. I don’t think I can just carry on. I don’t think I can just carry on. I don’t think I can just carry on…. I kept saying.

So I told people. I thinned out my schedule. I wrote to clients and said, hey can we move your sessions you’ve already paid for to the Fall. (They said yes.) I told people who weren’t on contract that I couldn’t do sessions anymore. I referred. I apologized. I took in the nice compliments. I tried to validate everything my decision to take care of myself and not just carry on was bringing up for people.

I told my friends. I said, I need my cup filled up again. Will you support me and tell me I am doing a good job? Will you check on me? Will you be mindful that I can’t handle much right now but not treat me like I am not myself at the same time somehow? Can you figure that out?

I got in my car and decided to go on a road trip to get out of my house (my mom drove - I am too tired to drive). I looked at pictures on my phone and realized how unhappy I’ve been. I decided to follow my desire.

I am finally telling people, I can’t keep it together.

And it is somehow putting me back together.