For my whole life, it's never been about ME getting over distress. It was always about others.
When I was a young girl growing up, it was about my brother becoming a better person, someone who didn't fail all his tests and smoke and drink and call my mother crude names until she cried. It wasn't about me learning to deal with all of the fighting; I just hid up in my room and tried to remain as calm as possible.
When my sister was having her problems, it was all about her. She was like the sun, and we were in her orbit. She was the center of our universe; if she was off-kilter or if she was particularly harsh, we all got burned. It was about her self-destruction; it wasn't about me realizing it. It was about her depression, not about my fear and sadness. Her problems. Her accomplishments. Her health.
It wasn't about my health.
And when my parents fought it was always about them, and I had no say in any of it.
You hear of parents staying together for the kids; I felt like I was keeping myself together for the family. It was my job to prove that I was a child who would rise to meet my goals.
When I stopped swimming, it was about the team that I was letting down, not my panic attacks.
It was about me once, when I had my OCD. But all the while I was in therapy for that, I was yearning to have someone to talk with about all of the people around me.
People who looked at me didn't think I had anything to heal FROM.
My brother did: smoking and bad habits and rude behavior and social anxiety.
My sister did: depression and its close, personal friends.
My parents did: they were dysfunctional. their relationship was a battleground.
But me. I was left out, you see? But what people didn't realize was that I heard screaming and crying all the time, and I felt helpless, and I wanted to understand, and I saw traumatic things and heard things I shouldn't have that still ring in my head today. I was in the middle of it all.
And then I met him and it was all about him. All I had learned in life was how essential it was for other people to heal. I never have.
Even now, as I myself sink into the depths of depression, I wage a battle against myself in my own mind. I tell myself that this isn't my right. That maybe I have nothing to heal from. (besides the asshole who broke my heart and emotionally tormented me) That maybe the only reason I'm sad is because of my sadness for others. That perhaps I'm the lucky one; had I really faced tragedy? Is witnessing things a tragedy in itself? Have I made it all up?
Am I crazy?
Of course I think this. Of course I'm focused outwards, it was always about the people outside me. I've never closed any of my wounds because I grew up believing that the only wounds that were important enough were the ones of other people.
And I know all of this stuff, all the psychological reasons, and one would think it would help, but it doesn't. Not really. It doesn't matter what I know about the reasons behind this; you can know all you want about what makes a car work, but when it comes to fixing the car, you still have to be able to do the handiwork.
I am one giant wound.
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