Following on from my ‘Head day’ post, another thing I think I’ve found is that I’ve lived my life in a sort of mental paralysis. If you’re told you’re not good enough, not worth anything, that you can’t do things, you get stuck in a place where you don’t feel you have the strength or ability to change situations, to alter course from impending disaster. You know that you have to do something, but you’re too used to being told what to do (but perversely, that you’re not actually capable of doing it) that you freeze, letting the bad stuff happen, wash over you. Because you’re used to feeling bad and responsible for bad things, and it becomes something you’re used to. You almost tend to like it, it’s familiar. It becomes a grim safe place to be. Like a kind of mental Stockholm Syndrome.
And because you don’t have a plan, a strategy for things when they’re manageable, they gather and grow so you end up paralysed and suffocated by many things that’re too big to contemplate dealing with.
I just got to the end of my tether last year, and had to start dealing with things. Xena has helped me deal with little bits at a time. That way you get tiny little small wins and just because you’ve achieved something, and the thing has become just a tiny bit smaller, you start to get movement, you start to get somewhere. Something is better than nothing. Gradually the landscape begins to change.
You will need to call on all the strength that you have, but were told that you didn’t have, but start the job. You’ll be surprised at who you are and what you have. You’re alright after all.
Mod Dad 