Feeling my Feelings
with no capital letter for the word my. Now this is a little thing... but telling about my level of self-worth right now. So I changed it!
My feelings. I have them and I want to own them. I believe naming them and writing about them in this journal will help. So, here goes... Today I feel lonely and afraid. I am afraid of being alone. I am afraid my mother will die soon. I am afraid every time the phone rings that it will be my sister-in-law saying my mother has passed away. I am afraid of how it will feel to not have a mother. I am afraid of starting to cry and never stopping. I am afraid of being alone now and especially as I get older.
I can't fix this situation, especially I can't fix this situation by eating sugar. I am lonely and afraid of being alone in this world. That's just the way it is today. I am taking it in, feeling my feelings
Yes, I know that lonliness and emptiness. It hurts, but eating wrong foods hurts me more. Its taken me so long to figure this out. One thing I am learning to do in therapy is to sit with the feelings and sit and watch them rise and be scared and then they start going down, and down more and suddenly I see that I did not die from these intense feelings, wow! What makes me so afraid of feelings? Who knows but I am. I am proud of you that you are willing to be this aware at this point. Willingness is a huge part of recovery. I wonder if you could turn around your fears of losing your mother...How fortunate yu are to have her with you for so much of your life. You have worked really hard to have her in your life. You are so important to her at this time in her ife. She talks of you often. I don't want to be preachy so I'm sorry. Just thinking. Julie C
ReplyDeleteI thought about this for a day before responding. My first thought is that you ARE opening up to others in the world with OA, responding on blogs, starting to blog. Ok , breathe... that is actually ..ALOT. Took me months, no years to do some of that.
ReplyDeleteI don't have magic words, but I have kindred experiences. The mother of my childhood was mentally ill, neglectful, scary, strange. I was so happy to move away to college and from home for good at 17 but as a very wounded kid. Over time, our relationship improved, her mental health improved, and physical health declined. I was so worried she'd break a hip or have a stroke and that I 'd be saddled with being her caregiver like I was as a child. Over more time, our relationship improved and we enjoyed spending time together. I visited her on mother's day 2005. We did what she wanted to do which was drive around and look at old houses and then eat an ice cream Sundae at a Sonic drive in. She showed me where all her papers / will / and told me how she wanted my sister and I to divide her belongings should she die. She often did this kind of thing, but it waqs so memoraqble this time. I don't think we realized she was dying. not 100% sure she did.
By July, she was in the hospital, diagnosed with leukemia on thursday , I made the doctor tell her and give her the options on Saturday, she was gone on Monday. I so wished I could have brought her to Atlanta and cared for her, taken her to CA treatments, anything. I was so proud to sit with her as she died. So proud to have had HER mother's day.
I wished we had more time to talk. I dreamed about her after she died and it was sooo "her" in the dream that I think it probably was her. She was at peace and laughing and caring for me and telling me to care for myself. Physically no longer ill and in pain which is all I really wanted for her in those last hours. I don't know if this helped or not, but felt right to share.