A Good Reason

Day 27

I think once you've been ON a particular wagon and have fallen off that wagon, it is harder to get back on than it was for you to get on it the first time.

Whether you're going through rehab of some kind, any kind really, or some kind of personal growth experience, it's all the same, essentially.  You make changes and get well because you've slammed face first into a brick wall, or, you know, hit rock bottom as some prefer to say.  There's nowhere to go from there but up.  You realize the need to fix yourself, to change, or to get well... however you want to put it.  And you're told, all along the way, that the "correct" reason to change is for yourself and, that if you do it for any other reason, it's not valid.

A lot of people are prone to relapsing, though, and it's rough when you already know the "answers" so to speak.  It's, likely, even more rough to fix it the second or third time around because you already know the goddamn answers.  The thing is?  Once you know them, it's easier to talk your way around them.

"I know what I should be doing, but I just can't seem to make myself do those things."

Why?

"I have to do this for me and not because I'm jeopardizing everything I have including my LIFE by engaging in this lifestyle because then I'd be doing it for you or for this or for that or for something else, and it has to be for ME"

Is it because we never genuinely stop hating ourselves?  Is it because we only accepted the words and deeds we were handed by others about how it's "supposed" to be done as truth and never truly, in the pit of our souls, believed it?

"no.. no...  it works to do it that way.  I just went off course."

I call bullshit.  I call bullshit on MYSELF and on everyone else who has said that before.  If it's such a valid method, this teaching of self love and self acceptance that supposedly "helps" people cope, then how come that love we learn rarely lasts?  How come we can't maintain that without others, be it a therapist or some kind of support group, telling us that this is what we need to be doing?   We aren't doing these things because they're truly the "correct" thing to be doing.  We're doing them because someone else is telling us they are correct, and why would we rather do these things because a stranger tells us so than for someone who loves us and cares about us, you know, if we won't ever TRULY do it for ourselves?  That's really what it comes down to...  Regardless of how that information is being handed to you, regardless of how humbly or professionally it's being delivered, that is the message.  "this is how you do it."

Then there's that need to do it "our own way".

I haven't always gotten what I wanted on my own terms.  A lot of compromise and acceptance of what was went into who I am.  Eventually, I had to stop whining about that and just be glad that, regardless of how I've gotten what I have, I do have it.

Case in point...  I wanted to be the one to end "that" relationship.  I had it all planned out, what I was going to say, all the reasons I was going to give...  I had it all worked out, right down to that FINAL "fuck off", and THAT would give me the resolution I needed.  THAT would make the end "real".  Well...  It didn't quite go down that way, and, for a while, I was a little messed up in my head.  Then I realized...  hey... regardless of how this went down, I'm STILL away from the most toxic person I've ever met.  I'm STILL getting better every day.  I'm STILL not having to deal with incessant drama and bullshit.  Hey... you know what?  I'm going to call it good.

Probably, I'll be visiting this kind of topic a lot.  I'm trying to figure out why I'm so messed up.  I've already done this the way "they" told me to do it, for the reasons "they" told me were "correct".  I already know the answers.  That's making it more difficult, and I'm working my way through it.