Can I Borrow Your T-shirt?

Tags

bipolar, depression, faith, healing, Hope, love, Mental Illness, Mormon, ptsd, trauma, trust, twenty one pilots

I am obsessed with graphic tees. I love how expressive they can be and, if you pay close attention, provide inside information about its wearer. And for someone like me who hates having to describe things, a meaningful artistic expression splashed across my chest conveys a thought or belief or feeling almost immediately. We’ve all heard the saying, “Been there, done that. Got the t-shirt.” This phrase got me to thinking about what would my ‘been there’ shirt say. What would yours say? More importantly, would we have the courage to wear them publicly, opening ourselves up to biting judgment and ridicule? I don’t know about you, but I have more that enough experiences filled with regret, heartache, and pain I would prefer to keep in the back of my closet next to that ugly Christmas sweater. I also have wonderful experiences I would gladly wear out like my favorite pair of sweats. 

When I think back on all of the experiences I’ve already had in life it’s difficult for me to wrap my mind around them. Some are common experiences like the awkwardness of adolescence or the lasting ache that comes from losing your first love. Some experiences are unique like when I was a passenger in an auto accident involving a motorcycle where the driver ended up, head first, on the windshield/roof and I watched him die. I even remember the shoes he had on. Or when I got the highest standard 8 test score in the entire state of Texas when I was in kindergarten. They wanted to advance me two grades but my mother wouldn’t allow them to. 

Sometimes our experiences are exceptional and wonderful like when I had the opportunity to live in London, England for a year or when I went through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ temple for my endowment. Other times our experiences sucker punch us in the gut causing such excruciating agony even their scars have a bite like when I was raped when I was 14 or I was homeless and living on the streets. 

There are experiences I have had that if they were a shirt I wouldn’t keep it in the back of my closet but I’d burn that bitch to the ground and drown the ashes away with water. While I want nothing more than to forget certain parts of my life, myself, I have come to learn all of my experiences contribute to who I am and who I want to be. Accepting what has really happened to me in life, along what I have done, brings me to an honest place of strength where I am capable of  building a future instead of trying to fix the past. Instead of trying to make scars disappear I’m learning to use them to create beauty. I may not be able to erase the horrors torn through my shirts, I can use the shreds to stitch together new shirts saying what I want them to say with the power and freedom to wear them where and when I choose. 

I’m at a loss to adequately describe how simply having this knowledge is in itself incredibly healing. You can’t unbreak your leg but it doesn’t mean you’ll never walk again. I can almost guarantee those first steps will faulter and hurt so much you’ll be certain you’re doomed to crawling around for the rest of your life. But I’m going to share a secret with you I desperately wish someone would’ve let me in on years ago – there is no escaping the pain life abundantly gives us, especially pain acquired from trauma. Not only that, when we try to get out of or numb the pain through alcohol or drugs or even simple avoidance (my personal favorite) we’re ADDING to it like a festering infectious wound. 

Please, don’t allow your sorrows keep you from walking away from them. Have the courage to allow yourself to feel their burn, using their flames to ignite your steps. Because the pain will never subside until it is felt trying to rid yourself of it without experiencing it is only delaying the inevitable and keeping you face first in the ground. Knowing you’re using your pain to get you somewhere gives it purpose which makes it bearable. I’ll take that; if I can’t avoid hurting or make it go away, by all means, tell me how to get through it. 

I cry more now than I ever have before and at the most inopportune times; like when I’m on the bus on my way home from work or shopping in a crowded mall. Before I would stuff those drops back into their ducts and super glue the hatch. Now I wade straight into their salty waters and I rarely end up in the deep end. I slosh on through and then get back to my shopping. Here’s the positive side of my secret – by allowing yourself to feeling hurt and experiencing pain you create a greater capacity to feeling happiness and experiencing joy. JOY. What is more beautiful than light, love, and laughter? Since there is opposition on all things the greater your depths of suffering goes the greater your depths for love and joy goes. 

As it took time to create your battle wounds , give yourself the time needed to reach those chasms. Time, by the way, does not heal all wounds. In fact, time can make those wounds deeper and cause additional pain; however, it takes time to make each individual step. It is those steps, not time itself, providing the healing balm needed. 

Most days I’m limping along when I’d rather be running, especially when I see others who live in warm, happy homes or having deep, meaningful relationships. But then I remind myself comparison is the thief of joy, a huge stumbling block, and remember I was once covered in mud. I begin to wonder what their t-shirt would say and would I want to wear it. No matter how much I have or will experience it will never be the same as them, as you, because we’re all individuals wearing custom made t-shirts instead of a generic “one-size-fits-all”. Which is why I adore graphic tees and the stories they share. And I want to hear them all, even if I’ve been there and done that. 

So, can I borrow your t-shirt?

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I am Not Alone

Tags

2017, bipolar, depression, fear, Fire, Hope, Legionites, Mental Illness, New Years, pain, twenty one pilots

I am an only child. And I hate it. Growing up I would beg my mom for a little brother or sister (I DID want to be the oldest, although I still wish for that older brother protection) but to no avail. Then, I thought if I married into a big family it would satisfy this lifelong craving; however, I’ve come to learn this isn’t true the more honest I am with myself about how I feel. I wish for the ideals of being part of a large, close family but the reality, the truth is I like my space; I like being alone, and because of mental illness I will always feel some sort of disconnect. And I’m not the only one this applies to.

While I may not be able to give a detailed description of my tribe I can tell you our name is Legion, for we are many. Just stay back and keep your distance. We love you but we feel that love best and most securely at a distance. When others get too close dangerous things happen and someone will get hurt – either you, me, or most likely, both.

Loving others and especially ourselves in this manner, quite frankly, sucks. It’s a loving and communication style that’s extremely difficult to explain let alone understand. The lover, the speaker is confused and lost most of all. And if we don’t know what love is suppose to feel like or understand how it sounds and what it looks like so we can both accept and give it then how will we ever believe we are a lovable person – or even worth the effort?

I wish I had all the answers. I like answers because they bring knowledge and comfort. Answers, however, do not provide understanding. That only comes with applying those answers, testing them in the experiments life so readily offers us. They’re mostly by trial and error and there’s really no other way to ‘just get it’. You can be like me and be very smart and know a lot, but you won’t know what that information feels like until you start trying it on. Some will be too small, restricting and confining. Some will be too big, immediately falling off your shoulders giving you trunk-like arms. Some will be wet and heavy while others will be slippery and gooey. The more you’re willing to try on the more you’ll understand, the deeper your feelings will go, and the greater your capacity will be to experience, to live them.

It took me 36 years to figure all this out because I tend to learn and gain understanding the hard way. It doesn’t have to be that way. There’s a reason this blog is titled “Don’t Follow My Plan”; I am an excellent example of what not to do. Enjoy the fruits of my labors and avoid the thorns and thistles that ripped through my flesh to get them. A wise mother-like figure once told me it’s better to learn from other’s mistakes than to make them ourselves. So true! I have a seemingly bottomless cup of my own mistakes splashing around. Please drink freely instead of choking and gurgling like have.

In the past year I have had a glass darkly held within inches of my face as I breathed windex. What has shone through has been beautiful and horrific, all of which I’ve have to accept because every bit has been my true, authentic self. I can cover up my hideousness, stand in front of it hoping you won’t see while turning on a spotlight trying to shimmer, and hope its brilliance will be blinding enough to cover the shadows echoing around. Sometimes it is, but all that glitters is not gold. The deafening echos still bounce around inside me resonating, shaking and breaking even my most precious beams of light. This darkness is fierce, cold, and heavy; its lies cause me to feel, even believe, sunshine will never warm my heart again.

To those reading this KNOW that is a LIE. A big, nasty sparkling lie. If the darkness has such a stronghold on your heart you can’t believe that, I completely understand. I’ve been encircled by those chains and their clamps are firm. I still wear their scars. Start with hoping its true. The spark hoping will make will be what you need to begin melting the steeliness surrounding your heart. I promise. Hope. It’s the first footsteps in many long journeys. And you’re not making those steps alone. Neither am I. Even when it really feels as if we are.

Another lesson from this year is most of life is playing the game ‘Fake It Till You Make It’. I hate this game. It goes directly against my wanting to know if a choice or a feeling or an idea is right, the truth, the very best one. I do not settle – ever – I know there are places and people and feelings which truly radiate and are exquisite. Those are what I desire in life, and they very rarely look like what I expect them to. Frustrating. Especially for us Legionites who live life at an arm’s length. Except the only way the sun’s warmth will tickle your skin is to step into its rays. But before you take that first step you have to believe those beams will work their magic. Otherwise, you’re left staring into the sun going blind. Don’t stay in the shadows. Find Ray-bans and fire yourself up. Become spellbinding.

Fear. Every. Time. we give into it destruction inevitably follows. From self worth to relationships to goals and dreams, fear rips them all apart. The only way to get past it, to conquer such a vicious demon is to play Fake It. Fear is not something that will ever pass and can only be overcome. I have only found one, literally just one, thing on this entire planet powerful enough to enable us to rise above fear; that is hope. This can be devastating to Legionites because hope is one of the most difficult emotions for us to feel. Even with Ray-bans it’s hard to remember, let alone believe, how the sun warms your soul when most of your days are overcast. It’s in these moments you superglue those damn shades to your face and put one foot in front of the other. Those first footfalls will hurt and require more effort than you think is within you – but you do! Keep stepping. Stumble. Fall. And the get back up. Every time you do flecks of fear will fall away while bits and pieces of hope take their place.

I have relentlessly tried countless ways to defeat fear with things like courage or sheer effort, but I only harmed myself or worse, much worse, caused pain and suffering to those I love and who love me. Whatever you are looking for in life must first be found within yourself. This is a bitter cup to drink from, my friends. But, more often than not, it’s burning liquid will be the balm your heart needs. As you gag it down remember medicine is needed to heal and healing brings life. Not surviving but actual living filled with belly laughs and joy and true love. It’s worth the acidic swallows to heal the carnage Legionites have endured.

As you begin to reconstruct your heart and mind there will still be fear but this comes from the unknown. Everything will look different but with spots of familiarity. Your friends will still look the same but now you’ll see them with a depth you didn’t understand before. This understanding unlocks exhilaration, joy, and beauty that will ignite your soul. That treacherous arm will begin to shrink and bend; those you love won’t seem so far away. You won’t feel so far away. And when those moments come when you find you’re by yourself and the sky has grown black and ominous and your flashlight’s batteries are dead and you’ve lost your umbrella you will still have those flickers of hope embedded into your heart; nothing and no one will be able to take them from you. Those embers will brighten your memories of those you love, the love you carry inside you, and that there are others who feel exactly the same way and understand where you are and where you want to go.

I have experienced this many times over the past year. I have spent much of the last 365 days alone because of consequences for hurting others and pushing them away, grappling with chronic depression and maddening manic episodes, traveling down the road of self-discovery which is always paved with loneliness, and bearing the burden of not having living family. That big brother sure would have come in handy. Those moments only glimmered when I first had them and would brush past my fingers like feathers floating through the air. But at least I knew they were there and I clung to that knowledge like a baby clutching their security blanket. Little by little those glimmers began glowing, and that fire is spreading. I have no doubt they’ll grow into a blazing inferno. And I’ve got my marshmallows ready.

I not only know I’m not alone but I understand I am never truly alone. Quite the contrary. I am one of many, legions. If I’m not alone then neither are you. I am with you and for those times I can’t be there someone will be, and, surprisingly, sometimes that person will be you. I promise. Take a step. Reach for my hand. Look up. I’ve got an extra pair of Ray-bans and some superglue.