I Wanna Get Better

Tomorrow, I start counseling for the first time in a couple years with a new counselor…

I think everyone reaches a point (or many points) in their life where they feel like they’ve been dealt way more than they could handle. Maybe it’s a life-time of misfortune. I’ve felt like I’ve reached “that point” many times. But I don’t think I ever so strongly reached that point until about a year and four months ago. It doesn’t matter what caused it. Everyone compares the amount of pain they’ve experienced to others like there’s a scale. There’s that saying that you should be grateful for the life you have no matter what it is you’ve experienced, because there’s someone out there who’s experienced worse. And often, people are quick to jump in and say, “I’ve been there,” but the fact that they just expect you to “let it go and get over it” seems to suggest otherwise. All I know is I’ve experienced utter agony no matter how many times others try to belittle the situation.

Unfortunately, it’s really hard to take yourself seriously when others don’t. I can pinpoint a single moment at the aforementioned time a year and four months ago when my heart just died. I literally felt it sink away from me, and I have yet to get it back. It just shut down. Despite any will I had, it just reached a point where it could take no more. It had reached its limit. The careless, selfish animals that mauled it to shreds all came away unscathed, but I didn’t. I was left to somehow put a bloody, frayed mess back together, which has resulted in a patched up, sloppy job. Each time, it’s patched up wrong, it just explodes open again to be patched up again.

           

Even now, successful healing is not imminent. Though I have been tempted many a time to give up, I will not. I have decided. I will not give up. I. Will. Not. The unfortunate thing about mourning and healing, is that it can take so long. I’ve started to wonder, though, if blaming myself for the pain, as if I should be stronger than that, is hindering me from healing. People just say to get over it. But just because they wouldn’t have responded with so much intense emotion doesn’t make my pain any less. Just because they don’t understand doesn’t mean it’s any less real. They aren’t me.

In the past year, I have experienced pain that has driven me literally mad, praying for death, screaming, bawling, and continuously digging my fingernails into my skin. Yes, utterly crazy. And the pain doesn’t decrease. But is all the pain self-inflicted unconsciously? I don’t know, though those are the kinds of thoughts I have. I feel like it’s all my fault. But it’s still pain right? No matter how it occurred. And I’m still facing it.

It’s hard to mourn. And to allow yourself to truly recognize the hurt for what it is and where it came from. It’s hard to let go of things that you wanted that you won’t have, things that you wish happened that never did and never will, things that might have happened had you only done this or that, thing that never should have happened, things that might happen that you don’t want to happen, things that you hope will happen, and things that you currently just can’t believe are happening to you. Not to you…as a kid I dreamed of perfect happy endings for myself. Tragic endings were for other people. But not for me. I believed in perfection for myself one day.

But the truth is, crap happens in life. It shouldn’t happen. It is not something that we should just accept as the way of life. It really shouldn’t be the way of life. You didn’t deserve it. I didn’t either. A lot of Christians will say otherwise. But not everything that happens is payback or Karma. Not everything is deserved. And God doesn’t necessarily just let it happen to you to teach you something. I was told He did and I tried to believe it. But I found I can’t. I just can’t accept that. He could use any situation to teach me any lesson. I don’t think He had to hurt me this way to get a point across if He had one. I refuse to believe this is His perfect will for me. Right now, I would rather go to Hell than believe that. I’m in it already.

Regardless of all that, these tragic things happened. And now we can’t pretend it didn’t. It did. And it freaking sucks. I know I’ve written of tragedy before, but this moment is big for me. I have a habit of facing the pain head on then falling weak, and tricking my brain to not believe the truth of my situation. I live in denial; run from reality. Because of this, I am dealing with pain that has gone on for years and years and years, and I’ve just tried to cover it again and again prematurely rather than to just let the original wound heal. Now it’s not just one wound, it’s a collection of wounds that I have to deal with all at once.

 I’m learning that you can’t “put a helmet on a helmet” as it says in the song “I Wanna Get Better” by Bleachers. No amount of helmets can protect my already bullet-loaded head. The wounds just fester and rot, while I pretend the pain does not exist. I have just let the same wound fester, while other wounds just piled on top until my whole heart and mind became one entire mass of wound that I could no longer control, and I just shut down…and then woke up again insane. Now I wanna get better. Truly, get better. God help me, I might. One has to hope one can.