By Sharing Our Stories We Create A Community

I learned about this concept quite some time ago, but it took me awhile before I felt comfortable enough to share one of mine.  Last month I shared a little bit about my personal struggle with anxiety.  This was not easy for me to do, in fact, it was rather difficult.  I wrote that post, I re-wrote that post and then it sat in my queue for quite some time ready to delete at any moment.  But I held true and let it launch on its scheduled date.

There is a community of people that share in this same challenge and we can support each other and not feel alone in this.  The outpouring of kind comments and those that have shared their own personal story has really touched me.  Only two people were less than kind.  Normally this would have upset me terribly, but I took a practical look at their responses and approached it from a healthy perspective.  My thought was simply this.  Someone shares that they have an issue with anxiety and your response is to antagonize them?  Seriously?  What is wrong with you?  And then I let it go.  After I tagged them for spam.

In that post I touched on something briefly that I want to talk about a little more.  It was a difficult and painful decision, but one I felt I desperately needed to make.  I walked away from my family.

I did that.  No one asked me too, no one invited me, no one demanded it.  I made that decision.  It was something I felt very strongly that I needed to do to take care of myself.  I am the one that cannot cope with the family dynamics.  That is on me and I take full responsibility for that.

Was it easy?  Absolutely not.  Do I love my family?  I truly do.  Did I upset and hurt people?  Undoubtedly.  Do I wish things were different?  Of course.  If I could go back in time would I change my decision?  No.

I was crumbling and eroding away.  Two decades of life experiences were taking their toll.  I felt like an old house with a weak foundation that was giving way and in desperate need of rebuilding.  At the time I was back in therapy after a two year reprieve and I felt like I was almost back at the beginning.  My therapist asked me point blank why I felt I needed to maintain relationships that required me to be in therapy in order to keep them?  After two sessions I knew that I could not make this situation better.  So I made a decision.

Now, four years later, my foundation is strong, the walls have been rebuilt and there is a solid roof over my head.  I see things much more clearly through the windows and there is a door to let people in.  There is also a lock on that door to keep people out.  I work on the maintenance of this metaphoric house every single day.  As it sits you'd be hard pressed to push it over.  I am strong and getting stronger.

I am blessed to have good, healthy, strong relationships with my friends and certain family members.  We put up with each other's crap and we love unconditionally.  We all have our faults, our quirks and our weaknesses but we also understand that and accept each other for who we are.  We have a lot of good things to offer.  It is a good place to be.

It is where I need to be.