Well readers, here I sit, still on bed rest from this back injury. I have about 70% of my motion back. It no longer hurts in the standing up position, but if I am up for too long it hurts. It mostly huts in the transition from sitting to standing, but it is still causing me too much pain to be terribly physical. As a result, I am in a funk. I am kind of a mess tonight. Do not get my wrong, I have loved playing hours of video games, watching the entire first season of SUITS, reading 2 full novels and watching movies. It has been a nice start to summer vacation, but it is not how I envisioned my summer starting.
If you know me pretty well, which some of do, and some of you are learning, you would know I am a man who lives and dies by plans. I love plans. I love to have my entire week planned sometimes. It is a sickness, but it calms me down, especially when so much of my life right now is up in the air. Will I have a job in Sept? Where will I be living in 2 months? I have no clue, but I can tell you what I will be doing Friday afternoon at roughly 3:30 in the afternoon and that calms me down. With Martina having been gone the last 5 days, I had a whole routine planned out to keep me moving forward without her here to help. She may or may not know it, but her constant support keeps my wheels turning on days that are rough. I knew I would keep to this routine, because I like routines, but after cleaning the whole house on Saturday my back gave out and my entire routine went away. So instead of just not knowing about a job and a house, I was now worrying about how I would recover from this extended lay off. Do not tell me it is silly or that I think too much, I already know that. I am the one lives inside of this brain 24/7. I am the one who used to debate calling any friend of mine for 25 minutes before making the call because I was sure that person did not want to talk to me, or would only answer because he or she felt obligated. No one would really willingly talk to me.
Okay, way off topic. Wow, where was I? Yes, my routine. It did not go as planned. I did a pretty good job of my goal to still eat better. Yes, after spending roughly 48hrs alone with my thoughts, I caved and ordered a pizza and drank a liter of soda. But I did not drink the second liter and I only ate half of the pizza. I told my roommate to eat the rest. I did not beat myself up too badly for the soda, which is certainly progress. However, these 5 days of basic isolation from the world have given me time to think long and hard about my life and how I ended up this way. I have been really thinking about my life and the people in it and the decisions I have made. I have been trying to find points of my life to which I can trace some of these issues. Has anyone else ever done that? I mean, wow, that a crappy, brutal, sad process. I truly believe it is necessary, but it can really bring you down. When you really sit back and examine some of the choices you have made in life, it can be more than an eye opener, it is like your entire brain explodes and rebuilds itself with this new understanding.
it hurt. It is still hurting. I know there are quotes about blowing things up to put them back together, and I guess that is what I am doing. I have to explode the shell of who I have been, or who I have tried to be and who everyone sees me as, and find a way to rebuild myself into someone I can look at in the mirror and be proud of. the last few days I have really tried to think about the last time I could say I was truly proud of myself. It is sad that I went through this teacher program, graduated from college, got great roles in theater, and I cannot think of the last time I was actually proud of myself. It was a shocking realization. I have become so crippled in my life by my own self doubt, my "monsters" as I have been referring to my self doubt as, that I have not been proud of these very big accomplishments. It has been an interesting few days inside my head.
However, the metaphorical light at the end is that I realize this now. I am aware. Self-awareness is always a blessing and a curse, but I can make the changes now that I see it. I know that I have to be less hard on myself. I have spent so much time beating myself up before anyone else could get to it and it is not going to fly anymore. I feel like this blog has really been more of a chronicle of my journey to mental health, which is not at all what I intended, when I started. I think I am much more mentally unhealthy than I realized when I began this process.
The best thing to happen to me over the last few days was getting Erik back. Since his own life change partially inspired my desire to like myself more, it is really great to have him around. His constant support has helped me in so many situations over the last 7 or 8 years that I know he is going to be there through this as well. Plus, no one knows my predilection for awful self thoughts more than he does and he knows to tell me when I am being ridiculous.
Tomorrow I am going to try and get back in the water for swimming. Tomorrow I am going to try and wake up and remind myself that I have some pretty damn good things going on and I would not have these great things if I was not deserving of them. Tomorrow I am going to wake up and remind myself that this is a daily life change and when you attempt to change your entire life, and your entire routine, it is going to take time and that is okay. Tomorrow I am going to wake up and tell myself 5 things I like about myself and 1 thing I love about myself. I suggest anyone having a tough time do the same thing. I have people who love me, so I must be doing something right. Now, to get out there and love myself. (Shockingly, I do not mean that in a dirty way.)
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