Getting My Head Out of My Ass or When to Stop Being a "Survivor"

       Getting my head out of my ass... Sounds like it would be easy, just pull it out. But when it's jammed in there with a bunch of old baggage, psychoactive medications, and physical ailments it isn't that simple.

       Just as you think you have a grip on an ear, something shifts or a jar full of emotional slime breaks and your hand slips off. Then, after a few tries you give up. Until, after a few months or years, you get some more encouragement and you try again. Only to have more things break open, shift, or find new stuff packed around it.

       It seems like a Sisyphean task dreamed up by a doubly sick sadist. And I am NOT a masochist!

       I'm with a new therapist, N., right now. Tele-Health. It takes some getting used to and my sound software or his isn't the greatest. But I digress. I like working with N. He is very good at Cognitive/Behavioral therapy. He gets that I need homework to help me get things done and to help me gain insight that I wouldn't get in a 45-50 minute therapy session. He also doesn't accept ANY excuses even ones that disguise themselves as "reasons."

       I honestly think that with his help I have made perhaps my biggest breakthrough since dealing with the triggers of my PTSD. Let me give a little bit of background to help flesh it out.

       I was abused as a child. Sexually, emotionally, physically... you get the idea. So I was a "Victim."
Then I entered therapy and worked through some issues and changed my personal perspective to being a "Survivor!" And that was that. I was no longer a victim so I didn't have to work on that part of my identity. Right....

       Now I have come to realize that just being a "survivor" isn't the end of the process. As a "survivor" my identity is still tied to the abuse. It gave me a reason (read excuse) to behave the way I did and to react to things the way I did. I "couldn't help it," I've "survived" being abused and it shaped the way I think, feel, and act. Didn't it?

       But that mentality has been holding me back. Thinking that way has just let me sit in idle thinking that this is all I'll ever be. Someone who's social interactions, behaviors, and thinking processes are based on behaviors learned when I was being abused. And that too is a cop out. I don't have to be a "survivor" anymore either. I can just be a person.

       Sure, there was a point where I needed to be a survivor. It was a way for  me to understand why I felt the way I did and such. But not getting the information that there was something beyond "surviving" has left me in that mode, surviving. Which isn't living.

       Please don't think that I'm trying to equate myself with the people who are living in active war zones or extreme poverty or other ways that literally put their lives in moment to moment or day to day risk. I'm not saying that. But being stuck in the psychiatric "survivor" mentality I wasn't growing or improving. I was stagnating. And, as Michael Ketterer said on AGT, "When you are surviving you can't dream."

       (I'm not sure if that was his original saying or if he was quoting someone else.)

       I have achieved little in my time as a "survivor". I haven't been able to hold a job for more that 8-10 months at a time. (1 year and 7 months is my record.) I was able to get my Associates Degree but I have done nothing with it. I have a "things I want to do as a career" list 5 pages long. My bucket list is even longer. But I have had no motivation because my mind has been clogged with "reasons" why I can't do anything. Me being a "survivor" is the true reason. It has given me the excuse to be a slug, unmotivated, and plain out lazy.

       So now I'm done "surviving." I want to be a "Real Live Boy!" and that means that I can't just "survive" anymore. I have to own everything about myself. My thinking. My reasoning. My reactions. My motivation or lack there-of. My desires. My dreams. ME!

       And OMG it looks scary.

       But I'm going to suck it up and dig in. Small things at first. One or two small changes. And when those are accomplished a few more. And a few more. Set some goals of all lengths. And then just do them. Sink or swim there's no half measures here.

       Don't wish me luck. I'm going to start making my own luck from now on. Wish me "Bon Voyage."

       I'll send you a postcard....