Pre-Birthday Thoughts

I turn 22 in 17 days.  22 seems like a major milestone for me.  If you had asked me 10 years ago if I thought I would ever reach my 22nd birthday, the answer would have been no.  It's not that I'm a terribly, terribly depressed person who tried to kill myself every day, but I have seen a hell of a lot of pain in my lifetime, and there was a time where I just didn't think I was capable of surviving it.  By the time I was 10, I had already been to over 20 funerals.  It caused trust issues; it felt like everyone I had ever loved would die.  I had seen major family feuds; knife throwing at christmas, alcoholism, abuse.  I always felt loved, but somehow empty.  Over time, this has made me stronger.  I never thought so at the time, but the sadness and pain I have seen has made me a better person.  

I have learnt over time that the best way to deal with feelings is to allow yourself to feel them.  The worst thing about that hopeless, engulfing sadness is the feeling that you can't survive it.  If you face all the emotions, and spend some time actually feeling the feelings you have, you learn that they're not as bad as you imagine.  It's sort of like when you go to the dentist; the fear of the pain is must worse than the pain itself.  Same goes with emotional sadness - once you know what it feels like to be sad, you realise that you can survive it.  It's actually okay for me to feel sad, I can come back from it.  

From about 10 years old to about 14, I realised that I was a lot stronger than I gave myself credit for.  I realised that I was okay being by myself, and I was okay being sad.  I saw that I had been through what most people, luckily, never have to experience.  And I survived.  In fact, I thrived, on some levels.  

Then I fell in love.  He was my first 'real' boyfriend, and I loved him so much it broke my heart.  He was older than me, and he seemed to know everything.  He treated me like a princess, and his family welcomed me in.  

Then, not long after my 16th birthday, I hit rock bottom.  I lost the most precious thing, and it broke my heart.  Not like a breakup breaks your heart (although, soon after this, I did break up with the bf too), but when I lost this, I could actually feel my heart break into a thousand pieces.  I've never recovered.  Some things, you can't recover from.  I've learned how to deal with the hurt, and I know that I can push the sadness aside.  I know that I'm not always going to be sad every minute of every day - but I also know it will hurt forever.  

Since then, I've built myself up again.  It's been slow, and sometimes, I've taken one step forward and two steps back.  I live every day with insomnia, I have terrible flashbacks.  Some days, I hurt so much that I feel like I can't get out of bed.  The day before my 17th birthday, I made a pact to myself that I was never ever doing to let myself get that hurt again.  And I promised myself that I would never succumb to depression again.  I still get depressed, I still get sad.  But I force myself to get up and keep trucking along.  It always gets better.  Or at least, it can never be as bad as losing the most precious thing in the world.  

So how do I deal with pain?  I stare it right in the face and say, 'bring it on, bitch'.  Well, not literally, because that would mean I was talking to myself, and that would mean that I'm crazy.  But I do face it.  I started off giving myself one minute, and saying 'All of the sad things that you're feeling right now, you're going to really, truly feel them.  You can do anything for a minute.'  And you know what?  You CAN do anything for a minute.  When I got better at dealing with it, I spend my time working through my feelings during pool sessions.  At the time, I was swimming 12-20 hours a week, and it was a really great time to just spend with just myself and my thoughts.  It taught me to compartmentalize my thoughts; when I was in the pool, I could feel as much pain as I wanted.  Once I got out, I was a normal, functioning human being.  My parents used to notice how horribly moody I would get if I missed a pool session.  

Currently, I'm not swimming because of my broken shoulder.  At first it was causing issues with my moods, but once I started running longer distances, I started using running as my thinking time.  I don't think it's as good as swimming, but the rhythm is cathartic.  It's probably one of the reasons why I love yoga, but don't like group classes at the gym.  All that shouting is not conducive to getting lost in my own thoughts.  I think I'm just one of those people who need to exercise, in my own way to stay sane.

I think it's hugely important to explore your emotions.  Sure, it hurts.  I'm not going to lie.  But while facing your feelings will make some parts of your life more painful, it will, at least in my experience, make the rest of your life a much calmer, nicer place to be.

I'll leave you with a quote I saw on Twitter today, but have loved forever from Winnie the Pooh. 

“There is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart, I'll always be with you.”

The blog we've all been talking about

Okay, this is going to be a very personal blog, about my 'innermost, romantic feelings' and soppy shit like that. If you don't think you can read it without being an ass, please don't. And please don't give me shit on twitter about it, I already feel weird enough without being mocked relentlessly by people whom I've never met.

Actually, after writing that intro, and talking to Kassh, I've decided not to write it. It's not worth ruining anything over, and I'm enjoying what I have right now. This might seem like a bit of a cop-out, and to be honest, it is. But telling the world before the person goes against my whole 'communication in relationships' rule - and that's the out I'm using here. If you really respect a person, no matter what it is you have to tell them, good or bad, it should be face to face. I was going to by text, but that's a terrible idea. There are some things you don't do via text, like telling someone you're pregnant or breaking up with them (I'm neither, to be clear).

I guess this would lead into a good post about respect and relationships, and the link between communication and respect. This segue is awesome, go me!

So, what do I think about respect? There's that general adage that respect should be earned, and I totally agree with that. However, I also think that we as humans have a responsibility to respect other people as people - even if we don't like them. This means that we have to respect women and children and murderers and rapists. Everyone is somebody's baby, even if we don't like what they have done. That doesn't mean that we need to respect them as anything more than a person, it just means that we have to treat them like people. On top of that, people can earn our respect by doing special things. I sort of think of it like a kid's sticker chart, except way cooler because I got to colour it in myself. What they can do to earn respect varies from person to person.

For me, a big part of respect is someone respecting me. It sounds circular and silly, but if someone respects the things that I do and the reasons why I do them, I will respect them a lot more than if they either don't care, or worse, actively discourage me from doing what I do. I think respect in relationships is super important. Too many people seem to forget that their partners are, before everything, people. You wouldn't scream abuse at a person on the street, and you probably also wouldn't yell profanities at a person on the bus, so why is it somehow okay to treat your partner like that? You also wouldn't just totally ignore the girl at the library counter if she said something you didn't agree with. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand getting angry and frustrated with your partner. However, has yelling ever solved a problem? Has shutting down and ignoring the person you have the issue with ever actually fixed anything?

I'm a firm believer that communication is the keystone to a relationship - and also, that yelling isn't communication. I think that if there are issues, they should be talked about. I've been in a relationship with someone who, when he got annoyed, would totally shut down and refuse to discuss the issue, or anything else, for that matter. It would drive me insane; personally, I hate going to bed angry, and I find it really hard to let go without discussing the issue and 'kissing and making up' so to speak. I would never be with a guy who shut down like that again. It sent me into a bit of a depression because I felt like I was being ignored. Now I realise that it was just his way of dealing with it, but it would have been much better for both of us if he were to say 'I'm angry, I'm not discussing this now, we can talk about it in 2 hours'.

I've never been with someone who yelled at me. I don't do yelling very well, it makes me cry. I think a guy who yelled at me would be a deal-breaker. There's no excuse for it. My aunty used to be terrible at yelling at my uncle and her children. She didn't do it because she was a horrible person, she did it because it was the only way she thought they would listen. My grandmother sat down one day with her and told her what she was doing. She took it to heart, and it took a while, but she very rarely yells. Maybe that would work in other relationships also, but it's not something I'm willing to be involved in.

I think conflict is totally normal. People will never agree on everything, and no one should have to go along with everything their partner says just to prevent conflict. The issue lies in ensuring that conflict is dealt with in the right way; that is, with respect for the other person. If I respect you enough to kiss you and spend time with you or live with you or sleep with you, I respect you enough to make the effort to treat you and your opinions with respect. Sometime's it's hard, sure. But there is never an excuse for belittling your partner. The way you show respect is through the way you communicate with someone.

Whenever I'm really really frustrated with someone I love, I take a second to remember why I love the person, and think about how they make me happy. It might not work for you, but it works for me. If I'm really really frustrated, I'll put myself in time out. Sometimes having a shower or sitting outside or going for a drive can take the anger out of the situation. Remember, anger is your problem, no body else's.