Secrets

Today as I read Post Secret (like I do every Sunday) I realized that I have so much in common with all these people who wrote secrets, but they aren't secrets to me. I have someone I love so very much that I can tell him all the things that go through my mind. He knows about everything that has happened to me from as far back as I can remember. Every day we talk and I still tell him everything about my day and every thought that goes through my head. Most days I don't need to tell him, he just knows. Somehow, though, the telling makes it better. The happiness is brighter, the fear is quieter, the pain is smaller.

However, there are times, like the past few weeks for instance, that even sharing all this doesn't help enough. I don't know what makes it happen or how to really make it go away. The Grey Monster just creeps up and grabs a hold and I am stuck. Ugly thoughts about regrets, mistakes, broken promises, and destroyed wishes... they all come back again and again. I feel as if I am somehow not as smart as I should be because I can't make this go away.

The worst part is feeling like it is all my fault. If I had just done THIS, or avoided THAT maybe I would be as thin, and wealthy, and successful as I should have been. Every bad decision I've ever made piles up and I can't even breathe. Sometimes I have dreams where I am so angry I wake up screaming and yelling and trying to punch people. Other times my dreams are so very, deeply, impossibly sad that I wake up crying and sobbing. Why on earth does my brain need to fabricate these things? Do I not feel horrible enough during the day that I need to feel worse at night?

I will say that I am sleeping less than I used to. I don't nap nearly as often or for as long. The daily aching pain is much better, although I still have spikes of pain whenever I move around. I only get headaches once every few weeks instead of several every day.  I'm able to more easily do the normal things I need to do every day - shower, get dressed, eat, run my errands. I still don't feel "normal." I don't know that I would recognize "normal" if I ever felt it. Above all else, I feel guilty for being so self-centered and focused on my own petty issues instead of on the really big things that I could be doing to help someone else.

So, even though I can tell I have come a long way from where I was, I'm still not better. I am completely different than I ever was before, and I am beginning to accept that. I'm not happy with where I am, though, and I really need to be better. I'm not sure how.

Deb