I haven't done much art of late, similarly with photography. My energy has been focused on self-care and improvement. I'm on day 13 of no weed, and day 12 of no sugar and giving up ultra-processed foods. This hasn't been easy, as I've had an on/off relationship with weed for 18 years, although 4 of those has been sober. My addiction to sugar and processed food has been problematic since childhood and only escalated into my teen years and was an all out disaster from the age of 18 when I started earning my own money and could buy whatever the hell I wanted.
I read in a book the other day that emotionally starved children often end up overeating. I suppose I was just lucky that I'm an ectomorph and can eat whatever I want and it barely adds any meat on my bones. The dietary changes have helped with energy levels, as has not drinking caffeine after midday. Sleep is better, and now, without weed I'm finally dreaming again, rather than sleep being a void.
Each night I have very strong dreams, and clearly there's a lot to work out and process. For the first time in my life I dreamed I had a child last night. I'm not sure if this is a representation of my inner child, as I have no desire to have children. But they were overwhelmed and crying, and I recalled what I'd been reading and learning and I met their unhappiness with compassion and understanding - to the best of my ability.
I've begun EMDR therapy to try and heal and move past events in early life which has left me with 2 core beliefs - that I am unworthy and that I am unloveable. These have followed me throughout life, and led to people pleasing, unhealthy relationships and friendships. The other issue with people pleasing is that it adds to a growing resentment and anger within. Feeling chronic guilt, struggling to set boundaries and to say "no".
It's truly exhausting, but I also found it to be a way to fit in. Everyone tends to like the polite, helpful guy. The one who's good-natured on the outside, but internally he's falling apart. Gabor Maté's book "The Myth of Normal" describes in detail how trauma leads to addiction and disease, and people pleasing is merely one aspect of someone who is suffering from a past that continues to haunt their present. As Gabor says:
"Ask not why the addiction, but why the pain."
I have nursed so many addictions in life. Moving back home triggered and brought up a lot of old stuff. In fact, I started smoking again several weeks before I was due to move back home. During the Christmas break I had 11 days off work and my weed and overeating reached unbearable levels. I simply did not want to be present and the inner discomfort was leading me to purge and try my best to numb out.
Unfortunately I'm at a point where being around my parents often overwhelms me with palpitations, dizziness, nausea, pain, anxiety and I tend to be virtually mute in their company. Unseen and unheard. Another common feeling in life. The way I chose to look is a byproduct of feeling unseen. Being tall, covered in tattoos and piercings is not some outwards display of confidence or bravado. It's a plea - please look at me, so that I feel worthy.
I've felt like a bad friend for doing this, but I've cut myself off from various friends. They're not bad people - far from it. However, they too are addicts, and I realised I was feeling bad in their company on a regular basis. Drained at the very least, but often feeling a lot worse.
Much like my parents, I often felt like these people would talk, monologue and I felt tired, anxious, unseen, unheard and tense. Sure, you could chalk this up to social anxiety at times. But when you feel that way time after time? I have a pattern of befriending people who struggle. There's a solidarity in finding people who can relate to your suffering. And yet, I looked to how I was feeling in their company, and realising this wasn't sustainable.
I have experienced profound loneliness throughout a lot of my life, and it's got worse as I've aged. I'm at a point where willingly cutting off friends feels like I'm shooting myself in the foot. I feel like a bad friend to them, yet I'm being a bad friend to myself by willingly exposing myself to situations where time after time I'm left feeling tense and exhausted. Yet I know that loneliness isn't just a feeling - it affects your mental and physical health profoundly.
I am hoping that with diet, exercise, weekly yoga, bi-weekly therapy and massage, along with reading and trying to reconnect with myself - that perhaps I can move beyond what has been 2 decades of mental health struggles. For 10 years my body has been saying "no". It hurts every single day, and it's crying out for me to stop and listen. For a long time I didn't trust my body, I thought it was broken, when in reality it was doing the only thing it could do to communicate it's suffering.
Now I am listening, and I'm on a journey to hopefully restore a sense of inner peace. I am exhausted by the chronic fatigue, anxiety and pains. I know that having the van completed and getting a dog later in the year will help. But part of me wants the van to just run away, and detatch from things. But I'll still be the same person, with the same mind - regardless of where I am in the country. I know that exploring and reconnecting with nature and myself will help. But the healing needs to go beyond that.
This unworthiness and unloveableness runs deep. It affects me on a daily basis. I look to how I put energy into friendships and relationships, and I'm not half as kind to myself as I am to others. I am fed up of feeling like I need to please others in order to fit in, or to be accepted. I have felt burnt out for a number of years, and the past year has felt like this exhaustion has peaked. But I'm not dead yet, and I know that things will feel at their lowest and darkest before I can ascend and move forwards.
Onwards and upwards.
Ed
I read in a book the other day that emotionally starved children often end up overeating. I suppose I was just lucky that I'm an ectomorph and can eat whatever I want and it barely adds any meat on my bones. The dietary changes have helped with energy levels, as has not drinking caffeine after midday. Sleep is better, and now, without weed I'm finally dreaming again, rather than sleep being a void.
Each night I have very strong dreams, and clearly there's a lot to work out and process. For the first time in my life I dreamed I had a child last night. I'm not sure if this is a representation of my inner child, as I have no desire to have children. But they were overwhelmed and crying, and I recalled what I'd been reading and learning and I met their unhappiness with compassion and understanding - to the best of my ability.
I've begun EMDR therapy to try and heal and move past events in early life which has left me with 2 core beliefs - that I am unworthy and that I am unloveable. These have followed me throughout life, and led to people pleasing, unhealthy relationships and friendships. The other issue with people pleasing is that it adds to a growing resentment and anger within. Feeling chronic guilt, struggling to set boundaries and to say "no".
It's truly exhausting, but I also found it to be a way to fit in. Everyone tends to like the polite, helpful guy. The one who's good-natured on the outside, but internally he's falling apart. Gabor Maté's book "The Myth of Normal" describes in detail how trauma leads to addiction and disease, and people pleasing is merely one aspect of someone who is suffering from a past that continues to haunt their present. As Gabor says:
"Ask not why the addiction, but why the pain."
I have nursed so many addictions in life. Moving back home triggered and brought up a lot of old stuff. In fact, I started smoking again several weeks before I was due to move back home. During the Christmas break I had 11 days off work and my weed and overeating reached unbearable levels. I simply did not want to be present and the inner discomfort was leading me to purge and try my best to numb out.
Unfortunately I'm at a point where being around my parents often overwhelms me with palpitations, dizziness, nausea, pain, anxiety and I tend to be virtually mute in their company. Unseen and unheard. Another common feeling in life. The way I chose to look is a byproduct of feeling unseen. Being tall, covered in tattoos and piercings is not some outwards display of confidence or bravado. It's a plea - please look at me, so that I feel worthy.
I've felt like a bad friend for doing this, but I've cut myself off from various friends. They're not bad people - far from it. However, they too are addicts, and I realised I was feeling bad in their company on a regular basis. Drained at the very least, but often feeling a lot worse.
Much like my parents, I often felt like these people would talk, monologue and I felt tired, anxious, unseen, unheard and tense. Sure, you could chalk this up to social anxiety at times. But when you feel that way time after time? I have a pattern of befriending people who struggle. There's a solidarity in finding people who can relate to your suffering. And yet, I looked to how I was feeling in their company, and realising this wasn't sustainable.
I have experienced profound loneliness throughout a lot of my life, and it's got worse as I've aged. I'm at a point where willingly cutting off friends feels like I'm shooting myself in the foot. I feel like a bad friend to them, yet I'm being a bad friend to myself by willingly exposing myself to situations where time after time I'm left feeling tense and exhausted. Yet I know that loneliness isn't just a feeling - it affects your mental and physical health profoundly.
I am hoping that with diet, exercise, weekly yoga, bi-weekly therapy and massage, along with reading and trying to reconnect with myself - that perhaps I can move beyond what has been 2 decades of mental health struggles. For 10 years my body has been saying "no". It hurts every single day, and it's crying out for me to stop and listen. For a long time I didn't trust my body, I thought it was broken, when in reality it was doing the only thing it could do to communicate it's suffering.
Now I am listening, and I'm on a journey to hopefully restore a sense of inner peace. I am exhausted by the chronic fatigue, anxiety and pains. I know that having the van completed and getting a dog later in the year will help. But part of me wants the van to just run away, and detatch from things. But I'll still be the same person, with the same mind - regardless of where I am in the country. I know that exploring and reconnecting with nature and myself will help. But the healing needs to go beyond that.
This unworthiness and unloveableness runs deep. It affects me on a daily basis. I look to how I put energy into friendships and relationships, and I'm not half as kind to myself as I am to others. I am fed up of feeling like I need to please others in order to fit in, or to be accepted. I have felt burnt out for a number of years, and the past year has felt like this exhaustion has peaked. But I'm not dead yet, and I know that things will feel at their lowest and darkest before I can ascend and move forwards.
Onwards and upwards.
Ed
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