Learning to let go
Thank you for being a paid subscriber <3
This post is a follow up from my last paid post: https://buttondown.email/SelfCareBackpack/archive/on-being-triggered
I used to be valued by how useful I was. Eventually I learned to only value myself that way. How much I’d save the day, organise the thing, run something. It was my entire life. Learning to leave that behind is difficult. Mistakes were a terrible crime growing up, so they’re a crime now. Being an inconvenience was the worst thing ever. It still is, really.
In my first year of counselling training, we had an exercise where we had to think of a time where we expected help and didn’t get it, and how that felt. I couldn’t think of a time I expected help, outside of a service industry situation.
I have got better at asking for help, but I don’t expect people to help me, it’s fine for them to say no. I’m a bit better at being able to ask and know the answer will be a yes, but it’s still difficult to expect the help.
Knowing I was inconveniencing someone, and they were frustrated and angry, triggered me for a whole week. I managed it well, but it was a reminder of what my life used to be like.
I had a therapy session, where we talked about my week of being triggered. Here are some things that came up for me to work on:
Anger doesn’t mean I’m unsafe. Just because someone is angry, it doesn’t mean I bear any or all responsibility for it, and it doesn’t mean I’m unsafe. That’s what my brain has trouble with. I’m so used to anger being dangerous, that its just an emotion isn’t something I’m good at knowing and managing.
Any time I do anything wrong, or find that I’ve made a mistake, I will take all responsibility, even when it’s not all my fault. When it is my fault I will flagellate myself to within an inch of my life. Even if I don’t do it outwardly, I’ll do it inwardly, needing to pay some kind of penance to the universe in order to bring things into balance.
I am okay to make mistakes. It’s okay for me to see something that might need clarification, and decide to not, even if I have to go fix the outcomes. It’s fine. I don’t have to be perfect constantly. I can fuck up, and it’s fine. It’s not the end of the world, and I don’t have to tie myself in knots to fix it all.
People are allowed to have feelings, even negative ones. Sometimes things don’t work out, and trying to make it so others aren’t inconvenience whatsoever is unhelpful at best.
I can’t control how I react to things. My feelings can be unpredictable, and often feel out of my control. What I can control is how I respond to those feelings, and the circumstances that led to those feelings. I can sit and tend to my feelings. I can pick up things I need to, and leave things I don’t.
I hadn’t really made the connection between anger and unsafe until therapy, which is weird. Sometimes it feels like my therapist has a better grasp on my stuff than I do. But unsafe is correct. It feels like I’m going to be punished, people are going to be angry at me specifically, rather than just angry at a situation. This is what happens when you grow up in an environment where everyone else’s emotions were your problem to solve. You fall back into those patterns over and over.
My therapist used the phrase ‘tend to [my] feelings’, and that’s what I want to remind myself (and you) to do. Your feelings sometimes are unhelpful, inconvenient, or exhausting, but the best way to move through them is to tend to them. Accept them, sit with them, and do what you can to help yourself deal with them.
It’s been an interesting time, being triggered and recovering. I can see the knots I need to start to untie, and now I need to do the work of doing it. This work happens best when you’re not in the moment, dealing with your emotions and reactions, which is why I focus so much on knowing your patterns and knowing how to look after yourself. This stuff is important, and one of the reasons is because it allows you to get through your feelings enough to get to a place where you can work on the overarching issues.