On Walls and Fences

I've been in the mood to write, or podcast (itching to start something new- per usual), or draw or basically just create something without knowing what I should create or how or what I actually needed to process through the act of creating, just that I needed to do it.

If you haven't be following along, or it's just been so long since you've heard from me here, these posts aren't supposed to get to any particular destination. They are to just document the journey from dead to alive, to hopefully show growth and candor and vulnerability.

In an effort to pinpoint how I needed to process, I went back and read some old posts. Those posts, some of my books, Pinterest posts that made my jaw drop, some recent events, the Enneagram, and some very needed truthful conversations with my friends brought me to a conclusion that I didn't even realize was in the realm of possibilities.

I don't have boundaries.

I would like to think that I appropriately respect other people's boundaries but also push them when need be.... but then again I may discover that I don't do that either.

In order for me to tell this story in a way that makes sense to me, I have to go all the way back and I have to give a lot more than you may want to know about me. I'm a pretty open book about a lot of things, and you'll see why.

I'm the youngest of three kids, with over a decade gap between my siblings and I. My dad traveled for work for most of my life that I can remember. And for just as long, my mother was sick. I use "sick" because that's the way we spoke about it, in vague terms and hushed tones. I don't remember most of my childhood. I have some key events that are burned in my memory but most of my mental pictures are fuzzy and out of focus and blurs of color.

But I have recently remembered feelings from most of my childhood and teenage days. I was responsible for the survival and upkeep of my home. Maybe I actually wasn't but I sure felt like it. Sister and brother were either at college or living their post-graduate lives, that they rightfully deserved to live. My dad was traveling for work, we had to have money somehow. And then there was me and my mom. In good times she was active and alive. She ran errands and cooked and walked on the dead end street and listened to electronica music. On bad days she stayed in bed for days in the same clothes. She wouldn't eat and would bite her nails and had a devastating fear of driving. I did my best to coax her into the good days, or even just the ok days where she got showered and then sat in the living room with a diet coke and the tv on. I hid her pills in my room and made sure she took them when she was taking them. They were behind my door on top of my saxophone. It was the first place I ran to on the day she died and I couldn't find her, to make sure she didn't take them. I gave phone call updates when my dad was out of town and was part of family meetings when we wanted to get mom better.

I was a kid. And I took on responsibilities that adults shouldn't even have to take on.

I was a student, active in church, trying to learn the world and trying to hold things together that were not mine to hold together.

Holding a world together was my normal. Making my needs small because we had bigger issues at home was my normal.

I was the kid that got as close to As as I possibly could because I liked it but also not to cause issues.  The worst thing I did was not clean my room. I didn't share my internal world for fear of burdening an already heavy load onto someone else, and it was my normal.

And more heaviness would come in my young life- my grandmother died, my mother had a seizure, mother went to the hospital, parents struggled with finances and each other, mother died and then father died.

So I built a wall, and then another, until I created an internal world to shut me in. No windows, small, but enough to breathe. Nothing could get in and nothing could get out either.

My internal world was safe, my external world was filled of helping others. I threw myself into school work, more hobbies, more service activities. I ignored the girl stuck behind the walls.

The girl behind the walls was fine for a while. Until the air became toxic and the darkness made her panic and the walls felt like they were collapsing in on top of her.

So, in college I began the very dangerous demolition of knocking down the walls that I had built. I went to trauma counseling. I reluctantly opened up to people about struggles. I fought negative feelings that lied about who I was and what I meant to this world. I trusted people, even if they ended up leaving me or betraying that trust. It was a lot of work. And not only did I destroy the walls but I began to plant seeds and tend a garden around me.

I thought I was free.

I didn't realize that there was something to go in place of the walls. I no longer held toxic shame in my lungs, or fear in my gut, or guilt on my hands. I sat among my seedlings and thought I was ok.

But I wasn't.

All the years of holding onto things that were not mine took tolls.

Physically, I discovered that I was a mess. I used to measure how well I was doing each day by how little my hands shook. Every day I woke up and felt like I was hit by a bus. My eyes were exhausted and almost looked swollen shut on a regular basis. I was never rested. Ibuprofen was my best friend. I couldn't string words into sentences and I couldn't breathe well. And so much shame was held in my thighs and my stomach and my upper arms, visible for the world to see in a number that wouldn't  budge no matter what I did. And it was all my normal.

But emotionally?

I was worse. I thought I was doing good. I couldn't save my mother. But there were very real people around me struggling with similar struggles to my mother and to the girl I trapped inside my walls. I could help them. I could be there for them. I could listen. I could affirm them. I could take them to doctors offices and emergency rooms. I could give them advice. I could tell them truth instead of the lies that feed on the darkness. I could walk with them as they tried to make changes. I could, I could, I could. Because if I didn't, who else would?

But, what I didn't realize is that in a effort to save people around me I was inherently destroying myself and the garden I so desperately wanted to grow.

I didn't understand. I didn't understand why my seedlings were wilting and looked trampled on. This is what I'm supposed to do for people. I'm supposed to show up for them. I'm supposed to help carry their burdens. I'm supposed to put others first at any cost, right? Right?

I didn't realize that doing those things could ever be a bad thing, until I realized I was no longer a person that could care for themselves well. I carried all too much because I thought that's what I was supposed to do, that was what was best and loving and helpful for the people I loved. I didn't count the cost that it would take on my soul and body. I didn't count that my body would throw hormones and chemical levels out of whack and therefore you would develop chronic illness. I didn't count the cost that it would steal my peace because people are people and even if you're right, they may not listen because they have to figure things out on their own. I didn't count the cost of the weight that would break my back as I added it to weight I was already carrying from my own soul.

I got really good at letting the bad stuff out after I demolished the walls. I cry when I need to cry and don't see it as weakness. I write to process and let the world see. I call people and verbally process when I need to. I'm not afraid of counseling or facing the past that will be brought up sitting on that couch in front of a stranger. I'm not afraid of facing myself and the holes and the bruises that I have collected along the way.

But I didn't account for bad things that I was keeping out with my walls, just the things that needed to be let out of my soul. Everyone can see the news, the world is hurting. And my compassion is my greatest strength, but apparently also my greatest weakness, because I don't know when to say "stop". You want the shirt off my back and the last two dollars I have to my name? My pleasure, here you go. You want me to show up again for the same issue we've talked through more than once? Sure, I have a paper deadline to meet but I can stay up late to do it, you're more important. You need me to work 60+ hour weeks to meet these deadlines and to make sure that everything is perfect? Sign me up.

And everything I've been taught, about religion, about being a woman, about being a good friend, about loving others well... I thought it supported this. That the other outweighed the self every. single. time.  I just didn't count the part where I lost the self in the other.

I got to a point where I was drained and angry.

I was tired of showing up for people over and over again and things not changing no matter what method I used, no matter how much I prayed for things to get better.

I was tired of feeling like I gave so much and got little to nothing in return.

I was tired that my outer world was a mess and my inner world was a mess and I couldn't fix it because I was busy with others.

My health was put on a back burner for 2 years from the time I got a diagnosis because I was still in school and holding everything together (read as everything was falling apart). I didn't know what my diagnosis meant because I didn't have time to research it (read as I didn't make time). My normals won. My exhausted, emotionally drained, unhealthy normals won because I didn't know they weren't supposed to be normal.

The more research I did, the more things made sense. And not just research about Hashimoto's, but other things as well.

I discovered that those with autoimmune diseases often have a root cause of emotional trauma because of heightened cortisol levels for extended lengths of time. (Hence struggles with PTSD and fight or flight responses to seemingly small occurrences.) The extended exposure can cause inflammation in the body, and inflammation is the root of all evil. It causes leaky gut and joint pain and chronic fatigue and brain fog and depression and anxiety and every single damn thing that I have ever struggled with in my body. And that overwhelming negative emotions and physical manifestations of symptoms go hand in hand.

I discovered that my outer world and inner world were in chaos and if I wanted to let things go in the inner world, I would need to let go of some things in the outer world. When you lose core people that mean security and home at a young age, you will tend to hold on to anything that reminds you of that feeling that you lost. It's why I still had so many things from my parents that weren't necessarily meaningful anymore. I just assigned them meaning because "they were mom and dad's". I started researching minimalism and the benefits that it can bring to my life. It's allowed me to let go of things that I once held onto for dear life, including ideas and harmful beliefs that were keeping me down. It's allowed me to dump trash and give old things life and make space for less but sometimes better. It's allowed me to unpack my emotional baggage because there's nothing physical to discard anymore. I'm left with myself.

I discovered the Enneagram, a psychological tool used for analysis and growth about motivations that form our behaviors. That I am a type 2, the helper. Through it's lens, I realized that after going through so much, I still have so far to go. That 2s are the people that will answer their phone at 2am to help someone if they need it, they are the ones that are in the service industries and the ones that work for activism, they're the ones that see us and love us in ways we may not have noticed we needed. OH, that's me! That 2s primarily have fears of being abandoned due to childhood traumas with their parental figures. oh. That unhealthy 2s will do what ever is necessary to be seen as needed so they're not left, capable of manipulating if left unchecked. oh. That unhealthy 2s have boundary issues because they think that in order to be loved, they have to do something to be of value. Their value lies in doing rather than existing. So they help, often times unnecessarily or at the expense of themselves. oh. The more I dug, the more I found skeletons and weeds and rocks and deep roots that were taking up space in my soil.

I discovered that a lot of beliefs that I've had my whole life are not very useful. In fact they're harmful, regardless of good intentions or actual healthy roots. Things like purity culture and controlling women's bodies. Or diet culture and the way we view bodies in the church. Or how the church treats the LGBT community. Or that you could only be a Christian one certain way, especially in politics. Or how I benefit from systemic racism by the unequal distribution of power. Just so many things, too many things to go into detail here.

I discovered that my normal of holding onto responsibilities that shouldn't have been mine at a young age became a normal in most of my relationships. I helped, and gave, and manipulated (often unconsciously) into receiving love. I thought I helped out of love, and I still believe that. But my love had strings attached, that hopefully I would get love back. It was obsessive and controlling love and desperate for anything back. Very afraid that if I didn't keep giving, I was going to be left behind. I thought it was helpful and loving to keep giving advice regardless whether or not that's what the other wanted. I thought it was my responsibility to get them to a better place. I thought that I needed to keep people happy in order to be loved. I thought that whatever I needed to do, whether for myself or someone else, I needed to anticipate all the outcomes and the feelings that could be involved. I would lose myself in the feelings and needs of another person. I make my needs small because that was my normal. 

I've just been sitting with all this. Almost like I'm sitting in the middle of this trampled garden, exposed, holding my heart in my hands with a look of shock on my face. Now what?

I've let so many people, so many ideas, trample into a tender space; one that they should never been allowed into in the first place. 

I've done all this work in tearing down walls to become free and all I became was trapped, just in different ways.

How do I fix it? How do I stop it?

I have to say "no".

No, I will no longer pick up responsibilities that are not mine
No, I will not let you exploit my compassion for your gain
No, I will not let you into a part of me if you have not earned it
No, I will not sacrifice who I am and what I value to try to save you
No, I will not let myself get so emotionally entangled in your story that I lose my own
No, I will not let myself be dragged down by carrying the weight for someone else
No, I will not give your needs more attention than my own
No, I will not give you so much power over my feelings
No, I will not burden myself with doing to prove that I am worthy of existing
No, I will not let your poor treatment of me be a reflection of my value
No, I will not be desperate for love that I will manipulate
No, I will not be desperate for meaning that I over extend
No, I will not take a rejection of my help as a rejection of who I am
No, I will not anticipate the outcomes or your feelings
No, I will not censor myself in order to make you happy
No, I will not make myself small in order to fit into the box you want me in
No, I will not let my health take the back burner to your emotional needs
No, I will not let myself get stuck in one place because of someone else
No, I will not give in to irrational fears that are based on lies

Quite simply, no.

Every "no" is the rising of a fence post around my garden. It can have a gate, maybe a cute little decorative metal one, to let people and ideas in, or out if need be. It can be moved and added to in order to expand. It leaves plenty of room to breathe and grow and nothing can collapse. It is bathed in light, there is no darkness of shame left here. There's a chair in the corner that is clearly my reading chair, or just used for admiring the work. There's mountains in the distance for adventure and challenge. There's still some weeding to be done and rocks to unearth, but what fun is a garden if the work is complete? My seedlings are growing. They are safe to grow, they are mine to protect and nurture and love. My fence allows me to say yes to the things that I want and need to say yes to. It allows for the good to come in, just as much as it keeps the bad out.

Healing is good work. Tearing down is sometimes necessary and so is rebuilding. Healing is also long winded work. It's not a sprint. You'll keep discovering new things that need to be healed, and sometimes re-broken. I recently told someone that "healing is a never ending process but one day you'll be healed enough that you're no longer a sick person that's trying to get healthy, you're a healthy person that's just trying to live an optimal life". And I think that's where I'm at. Well, mostly. I still have lots of actual health issues that need to be figured out. But I think my soul is at a place where I'm just trying to live an optimal life, there's no more poison rotting my insides. I know myself. I know where I'm going. I know when walls need to be built or scaled or torn down. I know when fences need to be built or expanded or reinforced.

I hope you have the courage to tear down the walls you hide behind and the self-compassion to build fences. That you take care of your garden as much as your neighbors'. I pray that this life of a lush garden with a sturdy fence is your new normal. That you heal, letting love tear down the walls and build the fences.