Further thoughts on Abundance and Scarcity

Further thoughts on Abundance and Scarcity

We're back from our annual anniversary trip to Hamilton. I'm grateful that we were able to go and to have fun and to enjoy each other's company. Furthermore, I am grateful that they'd had plenty of rain, so that the waterfalls were full and impressive. AND I am grateful that although we lost 4 things while were there, we found all four of them again.

BB lost his glasses while we were hiking, looking for Albion Falls. He was bushwhacking. He discovered they were gone a long ways out and we retraced our steps looking for them and found them in the bushes. At the Botanical Gardens, We purchased a card for BB's Mom. It was a $5 homemade card and we really liked it. We left it with our coats while touring the greenhouses, and then went out to walk and when we were back at the motel, realized we didn't have it. We went back the next day and got it fromt he lost and found--that was a relief, Then BB lost his cell phone. He didn't discover it until evening when we'd been out and about all day. He made a trip back int he early morning but didn't find it. We went out hiking and I lost my lens cap and later found it. Then the phone rang and we found it--it had gotten lost in the car. The glasses would have been expensive to replace, but the cell phone would have been even worse, because he's grandfathered in in an inexpensive plan which is no longer avialble, so if he had to buy a new phone, it would have cost more every month! We had a great sense of abundance simply from getting back--and thus appreciating--what we already had! Seriously!

I was thinking about that list I'd made for what my abundant life would look like, and then was aware how many of those things I already had. I have a great deal of abundance in my life, but I also have scarcity at the same time.

from that list, here's what I have generally in abundance, or enough of to feel abundant:

• Enough food, shelter, clothing to stay warm and dry (not to be a fashion plate), money or means to acquire what I truly need.
• Love. Romantic/partner love. (BB) We generally have a good relationship.
• Hugs! Touching. BB is very sweetly affectionate.
• Creativity. Writing, poetry, art. Cooking. (Generally, I have enough, sometimes not).
• Trust.
• Beauty: The ability to see, perceive and enjoy beauty. And perhaps translate it.
• Possessions: I would like to have those things I need to live, love, cook, do art etc. Generally, I have plenty.

And here's what I need more of to feel "abundant:

• SLEEP! My insomnia has been really bad lately and it effects everything about my life. Negatively, including my general feelings of well-being and abundance. It's hard to feel like I have abundance when I am exhausted all the time.
  
• Good health. To really feel blessed and abundant, good health would be helpful.
• A lean healthy body. Probably not a necessity, but it sure would help.
• Nature and outdoors: I need to have some time in nature and be outdoors. We had a good dose of it this weekend, but normally, we don't get enough.
• Help! Growing and healing and coming to terms with my issues. And more support in this area from BB.
• Friendship. Connections. I left my friends behind when I moved here and have not made many new friends here--and those I have made are not good friends yet, and I rarely see them.
• Ways to “give back.” I would like to give back in ways that fit who I am and my lifestyle without taking too much away.
• Organization: to be able to complete tasks, I need to be more organized.
• good communication! this is one of the weak points in my relationship with BB and in my life.

And here are some items that I have both abundance and scarcity:

• Family. Connections. I have BB abd PB nearby, but my other children and the rest of my family is far away and I rarely see them.
• Smiles, laughter, sharing. Connections.
• Community. Connections.
• Meaningful, satisfying activities and work.
• Completion. The ability to one by one in an orderly fashion see my projects to fruition. I have a multitude of unfinished projects.
• Satisfaction: The ability to derive pleasure and satisfaction from daily accomplishments.
• Travel: I would like to be able to travel occasionally.
  

• Security: I know we never really have security, but I would like to change my mindset so I feel secure enough to give more freely, be more generous. Trust.
• Learning and exploration: I need to learn new things, explore new places.

In a way, everything fits into the last category. Abundance is a state of mind and my state of mind fluctuates. And whether I feel abundant depends on how I look at things. For example, money. RIght now we have "enough" money for our daily needs. But GM, where BB works, keeps laying people off and letting people go. So--do we have enough, when his job is in potential jeopardy? BB is 63 and I am 62. We have a college-bound 14-year-old. Do we have enough to send him to college and retire? Do we have enough for contingencies? Illness? Old age? (Probably NOT!)

If we look at what we have, we can feel that we have abundance. If we look at what we we need coming up, scarcity breathes its fiery breath down our backs. Because we're getting old, we're in increasing danger of losing life itself.

Still, if we live one day at a time, if we live in this moment, right now we're pretty OK. Not perfect--I'm up writing this early early because I had insomnia and wasn't sleeping. Been awake for hours trying to go back to sleep. On the other hand, there is snow outside, and wolves howling at the door--figuratively anyway, real snow--figurative wolves--and I am inside where it is warm, dry and light (It's still dark outside). I have a computer. I'm not always sure that's a blessing, but it is more than many people have. I have food, as I mentioned above. NEEDS, Barbara Kingsolver wrote, are so small as to rattle around in a bucket. Once we have our NEEDS met, abundance is an attitude.

I NEED SLEEP. The rest I can work on, make progress.

Gratitude List:

• I am grateful for the nice weekend we had
• I am grateful for the lost items that came back to us
• I am grateful for healthy delicious food--and for the omelet I'm going to make myself for breakfast soon.
• I am grateful for waterfalls
• I am grateful for trees and birds
• I am grateful for BB
• I am grateful for the nice music that PB makes. Last night I satu while he did his practicing simply listening to him play
• I am grateful BB reads to us.
• I am grateful for my children and their well-being.
• I am grateful for Blue Rose and Twelve &.
• I am grateful for poetry and art.
• I am grateful for beauty and the ability to appreciate it.
  

Attracting Abundance, A Wings Challenge

Attracting Abundance, A Wings Challenge

1)What is abundance for me? Let me start with what it is NOT. Abundance does NOT mean having a lot of money. I don’t object to having a lot of money, I guess, but I don’t think money is the root of abundance. One needs enough money to meet one’s basic needs.

To feel as if I have abundance in my life, here is what I think I need:

• Ø Enough food, shelter, clothing to stay warm and dry (not to be a fashion plate), money or means to acquire what I truly need.
• Ø Good health. To really feel blessed and abundant, good health would be helpful.
• Ø A lean healthy body. Probably not a necessity, but it sure would help.
• Ø Nature and outdoors: I need to have some time in nature and be outdoors.
• Ø Love. Romantic/partner love.
• Ø Trust.
• Ø Family. Connections.
• Ø Friendship. Connections.
• Ø Hugs! Touching.
• Ø Creativity. Writing, poetry, art. Cooking.
• Ø Help! Growing and healing and coming to terms with my issues.
• Ø Smiles, laughter, sharing. Connections.
• Ø Community. Connections.
• Ø Meaningful, satisfying activities and work.
• Ø Completion. The ability to one by one in an orderly fashion see my projects to fruition.
• Ø Satisfaction: The ability to derive pleasure and satisfaction from daily accomplishments.
• Ø Beauty: The ability to see, perceive and enjoy beauty. And perhaps translate it.
• Ø Possessions: I would like to have those things I need to live, love, cook, do art etc.
• Ø Travel: I would like to be able to travel occasionally.
• Ø Ways to “give back.” I would like to give back in ways that fit who I am and my lifestyle without taking too much away.
• Ø Security: I know we never really have security, but I would like to change my mindset so I feel secure enough to give more freely, be more generous. Trust.
• Ø Organization: to be able to complete tasks, I need to be more organized.
• Ø Learning and exploration: I need to learn new things, explore new places.
• Ø good communication!

Is there anyone doing what I want to do? Yes, lots of people publishing books, doing research, writing poetry, doing art, writing children’s books, traveling, etc. Part of my problem may be that my expectations are too high. I want everything. I guess I need to learn to do one thing at a time, complete it, celebrate it, and then move on. Or do a couple things, but not too many. I have tendency to have too many irons in the fire, too many projects going, and not complete them, or if I do, be unable to celebrate because I have six other deadlines and urgent things going on—or that’s my perception, anyway.

Also, there are people who are organized and together and manage to accomplish many things and still seem to be happy and calm. (Maybe they don’t have ADHD—like I do.)

There are people with ADHD who manage to overcome their handicap and accomplish great things—I guess. I don’t know of any, but there must be. There are certainly many people writing and publishing books and making great art.

In my ideal abundant life, I would be lean, healthy and organized, have a reasonably tidy house, and crank out project after project or poetry, books, art and photography in a reasonable and organized way and also have time for love, family and friends. I would sometimes travel. I would laugh a lot and have fun. I would spend time outdoors in nature, visit art museums, go to concerts. I would explore. Good communication—I would be able to communicate more successfully and so would those around me!

Limiting beliefs:

• Ø I believe myself to be unworthy of good things. I think I am a bad person.
• Ø I’m not good enough.
• Ø I believe in scarcity. There are not enough good things to go around.
• Ø I feel unlovable. It doesn’t help that I just had a fight with my husband over something stupid and am now missing my son’s concert. And my $15 ticket is going unused (but worse that I am missing the concert after all the work they did getting ready).
• Ø There is not enough love. Just look around.
• Ø There is not enough food—people are starving.
• Ø People with ADHD are rarely if ever successful. I don’t know of anyone who is.
• Ø People with ADHD and addictions are probably even less likely to be successful. FAT people with ADHD and addictions are probably even LESS likely to succeed. (Everyone knows fat people are ugly, stupid and unlovable, right? That’s how it seems.)

I thought my husband might come back and get me but he didn’t and the concert will start in 5 minutes and I can’t get there in 5 minutes. I am feeling very sad and very bad. My heart hurts. Maybe he thought I would drive over there. But it’s too late now. Maybe I should add good communication to the list of things one would have in an abundant life. I am very very sad.

Now it is after 8:00 and the concert is going on without me.

OK, for my limiting beliefs, here are some allowing statements:

• Ø I am human and therefore quite fallible, which I hate to admit, but I am generally a good and worthy person. (I don’t really believe it, no matter how many times I say it.) I love and accept me exactly as I am, even if I’m a jerk. I love and accept me exactly as I am.
• Ø I am good enough. (Occasionally). I am good enough, I am good enough, I am good enough.
• Ø There is enough for me. I already have enough, I just need to change my perceptions. There is more than enough.
• Ø I am willing to give and receive abundant love. There is enough love. I deserve love (just by being human and loving.)
• Ø There is enough love.
• Ø There are probably people with ADHD who are successful.
• Ø There are probably people with ADHD and addiction who are overweight and are still successful.
• Ø I have already succeeded in:
• o Walking the Northville Placid Trail
• o Walking part of the Colorado trail
• o Getting two master’s Degrees with high honors.
• o Writing several complete novel manuscripts
• o Writing several complete poetry manuscripts
• o Winning awards for my photos, art and poetry.
• o (Therefore, I can succeed in other ways as well.)

(but I still don’t believe it. I feel worthless and unlovable and unsuccessful and stupid.) (Being home alone and missing my son’s concert is NOT helping at all. And if I look at myself, or look around me, my worst fears are confirmed. I am fat and messy.)

• Ø I am willing to be lean and healthy and lead a happy loving abundant life. :-D

(Sorry to be so whiny--I am really depressed--I was hoping this would cheer me, but it hasn't, because the situation I am in is unresolved.)

OK, I feel a little better now that I have created an image, a little more hopeful.


This image represents me in my new abundant life. I am sitting in a beautiful spot in nature writing poetry or stories or drawing. I am working on a project and I intend to see it through to fruition. The white moths represent angles. They are my muses, my spirit guides, my spirit healers and my spirit teachers. (I suppose I should show more of them, but you get the idea.) When I take a step forward in the right direction, they gather around to help. If I take a step in the wrong direction, they warn and teach and guide. And if I don't listen, they hopefully help me learn from my mistakes. (Okay, I admit it, I am often a slow learner.) But they keep trying. Although I will never be this young again, I could possibly be lean and healthy. Like this girl.

I need to:

• get back on my diet
• work harder at it, but in a relaxed and loving way
  
• keep working on my projects, one or two at a time.
• Try to balance them by doing work around the house and other things that need to be done.
• Try again to make a flexible schedule.
• Try to get back on an even keel with BB once this blows over.
• Keep plugging away.
  

Wings Challenge - Attracting Abundance

In this Wings Challenge we were to define abundance and come up with an Allowing Statement to help us overcome limiting attitudes that are blocking us from having what we want. As I was working on defining what abundance means to me, I began to realize that I would need to be able to think clearly to attain the things I want. In my life of abundance, I would be able to worship, love, create artistically, and learn to my full potential without my vision being clouded by depression or anxiety. I went on to write about the health and peacefulness that would result, and how I would be celebrating abundance with others who appreciate the same things. This is how I see abundance.

So, when answering the question, "Is there anyone I know who has what I want?", I wrote, "Yes, a friend of mine who, in spite of her disease, is able to find peace and quiet her anxieties through prayer." It wasn't until after writing that statement that I realized I had just written my Allowing Statement. You'd think that this would be a very simple and obvious conclusion to come to, but it wasn't really the answer I was expecting to get from this challenge. Who knows what I was looking for, but I'm quite sure this is what I needed to find, even though prayer does not come easy to me.

As for my visual representation of abundance, water is very symbolic of spiritual things to me. The clear water in this picture is full of life and it's abundant colors.

In wrapping up the challenge, we're reminded again of the importance of a gratitude list to create positive energy. My list today includes yesterday's, because that when I worked on all of this.

1. The thing I'm grateful for the most today is the feeling that God guided me in this challenge to what I needed the most. I'm sure I have many more limiting attitudes that need work, but I now feel intuitively sure that this is what I should be focusing on.

2. I'm grateful for the chance I had to see an ex-boyfriend the other day. The reason is because he had quit drinking, and is now going to AA. I could see a difference in him, his demeanor, and the way he talked. And even though I could never date him again, it made me so happy to see that he was turning his life around. The joy I felt surprised me. I nearly cried. Then he apologized to me for the things he had done. I could see he was working the steps, and took my share of the responsibility by saying, "I let you do those things." When I was driving home, I was overcome with a peaceful feeling and a sense of closure.

3. I'm grateful for the beautiful weather we've been having, because I can take my clients to the park for their workouts. Exercise has been difficult and painful for me lately, and the beautiful weather helps me to forget my pain.

4. I'm grateful for the poetry challenges I've been participating in lately, because they've motivated me to start writing again. Yea!

My Wheel of Life (and "Fortune")

A. On a scale of 0 - 10, how fulfilled am I in the area of Health
and Fitness? 6

If Health and Fitness were a 10 for me, what three things would be happening?

1. __I would weight 130 pounds (or a lot less than I do now!) and
no longer need a CPAP machine (no obesity or sleep apnea)__

2. __I would sleep well (no insomnia)__

3. __My brain tumor would shrink and disappear__

B. On a scale of 0 - 10, how fulfilled am I in the area of Personal Gorwth? 7

If Personal Growth were a 10 for me, what three things would be happening?

1. __I would be deeply satisfied with who I am and be kind to
myself and others_

2. _I would have a satisfying spiritual practice_

3. _I would be a shamanistic dreamer who meditated, LOL and have a
GREAT sense of humor!_

C. On a scale of 0 - 10, how fulfilled am I in the area of physical
environment? 5

If my physical environamnet were a 10 for me, what three things would
be happening?

1. _my house would be clean, neat, tidy and well-organized_

2. _I would live with closer access to nature__

3. __I would be doing more for the environment_

D. On a scale of 0 - 10, how fulfilled am I in the area of work/career? 7.5

If work/career were a 10 for me, what three things would be happening?

1. _I would be focussing on one project at a time and bringing it
to fruition_

2. _I would be sending out Frog Haven__

3. _I would be writing Geraldine poems_

E. On a scale of 0 - 10, how fulfilled am I in the area of money? 8

If money were a 10 for me, what three things would be happening?

1. __I would have office space to work__

2. __I would have studio space to work__

3. __I would have retirement etc all worked out and school for the kid etc_

F. On a scale of 0 - 10, how fulfilled am I in the area of Love and Romance? 9

If Love and Romance were a 10 for me, what three things would be happening?

1. _Hiking Companion and I could talk better with each other_

2. _Hiking Companion wouldn't have to wrk 58-hour weeks_

3. _HC and I would have sex a little more often_

G. On a scale of 0 - 10, how fulfilled am I in the area of Family and Friends? 7

If Family and Friends were a 10 for me, what three things would be happening?

1. _I would see my family and friends in NY more often_

2. __I would make new friends here_

3. __I would like 3 good friends besides HC and time to have time with them_

On a scale of 0 - 10, how fulfilled am I in the area of Fun and Recreation? 8.5

H. If Fun and Recreation were a 10 for me, what three things would be happening?

1. __I would spend more time in nature_

2. __I would do more interesting things; walk in different places_

3. _I would invent a middle of the week simple fun event_

I like this exercise because it gives a nice overview of strengths and weaknesses in the balance of my life. There were a few things I didn't know where to put--mental/emotional health--does that go under health and fitness? Does spiritual growth go under personal growth? Does mental and emotional well-being crossover between health and fitness and personal growth?

I'd like to spend more time thinking about this, but when I spend too
much time blogging, I feel as if I am slighting other things that I
need to do.

This is a WINGS challenge, but I am afraid to try to link it--last time I did that the whole post collapsed and it took me 45 minutes to fix it. Maybe I will try tomorrow, because there are also some things about the post I'd like to fix.

This exercise generates a list--a sort of to-do list based on eliminating dissatisfactions and problems. I would like to compare that list to one generated the normal way. That would be interesting. It has the advantage of being fairly balanced.

Click image to view larger!

Note: This is a wonderful addition to my STEP 4! YAY!

Wings Challenge 11 and 12

For details on challenge #11 see here

If personal growth were a 10, I would be more satisfied with all the other categories. For the most part, though, I feel like I am doing everything I can to improve this category, and feel that I am growing personally because of it, even if it's not as fast as I would like.

If physical environment were a 10, I'd be living in the Caribbean, or someplace like it with blue water. Anything has got to be better than the muddy brown water here, but I can't complain. I have a roof over my head, and a bed to sleep in.

If career were a 10, I'd be able to support myself. Otherwise, I really like what I do.

If money were a 10, I'd be able to support myself, afford recreation, and be able to save for retirement.

If romance were a 10, I'd have a mate that was patient, understanding, and cared like my husband did. I'm not too worried about that right now, though.

If friends/family were a 10, I'd be able to communicate with my family, and I'd have a real social life like my virtual cyber social life. I'm really happy with the friends I've been making blogging, though.

If recreation were a 10, I'd be scuba diving, walking on a beach, doing fun things with friends, like camping, swimming, etc. Again, I really can't complain, because I have plenty of extra time to do my art, and make occasional trips to the arboretum.

If health and fitness were a 10, I'd be healthy and happy. I work really hard at this, and for the most part, do everything I'm supposed to do, but you wouldn't know it, thanks to my depression and physical illness.

Somehow, I'm supposed to get some short term goals out of this to put on my to-do list, which is the next challenge. As far as I can see, I need to just keep doing what I've been doing, working on personal growth, spiritually for health, and therapeutically for family and career, so I'll have more money, and can afford recreation and a new environment [maybe it will help me to spell that word correctly before posting my picture, too].

How do you to-do?


Challenge 12 asks these questions: [for more info click here]

Do you create a series of lists for long and short terms goals and tasks?
What kinds of things do you schedule?
How do you prioritize?
Do you schedule fun things that are just for you?
How do you keep your list - on a calendar, on your computer, in folders?
What do you do with the items you don't get done?

While I've been faithfully journaling for a year now, I just don't do to-do lists. They overwhelm me, so I just keep them in my head, where they still overwhelm me, but I can ignore them. After reading Carla's post on this subject, I decided that I probably should come up with a better method. My research on this involved asking my sister how she does it. She has an electronic planner where she keeps one work related to-do list, and one personal. Her goal is to do three things on the work list a day based on priority, and three things on the personal list each weekend. At the end of the day, she deletes the ones she accomplished, moves priority to the top of the list, and then moves the entire list to the next day. She says that even if there are more than three priority items to be done, which is usually the case with her job, she still keeps her goal at three. If she does more great. If not, the world won't end. She's very successful at her career, and the people she works for, love her. She puts fun things on her calender, but I don't think they go on her to-do list. Because she's in management, her long term goals are written up on regular reports, so her list consists of mainly short term goals. I think I'll try her 3 goal rule, and see if I don't have a better attitude about my to-do lists.

Weekly Wings Challenge 10 - Every Day You Write the Book

The challenge this week is to “revisit a chapter in your life's story that has become heavy baggage”, and then “rewrite the story from the perspective of your present self”. For more details see here.

Problem Child

I was always told that I was a rebellious child. I think of a rebellious child as one whose sole purpose in adolescence is to get back at her parents, a cry for attention, yet I don’t remember ever thinking, “hmm, my dad wouldn’t approve of this; I think I’ll do it just to piss him off.” I was angry with him, yes, but I was also afraid of him. He was very controlling and I felt smothered by him. In my mind, I was not looking to get my parent’s attention. As far as I was concerned, I already had too much. I just wanted them to leave me alone. The last thing I wanted to do was something that would draw more attention. So, for as long as I can remember, I was a quiet, withdrawn child, afraid to be noticed. Quietly rebellious I suppose, because I do recall not trusting my parents, and becoming curious about things I knew they wouldn’t approve of.

My curiosity led to drug use. There’s a story of events that led up to it, that I’ve been writing about, but it’s too long to post here. The short version is that I decided my parents didn’t have my best interest at heart, so I questioned everything. In my opinion, my dad was more concerned about what the neighbors thought, and social status. I felt like he regretted his decision to have children, because we had turned out to be so spoiled rotten, but felt he had to keep up the appearances of a devoted father. He could use all the stuff he bought us as leverage to get us to do what he wanted. Everything had strings attached, and nothing I could do was ever good enough. I hated him.

One summer night, right before my 15th birthday, I went out with my boyfriend, Kenny. He was selling Quaaludes, so we stopped by his friend’s apartment to see if he could sell any. There were a lot of people there getting high. We had just walked into a back bedroom to smoke a joint, when the police raided the place. Kenny threw the Quaaludes under the bed. I knew that would be the first place they’d look. The officer told us that he wanted everybody in the living room while they searched the room. I asked if I could use the restroom, and surprisingly, he let me. When I came out, the room was empty, so I grabbed the Quaaludes and stuffed them down my pants. The police weren’t able to find anything in their search, so they let everybody go except me. I was underage, so they called my parents. The officer talked with my parents a for a while when they arrived to pick me up, telling them about this awful crowd I was hanging around with. In an attempt to scare me, he talked about a youth detention program that was designed to teach kids like me about what prison life was like, and hopefully scare us into straightening up our acts. My dad said, “I think that’s what Lori needs.” The officer looked at me and said, “ what do you think, young lady?” Disgusted with my dad, I replied, “fine with me, I’m not wanted around here.” The officer didn’t know what to say. He looked at my dad, and my embarrassed father said sheepishly, “we’ll take her home.”

I had become manipulative, just like my father. I knew exactly what I was doing when I said that. The words flowed out of my mouth instantly without hesitation. If I was going to some detention center, I was going to get that last little dig in before I went, to humiliate my dad. I really believed what I was saying, but that wasn’t why I said it. I wasn’t looking for pity. I was angry.

The next day, we were supposed to be getting ready for camping on the Guadalupe River. My mom was a mail carrier, and the heat that summer was affecting her heart. She had a series of tachycardia attacks, and we had to take her to the hospital. In the hospital, she had an allergic reaction to the medication that they use to stop the attacks, and it nearly killed her. She recovered and was able to come home that night, so my parents decided that we would still leave in the morning to go camping. It was up to me to get everything packed, because she needed to rest.

I was very upset by the events that afternoon. The thought of losing my mother terrified me, and to make matters worse, I was having similar problems with my heart. I couldn’t say anything, though, because I knew it was from the speed I was doing. I had started doing crystal methamphetamine when I was 13, and quickly discovered that it was very effective in muting the voices of worthlessness. By this time in my life, though, I had been doing so much of it that it started to affect my physically. I didn’t handle stress any better than my mom.

I was feeling overwhelmed, so when I had the camper packed, I asked my dad if I could go for a walk. I just wanted to alleviate some of the stress. He became angry, and probably thought I wanted to go get stoned with friends. We got into an argument, and he accused me of thinking only about myself.

“It’s all your fault, your mother is sick! You did this to her by causing her to worry about you!… Getting calls from the police in the middle of the night! You spoiled brat!”

I stormed out into the backyard, and started kicking my soccer ball against the garage to vent my anger. He followed me out, I think to tell me to go to my room. That’s when I exploded. My one act where I purposely tried to piss my dad off, my defiant rebellion was to call him a fucking bastard. I could hardly believe the words came out of my mouth. Before the reality of this rebellious act set in, I received a blow to the jaw, and saw stars. I knew I deserved that, but felt no remorse. Yes, there was part of me that felt guilty, because I believed my dad when he said that my mother’s illness was my fault, but most of me was angry at him.

My anger raged with no way to vent, like an overheating engine, it was just a matter of time before I froze up. The “block” cracked about a month later after getting strung out on speed. Again, it’s too long to go into detail here, but basically I attempted suicide, and nearly succeeded. I didn’t know what being “strung out” was, and thought I was too weak and worthless to function like normal people. I was hospitalize for the next four months in an adolescent psychiatric unit.

The most important things I learned while I was there, were in family counseling. Things like parents are only human, and make mistakes. My parents were raised by alcoholics. My mother’s mother was abusive. My dad’s mother died of liver failure when he was 19. They didn’t have good examples to go by. They just knew what they didn‘t want to do. Their parents didn’t have much to do with them, and they decided that their children would never have to endure the same. Over bearing and over protective probably seemed preferable parenting methods when compared to the absentee parents that they grew up with.

My dad had always been against therapy in the past, yet they drove 40 minutes down town every Wednesday night after work for our counseling sessions. They had to face things about themselves, that they would have rather not had to face. Other kids parents usually came for the first session or two and then quit. My parents didn’t quit, because, as I finally started to realize, they truly loved me. One day, my dad said to me, “I feel badly for you, Lori, because you are having to learn things at the age of 15, that I’m just now learning at 45.” They were afraid to bring me home. Afraid that they would screw me up again. They felt like failures as parents. I felt sorry for them, and I finally understood what they had been trying to do for me.

It was not the end of my battle with drug addiction or depression, though. I was never treated for a drug addiction while I was there, because I still naively thought that you couldn’t get addicted to speed, so I didn’t really talk about it. I believed as the doctors told me, that I had a chemical imbalance due to genetics. They based that on my family history, and said my mother suffered from depression, as well. What I did get from my four month stay there were the tools I would need to help me with my future battles, and a clear picture of my parents love.

When I looked back at this time in my life and started writing about it, I was surprised by the anger I had back then. I had always thought of myself as a depressed little girl, not angry. I had forgotten about the anger, because I thought those were bad feelings, and l kept them pushed down. The discoveries in the hospital made dealing with that anger even more difficult, because after all, my parents didn’t deserve my anger, they were doing the best they could. Then after leaving the hospital, I was left to raise myself, because my parents were too afraid of “screwing things up again”. A little voice in my head took over the duty of keeping me in line by repeating all the things I heard my dad say growing up, “Stupid!” “Spoiled brat!” I dismissed it as the “chemical imbalance” the doctors told me about. Eventually, I didn’t hear it any more. I would just have unexplained bouts of depression that seem to appear randomly.

Now I’m supposed to write a happy ending to this story. My attempts to become more in tune to my inner voice have exposed me to the insecure feelings created by the misguided voice. I have learned that I need to be retraining it by allowing the feelings to be, not pushing them down anymore, and then focusing on my positive attributes. Easier said than done. When I can catch myself in this form of self abuse, it’s like touching a flame. My immediate reaction is to push it down. Then I stop and think, “ok, why am I thinking this way?” It’s difficult to find an answer, because I’m not really doing anything wrong at the time. I usually find, though, that it happens when I’m doing something I’m unsure about. Then after being able to recognize it’s my insecurity that triggered it, many times I become overwhelmed by it, and can’t think of anything positive. This all takes place in a matter of seconds. If I’m around people when it happens, it gets pushed down and dealt with later.

Add to the mix, the well meaning family members who say judgmentally hurtful things, because they don‘t understand my depression. They believe that saying these things will help me to “snap out of it”. Immediately, the misguided voice chimes in with them, “you’re lazy, wallowing in self pity!” Instead of getting angry with them, I get angry with myself, because after all, they just want what’s best for me, and don’t know any better. They just want things to be the way it used to be when I was able to take care of everything. So do I, but instead of retraining the voice, I keep reinforcing it’s habitual behavior.

That’s what this picture below is illustrating. I did it over a year ago originally for Illustration Friday here. I’ve reworked it a bit, but sadly, it still fits today.

I believe that when I am successful at stopping this pattern of self abuse, I will be able to overcome my depression. The affirmation that I will be able to say then is, “I had the insight and courage to recognize the root of my depression, and the strength and determination to overcome it.” Below will be the new illustration for this story.

“Focus on the good. Do not let the learned behavioral patterns from my childhood overwhelm me.”