This has been a volatile week for me, I believe I would be correct in saying that it has been volatile for most of us. It’s like the entire world is imploding currently. Taking time to really sit with this, it has been volatile for four years, maybe more. What history books will be written about – the culmination of events. I am sure everyone keeps up with the news of the world and this blog is not about an update of such. Everyone is feeling incredibly unsafe. But I also believe that we are on the precipice of change as a result.
I do believe that there is no one that feels safe in this world. The entire world is struggling with CPTSD. What we are challenged with is how do we accept our diagnosis, process, heal and manage as a whole.
For me accountability keeps coming up in everything that I do and all the encounters that I have.
In my profession, shame is the villain that I constantly balance between fighting and trying to understand. I know shame is that door between suffering and healing. But not until recently have I realised that the key is accountability. And it is surprising to me that this current world has no skills with accountability. This world has taken a turn away from reflection and into externalisation. (I do understand that me saying this shows exactly that I am hypocritical which proves my point anyway).
I found myself in a toxic professional environment. Not within my profession but the details don’t matter. This is happening everywhere on every scale personal and professional.
My nature is to trust more, ask questions later (I know this is not what research shows of healthy boundaries nor is it something that I promote within my work being a DBT practitioner). As a result, I can and will be taken advantage of. But my shame won’t let me be assertive right from the start even if my logic tells me to. So here I am, after three weeks of someone reassuring me and “telling me what I want to hear” without actually directly replying to my concerns raised...here I am, I am trying to understand my best way out of the trap I found myself in (after all it is me who listened to their lies, while everything inside me told me not to). I tell myself that ,finally, I have no choice but to put shame aside, and act on my assertiveness. I still do not get anywhere with that for a week longer because of the other party continuing to misdirect me to things I have not asked about and when I do point out the discrepancies then it is back to simple old gaslighting tactics. (Why should they respect my boundaries, they have already established that my boundaries can be pushed). I finally get some direct answers when I phrase my sentences to involve authority (Also a tricky gamble when one uses authority as safety currently). Either way, time has elapsed, and I am right where they want me to be – compromised. They are hoping for me to settle. Unlucky for them, I don’t settle. My empathy and shame does not equate to settlement. Their miss, they should not have taken me for a fool…that’s what I tell myself. But actually it is my miss!
I write this in retrospect – I did not recognise this is what is happening by myself. For this incident; for this year; for four years in different ways for different reasons.
Right now, it took someone close to me to tell me that I am in a toxic relationship. I laughed it off because in that moment I knew they were right, but it was too painful to face that “someone as strong as me” would be in this position. How can I be in a toxic relationship with a private business deal. I am the daughter of a great businessman. Me, never. As I write this I squirm.
But this is such a tiny drop in the huge sea of what happens when our body screams and for many different reasons (always involves shame) we don’t listen to our bodies. My symptoms were of me pacing up and down, ruminating, worrying about everyone other than myself, unable to make a decision while knowing that I am someone who is analytical, unable to focus, my legs feeling heavy, restless and tired yet unable to take control to soothe (soothe, soothe - I know I have to soothe yet I cannot). – I AM STRONG
My close person came to me and asked if I was okay, visibly seeing my symptoms, and I said “no”. I don’t understand. I am strong. And my close person replied “You are very strong when it comes to endurance, you are yet to learn how to become strong when you need to leave”
This is true. And this is my responsibility in the culmination of these four years, to learn when I need to walk away. When I need to thank shame because without it, I wouldn’t be strong and moral but I also need to walk past it because it no longer belongs. I take accountability always, sometimes it hurts because even when it is not my lot, I still take accountability, but that is my resource! No matter shame, no matter what...The only way forward is for me to take accountability and not allow shame to win.
I wish this for the world.
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