Struggles with reality.

....

My reality. I am struggling with my own reality. Being able to see it. 

I doubt it, a lot.

I doubt myself, my abilities, my decisions.

Others' behaviors.

My own mental illnesses and struggles.

My therapist told me that I need to stop gaslighting myself. I went quiet for a while; it was a heavy reality. I knew she was right; I was realizing I didn't know I was doing it.

But why wouldn't I? If I think about it.

It felt pretty heavy. I went to sleep doing research on this. Feeling the truth throughout my body. Realizing there is one more thing I need to add to my list of mental health issues that I need to work on. 

Heal.

Last week, I started writing down things, in my journal. How I feel, and the thoughts I have. I was hoping that by doing this I would be able to start recognizing my reality more, since it seems that I am stuck in there too. The problem is that I can't really read back what I write, which is why she said I am gaslighting myself.

This is also one of the reasons why I can go weeks without been able to post anything.

As I was feeling a bit hopeless in the morning, before getting up, I realized I can try this in a simpler way. 

I don't know how else.

I am currently in this phase of truly trying to love and accept myself. When I feel the anxiety kicking in because I am afraid, and I feel unloved and unsafe, I am managing to recognize that it is happening, and I try to remove my mind from that space. Instead, I work on coming back to myself, and I ask, "what do I need right now? What do I want?" I also tell myself that nothing else matters in that specific moment- just myself and my surroundings.

It is helping, slowly. Sometimes I get excited about this work, and about this process of falling in love with myself. They are brief moments, but to me they are meaningful.

I have also been working on acceptance, again. But I think the struggle with acceptance has a lot to do with the struggle of being able to see my reality. I can't accept what I can't see.

I work a lot on telling myself that this is it; that it is real. That the struggles I am having are real and I am not making them up; nor am I overreacting to them. Sometimes I still need to bring to the surface the things that happened to me, so that I can tell myself I am not crazy. And that the things I feel are actually real.

But loving myself in such a complex process is even more difficult. Not the things that happened, but loving and accepting ALL of my confused, afraid, traumatized, mentally shattered and in denial pieces, who learnt to mentally abuse myself in the process. 

The same pieces that don't know how to give up and that are still trying.

Perhaps this intense work on myself is what is making a small difference in my little progress.  

"This is it. Now what? What is next?" I ask myself often.

"Make things simple; Stop trying to fix yourself."

It is a daily practice. Which also includes the really bad days when I have to say, "screw this, I just don't feel good."

The truth is that there is nothing simple about mental health. But I try to practice simplicity, especially when my mind is tired. To just concentrate on the simple things around me.

Paty ♥