Marcine’s journaling forward

[Marcine]

Well, here I am doing exactly what triggers me deeply— being vulnerable and exposing the soft belly of my self... I thought I could never post a recovery journal, that it would be too dangerously serving myself up to be eaten alive... and here I am.

Logically, I know that I am writing here because it is a safe place on this forum and that I have experienced connection and kinship with others here.

Emotionally, I crave to connect authentically and I am terrified to connect authentically.

What an intense, churning mix of feelings.

The more I have inched my way out in the social world as authentic me (a relatively recent phenomenon) the more I anticipate facing the old terrors, the boogey man, the rhino in James and the Giant Peach... But, I find there's no epic threat, no terrifying villain, no do-or-die existential danger... and this is very confusing.

Sitting with this confusion shows me that the old dangers were real, that the old equations of authenticity=death were lies, and that I can maybe-kinda-sortof BE in the present.

That's more of an intellectual understanding.

Right now, my heart is pounding, a headache is throbbing— I see you, old warnings of danger. Thank you for being of service and helping alert me during times of survival in the past.
I release you from service now. This newness is not dangerous.

And even as I wonder "what have I done?" by writing this, I shall tap on "post" and, after clinging to the shore for so long, I leap into the wild, vast current of being human me.

[TheBigBlue]

Your post touched me so deeply. The way you described that mix of longing and terror - wanting connection but bracing for danger - is exactly where I keep finding myself too. I actually tried starting a recovery journal last week, and I spiraled so hard afterward that I ended up deleting everything yesterday.


Reading your words: the courage, the clarity, the way you honor both the fear and the part of you that wants to be seen, gives me hope that I might try again someday. The fact that you tapped "post," even with your heart pounding and old danger signals firing, is incredibly inspiring.

You made this space feel a little safer for the rest of us who are inching our way toward authenticity too. Thank you for sharing something so raw and brave. It matters. And it helped me more than you might realize. 

 

[Desert Flower]

Yes, Marcine, very authentic and real and brave you are.

It made me think of something I read recently, that Janina Fisher wrote: "Why do therapists keep asking me to sit with my feelings? They don't understand. I don't have feelings, I have tsunamis!"

I can totally relate, wanting to be validated and being scared of reaching out at the same time. Here is a safe place to reach out, in my experience. I hope it will help you too.

 

[Marcine]

Thanks TheBigBlue and Desert Flower for your support.

I've been exploring what it means to be authentically myself. And finding there's a lot of unhelpful habits that operate in my day to day, way more than I consciously realized...

For instance, I'm aware that I cultivate a competent, chill demeanor, but I didn't realize the depth of perfectionism and control that underpins it. I'm not by nature a controlling person and so I can see the learned aspect of tightly clutching to known security like a castaway to a life ring.

But awareness alone doesn't free me from the tyrannical cycle of: fears-clutching-desperate search for security-self contortion.

This week on my quest to be more authentic, I've made some mistakes and I've felt vulnerable because of it and I've realized the grief of how foreign this all seems, this business of being a human being... and again I wonder what I am doing.

But there's no going back, there never is for me, once awareness dawns and I refuse to pretend.

At heart, I am a bad pretender. I am a not-good faker. I am unskilled at telling lies... oh, except for the lies I was force-fed and have told myself all my life. Those I got very good at telling to convince myself. But I also always oriented to truth.

So, what a quandary. Now no longer willing to lie to myself AND not yet ready to fully emerge as my genuine self.

I wish it felt more like a hermit crab that is vulnerable for a time as it grows and must move to a new, better-suited shell home.

Right now I feel like a turtle whose protective shell is fused to its very body existence and cannot survive without it.

[Chart]

Indeed Marcine, it seems you've chosen the red pill. This is what courage means. No matter how unstable and unbalanced this feels, know, truly know, you are incredibly brave and pushing forward. Jung talks much about this, discovering the authentic self. I firmly believe this is the right path.
Sending support, Chart