Self First
Lexie ❤️ 11/29/91 - 9/11/17
New things I learn
Don’t save me from implosion
Just trying to keep moving
Not die from corrosion
I’d given up…wanted it to end
My straight and my narrow, now starting to mend
A chance, a dream, a hope for the future
On a new path, I’ve become my own teacher
Breaking free from constant addictions
I think that I’ve got this, and can make the distinctions
Trust my undoing, love now my haunting
The chance to be present is all I am wanting.
September is National Suicide Awareness Month, also National Recovery Month. It’s a time of awareness, a chance for additional understanding, and a period of celebration for those of us recovering from mental health and substance use disorders.
For me it’s also a period of great maneuvering, an anthropic time. Meaning to say, I try to rise above whatever first-world pitfalls pain me awhile remain grounded, so to fight for the living, in honor of those we have lost.
It takes a certain sorta zest for us to admit out loud that we’re tired, or afraid, or plain done feeling the way we’re feeling. Personally I sometimes hesitate to speak from the parts of me that are not wanting to play along. Out loud I might say something positive and sunny, then later touch on some of the harsh realities of life. I am reasonably cognizant of sounding bipolar or schizophrenic, yet I far and away prefer the transparency over filtering.
Yet vulnerability is subjective. To tell your boss you’re overwhelmed might get you fired. Admitting to your partner that you feel stuck, well, you can do your own math on that one. Confessing to your children that you too experienced being all alone at their age, believed that no one understood you, and cried into your pillow at night, well, many of us don’t trust THAT type of truth gets us anywhere. But what if we could be honest with the world and with ourselves, without fear of backlash.
I offer so much to others not because of guilt or conscience, rather it’s more transactional than that. I feel there is a debt to the world that I have not yet paid.
“You can’t help anyone else until you first take care of yourself” …hah, I roll my eyes, saying silently inside my head, “Yeah, whatever…”. Hearing this famous line time and again, I’ve given the self-first concept plenty of thought over the years, especially during times of great sacrifice. For me, it just doesn’t hold water.
When down, I try to still remain available to others. Often it’s exactly what I need to then be lifted, meaning that I help myself when I show up for others, supporting them, even when I’d rather do zip-zero nothing for myself. The result when alongside another is most always a feelgood moment, even if unable to offer them all they want. Because at least for a short amount of time, during that text, during that phone call, over that taco or slice of pizza, at least then I am connected, at least then I am part of something, and it matters.
I work extremely hard to help support people navigate the rocky road of their addictions and mental health struggles. Sometimes the person breaks apart from what once held them back, and are then freed to pursue their highest potential. Of course some of us are still engulfed, trapped abottom the bitter wasteland of spite and despair. A true physical existence may be alive but parts of us are dead on the inside, we just forgot to tell anyone.
On the margins of mental health, some of us don’t trust in our own belonging. Somewhere along our way, an impact was made where we thought, then believed, that we are less than we factually are. Although much of this confusion is a condition we become ensnared in, alas it is our understanding at the time. If we hold onto this confusion, if we don’t share it, if we don’t write it down or try to figure it out, then it becomes our perceived reality. And when confused, it’s damn hard to initiate or generate any momentum at all.
When digging into the truth of my own confusion, I am likely to figure it out. With then a clear lens to spy through, it’s more a picture of opportunity that comes into focus, even when no light exists nearby to see by. When maintaining movement with eyes open, chin up, and embracing the belief that my existence matters, well then, not much can fricking stop me.
The burden we bear teeters upon our shoulders, yet we steady that load with our own hands.
This weight is neither defect nor failure- rather simply, just a part of the whole.
