Finding Balance: A Year of Healing and Growth

This month, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how much can change in a year. This time last year, I was going through a huge depressive episode that would end up lasting months. Most of the fall season which lead into winter and spring. That girl would never have guessed how her life would change.

I feel like I’ve lived multiple lives since last September. I’ve touched on having to adjust to several close relationships evolving. Last year, I spent many months in the heart of healing. In some ways, I had to figure out a new way of living. Aside from my home and job essentially staying the same (well, aside from a new boss), I had to figure out how to do life again.

Despite being fairly secure in myself, when you transition from having consistent interaction with people to almost none, it creates a void. I had a hole that I had to relearn how to fill within myself. As important and necessary as it can be to have people, it ultimately comes down to you in the end. Especially, as someone who naturally has an isolating life.

There was another time that felt similar to how I felt last year, and it was shortly after things came out about my abuser. Though I wasn’t trauma-bonded to the relationships that shifted last year, I was bonded to them in one way or another. I brought up in the last post that one of those relationships brought out some of the issues that my trauma bond to my abuser created. At the time, I thought no matter the relationship, I would struggle with issues that the trauma bond created, especially when it comes to close relationships. Which I would later discover isn’t the case.

It’s been a whirlwind of emotions. There are parts of my life this September that would have shocked me last September. There are parts that no longer exist in the way they did last September that would make me so sad. As I’ve gotten older, I get better at accepting that life is going to change. Yes, some of those changes make me sad. If things didn’t happen when or how they did, my life could look different.

I’ve mentioned Stevie in each post since they passed away in July. In some ways, it has been the most emotional death. I have mourned it more immediately than any other death. The most random things remind me of them. To think my life looks the way it does, essentially because of the death of Stevie. It’s been weird mourning someone so important to me while also being one of my happiest. I think this has been the healthiest I’ve ever mourned anything. A lot of that is from the work I put into my healing.

I will admit that I am sometimes afraid to be happy. If I am too happy, I either wait for something bad to happen or begin to think I don’t deserve to be happy. I have had to learn how to be happy (while also having many things that affect my happiness). The thing about life is that it is never black and white. Though it’s gotten easier the more years pass from the initial trauma, it’s learning how to flow between the good and bad. It’s hard not to let the bad taint the good. Especially when there is so much darkness and sadness inside you.

Last September, I could barely eat. I was crying more than not. While still having hope that certain relationships would go back to how they once were. Like many things in life, you don’t know all the good that can come out of an event until months or years later. I don’t regret the relationships that shifted last year, even if one way or another, they brought sadness. I did learn that I was better off with one of those relationships shifting. It might have taken me over a year to see it, and it makes me crazy that it took so long. It’s kinda like a frog. If it jumped into boiling water, it would jump back out. If it were in water that started to boil, the frog wouldn’t know the difference and eventually die in the boiling water.

I didn’t realize how unhealthy it was for me to stay in a relationship despite fighting hard to keep it. I still love them as a person and will root for their happiness. I can root for that from afar. If I decided to keep fighting for that relationship, I wouldn’t be as happy and free feeling as I am. I wouldn’t have accepted some of the newer people in my life.

A lot of things have happened over the last couple of months, some of which I have touched on. Losing Stevie so unexpectedly. Making a few hard decisions. Letting go and accepting certain things. A lot of things that happened solely from a previous decision I made. It’s been interesting watching things fall in place so perfectly.

There are still aspects of my life that I hope to change, and I wholeheartedly believe contribute to my sadness. The thing is, if I had successfully moved to Nashville like I had wanted to most of this year, I wouldn’t have met some of the people I have. I would have been in my dream city, but I probably wouldn’t have felt the happiness that some of the new relationships have given me.

How lucky am I to have cared so much about something and to be able to feel all the emotions. As someone who was numb and didn’t feel for so long, it makes it even more special (and frustrating half the time) to be able to feel compassion and happiness and sadness and all the emotions.

Life is all about balance. As someone who tends to think in black and white, finding the balance can be difficult. I will say that if you are able to find that balance, it makes life easier. I think it makes life more genuine. It’s normal to be in a happy moment and then a wave of sadness comes. When you figure out how to feel all the emotions simultaneously without letting them control you, it makes such a change.