Hey Bonita,
I’ve been in Athens a long time, had a lot of ups and downs, finally in a place with a happy relationship and a decent job. Home feels pretty good. But I can’t let go or get over my bad history here to be fully happy. There are a lot of people I run into a lot that I feel bitter about or just make me angry. There’s probably trauma there in some of the situations, but living in Athens I can’t escape it. Or online, where I’m friends with these people or friends with their friends. Is there any way for me to stay here and get over what I’ve been through? Right now it feels [impossible] to move on.
5
Hey 5,
Holy crap, get out of my brain. I mean for real, did I somehow write this and send it to myself? I’ve been in this exact position, and all I can say is that you have to stop beating yourself up. You have to be willing to let distance grow between yourself and the bad thing, the awful memory, and you should do your best to be present in the moments where those memories aren’t bringing you down. If this seems like an impossible thing, then I’d agree that there must be some kind of trauma associated with these happenings, and already having mental health resources in my own life was invaluable when things happened and my life changed. Things happened ages ago at this point, but there are still moments where deep, soul-punishing shame washes over me. The situation just sucked, and nothing was the same after it, you know? But it can’t be helped, and it can’t be changed. A bad thing happened, yeah. But you’re still in Athens and, more importantly, you’re still choosing Athens as your home. A bad thing happened, but time did not stop for you or for anyone else.
For me, peace came when I accepted that nothing could be done anymore. I think we wallow and regret and kick ourselves after the fact because we just want so badly to be able to turn back time. We’re just bullying ourselves when we shrivel at a sight that reminds us of the bad thing that we can do nothing about, and it helps no one. We want to feel better, but we’re taking the wrong approach to getting there by letting our guilt overwhelm us like this. I started feeling better when I just owned the fact that I messed up and did a bad thing. I definitely owe some apologies still, but we all do, and I want to be real about why I feel the need to apologize: because I want to be told that I am not a bad person. I did something that doesn’t jive with my self image, and I want to be forgiven for my role and told that I did not deserve the pain I experienced. But I cannot foist that labor onto people I hurt and who may well want nothing to do with me at this point in life, and what I can control is my feelings and my self image. So I look in the mirror and I tell myself that I am not a bad person, I simply did a bad thing, and bad things happened to me, too. My entire life changed because of this bad thing, and I don’t have to punish myself anymore because of it. Life is going to change; it literally cannot stay the same. I will continue to gain friends, lose friends and fall out with people. I am a drop in a flood of people who have had to weather a life change in this manner, and those people are all still alive and kicking after the fact. Healing is possible for everyone, including you and me.
You’re allowed to tailor your existence for comfort—don’t feel like you have to do exposure therapy if it really is torture to see certain people or places around town. But zoom out and try to view yourself more compassionately (for example, don’t assume that everyone knows your history or judges you for it), and try to cultivate happiness more than mortification.
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