This week, I've been doing the madly fun tasks I picked out at the start of the week for GISHWHES (The Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen.) Misha Collins started this some five years ago. Being new to the Supernatural world, I didn't know this. Now I do, though. The tasks have been enlightening, each time. I'll get to post more after it ends. One of the things I've discovered through this is that I do like myself. I can honestly say I see the good, even in this week of faltering brain functions. Loyalty, imagination, compassion, passion, nurturing, safety, honesty, reliable, and comforting. These are not small qualities. They are all present in me. Some people don't have nearly as many good qualities, and yet fly through life being told they are good people.
Gathering pictures together for other projects spurred in me just how long my good has outweighed my bad. The bad is not all there is. All I have done, accomplished, survived, and created will always outweigh the bad.
A theme that constantly came up in therapy was the ability to be the person to myself that I want to find in another person. I really like me, for the most part. I am supportive of me, most of the time. When I cave in to the violent noise in my head of voices from a dead, but very loud, past, it seems more to be trying to end the pain going on that I can't control. I usually like me. When I don't, something's definitely up with the malfunctioning brain of mine. The things I used to not like about myself have all been worked through, repeatedly. The echo of the lies about myself still reverberates, sometimes. That foundation that informed me of who I was isn't true, though.
I am a completely different person than the shadow ghost people tried to cast over me. I understand why they chose to smear me in the feces of their anger, though. What I chose to disclose when I was a child was true, though. People are not demons or monsters on one extreme, nor are they angels or saints on the other extreme. Humans are animals with the ability to be gorgeous and gentle as well as brutal and carnal. I understand there are people who will never believe me. I understand that I was outnumbered and cornered by them. It was easier to vilify me than to admit what happened to me was real.
That was the foundation on which my whole life was built. One shade of black painted over the real me, and then another and another, until my whole identity was covered in a shroud that didn't really represent me. I was never fat, lazy, insincere, evil, manipulative, nor arrogant. And I sure as hell wasn't being punished by some unseen deity because of these things. There was nothing for me to search to correct about myself. Bad things didn't happen to me because I'd done anything wrong or was born somehow tainted by evil. This was a particularly tenacious lie fed to me, which took everything to overthrow.
This was sometimes a frustrating week, but worth it. For example, I learned how to make sock monkeys out of small socks, and found it far more time-consuming than I thought it would be. I've had to learn where my limits lie when it comes to what I can accomplish, as a single, working mom. I will not be able to finish one item I assigned myself. I'm disappointed. I've had to put up with a "I'm so much cooler than you" teenager's snark about it, and that bothered me more than I thought it would. However, in the end, the very act of creating, even if it wasn't great, was rewarding. I went with the laid-back option. My group have all been laid-back, and we just wanted to see what it was all about. That was a nice addition to participating. I'm not as competitive as others. This was really just to get me working on things I'd never have tried. It worked. I must definitely expand these kinds of things into my life, from now on.
I highly recommend joining us, next year. Keep an eye out for it.
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