ME 5.0

I have been aware of  my shifting consciousness for some time.  It started slowly but now has momentum.

As I look back over what I used to call  my "past lives," I realize that referring to my past in this way was not constructive.  The term "past" implies closure or ending.  It means somehow "it's over."  I think I used it as a device to protect myself from painful times.  I used it to try to forget failures.

1.0
I was raised to hide my feelings and that any failure was an indictment of my parent. After all, I was the oldest so I should be the strongest and most self-sacrificing.  In my mother's mind she was doing her job--feeding and clothing us.  For me, though it was not enough. I needed advice, nurturing and love--never heard the words I love you--ever.  No hugs either.  There was just an unrelenting expectation to handle it. raise myself and my siblings and make sure our house was well kept and there was no trouble.  In our small town, in our house, anything that might reflect badly on my mother was forbidden.  I was not a child.  I was the fixer, the caretaker, the keeper of the image.

2.0 Empty
After I left home I experienced this intense compulsion.  I was looking for something that I knew I was missing.  I think losing those childhood demands left me without any sense of purpose.  No one cared about my grades, how clean the house was.  I had no one and no image to protect and Iwas not  equipped to do these things for myself.  I learned and intellectually embraced the concepts of personal growth and enlightenment.  I knew that I should have been embracing, learning from and using the experiences  of  my life to fuel my growth, development and to help me avoid making the same mistakes again but I simply did not know how.  Knowing something intellectually is much
different than living it.  The living of it is the thing.

3.0 raising Myself
Learning how to live is what I have been doing for five decades most of which as been filled with trying to fill myself up by sacrificing myself, my life for others. I abandoned wonderful opportunities because I thought I had found someone who loved me or a group of poor and marginalized people who needed my help.  In my mind their needs my own.  After all, I was the fixer.  I did not know what love felt like.  Funny how childhood experiences and patterns repeat themselves--especially when there is no guidance, no one to help interpret and process them not as immutable, self-destructive patterns but as the source of strength, understanding and self-knowledge.   Now I know that by trying to forget or mask my life's pain and failures I have done myself and, surprisingly, many others a disservice by creating co-dependent relationships.

4.0 Martyrdom
It is clear to me now that by living in fear of failure I denied myself countless opportunities to enjoy my life and bring joy to others.  By suppressing and not expressing the pain that hollowed out my heart and tortured my soul, I denied myself the opportunity to heal.  I avoided feeling anything but pain and anger.  I did not no how to feel anything of my true self though I rarely if ever expressed these feelings openly to others.  I just stepped up and worked like a dog trying to make other people happy and trying not to disappoint them.  As when I was a child, perfection, satisfying other people and controlling myself and my surroundings consumed and continually exhausted me.

4.1 Rage
I expressed the rage I felt through becoming a passionate advocate for other people.  I did everything I could to help them succeed.  Remarkably this led to my building a strong, positive reputation for being smart, hardworking and honest.  Little did anyone but a few know that I often felt numb and unworthy.  I remember wishing I could just disappear.  I often drank wine until I reached the point that I could feel maudlin enough to cry and cry.  That was my release.  I continued to drink to stay numb and then to use other substances to make me feel good and help me keep going.  I could not stop or slow down.  I had no idea what I would do if I did.

4.2 Depression
Depression is a bitch.  Becoming aware that I was clinically depressed was liberating. I now new I was not broken or crazy.  I was sick.  There was a real reason for the way I felt.  The professionals who have treated have expressed surprise that I had functioned as long as I did.  They helped me understand the many traumas of my life and how they occurred at critical times in my development.  They changed the the hard wiring of my brain.  The patterns that resulted were fixed as if in stone.

4.3 Emergence
Depression is a physiological condition.  It is not a sign of weakness, low-self esteem or laziness.  It is something that can be treated with medications and therapy. Knowledge is power.  The acknowledgement and validation of my condition empowered me.  I became able. As I emerged from the fog of depression I gained the ability to become objective about myself.  I learned to  think rationally about myself, my situation, my actions and most importantly, how I got there.  Instead of descending into a self-pitying, self-destructive abyss, I took action.  I removed the things and people who were doing me harm from my life.  Still, I made many mistakes but I was able to acknowledge them and understand why and how I had erred.  This new-found knowledge empowered me to begin to make changes: internal changes that allowed me to begin the journey to my true self: accepting of all of my mistakes and imperfections.

INTJ and Proud!
I am reading a book now.  It's title is Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking.   Susan Cain is the author.  I think this is the most liberating and life-affirming book I have ever read.  It has definitively convinced me that it is okay to be me.

As Cain explores the research, I find many aspects of my personality and experience of life in the findings.  I am an introvert and I have suffered for it.  I prefer my own company to that of others except those with whom I can engage in meaningful, intellectual dialog. Friends, bosses, friends and people I don't even know have advised me to "lighten up."  They have judged me to be "too serious."  "Smile more," they say: and I do try.  However, Cain's book and the research findings she relates have revealed that who I am, the way I am is not a choice or a weakness but a biological and physiological condition.  We introverts are different. Our brains are different.  Our responses to stimuli are different. We are not too serious.  We are not too passionate.  We are not socially inept.  We are simply introverted in a world that values and rewards extroversion far more highly.

I have often suffered through and engaged in futile efforts to be more "social."  I have forced myself to go out with friends, to parties and networking events and found myself feeling not merely uncomfortable but utterly miserable.  I have no talent for small talk or self-promotion in social settings.  More often than not, if I am lucky, I spot someone with whom I can engage in a one on one conversation about some thing we have in common or that interests me.  If not, I often make one or two rounds of the crowd and leave as soon as possible.  I am just not comfortable or happy in these situations.

It is good to know that my feelings of being overstimulated when having to engage with people over an extended period of time--at a conference for example--is normal for people like me.  When I have to get away it is for good reason.  I am an introvert and I am now perfectly happy to be.