One year ago today, I voluntarily admitted myself into a behavior health facility. I had not been well for a long time and had been “muscling through it” to the very edge of my limits. I felt that it was what I had to do and that any other option would be to admit how weak I really was or prove that maybe I deserved all the pain and suffering I was experiencing. It all came to a head and I couldn’t participate in the daily bullshit anymore. I waved my white flag, called for help and in what felt like forever and a blink of an eye all at once, I was there: crying into a notebook they cut the elastic from (so I wouldn’t, I don’t know, hang myself with it?), writing out my feelings with dull crayons. The experience itself was fairly traumatic, the details of which I don’t wish to go into. But the circumstances leading up to that moment were just as, if not more so, traumatic. Those are the ones I’m still facing. I wish I could tell you that a year later, I’m much better, but I am not. Almost right on cue, I found myself this year on the boarder of another nervous breakdown – and have again taken time to try and get it right. But that’s not so easy as just knowing you need help. Finding help is difficult; there are waits you don’t have time for and while you’re waiting for help, not knowing if they’ll even be the right fit, you’ve still got to be productive with your time. You’re supposed to just got on living, progressing, functioning like a well-person, when you aren’t. It doesn’t matter how much anyone else wishes you were, or thinks if you just could do x,y,z, your life would improve – and because you’re not able to work the formulas they give you independently, it’s proof that you’re weak or worse, lazy. Thank you for the formula, but no one showed me how to use it.

I have taken to some introspection, while I find myself completely unable to focus at the tasks that lay before me. I suppose it is my hope that if I can express myself effectively, it may free me just enough to continue my pursuit to wellness. I feel like it’s what I’ve been doing this entire year, this entire hellish fucking year – but I’ve chosen to not let go, so it’s the price you pay. The last decade of my life is littered with evidence of not enough self-examination and this past year really brings forth to light the significance of self-worth. Without it, we are feral and forlorn; either end of that spectrum is no place to be.

Someone recently told me that self-worth comes from knowing who you are and doing scary things. If the answer is no to the first part, turning towards yourself to find that out is indeed, a very scary thing. Upon being asked, I would almost instinctively tell you that yes, I know who I am. However, I have come to discover that perhaps that’s not as true as I may have previously thought. I have begun to learn of myself, though, and what I have learned over the last 10 years is this: I’ve consistently put my worthiness in the hands of others, specifically romantic partners. My value has always been, whether I like it or not, attached to my “usefulness” to them. If they loved me greatly, or at least acted like they did, then I ignored anything else within me that ached. Being in love made me feel well – temporarily. The moment I wasn’t as special to them as I thought I was, my worth plummeted. Logically, I know that is not okay and I would try to talk myself out of those feelings but they persisted and they gnawed and they spread like cancer throughout every facet of my life, influencing accordingly.

At this point, either I would begin to subconsciously attach myself to someone else who COULD give me those feelings of adoration to supplement my lack of self-worth, or I would wallow in the despair of having lost what I once had, taking it as evidence that I have nothing to offer anyone, except maybe my skin. But if I am being kind to myself as I would be to a friend, I would remind them (me) that it’s not a unique behavior – it is not healthy, but it is not absurd. The person who is most affected by this is you (me).

Getting to the root of these feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy – instances throughout my life can flash by, and I can understand to a degree what makes me “me”, what makes me… “needy”. But knowing has always been…. Not even half of the battle; it’s checking inventory. After you’re aware of yourself, how do you fight those demons? I suppose you need someone to teach you to fight.

To want love and companionship, and great sex – this is the ideal, and there is nothing shameful about desiring any of it. How incredible it feels when you do appear to find that? Keeping a realistic approach, you have to accept that it won’t always be bliss in the throes of ecstasy, but you are only in control of the tides of yourself. You cannot convince anyone to love you, and neither can you allow them not loving you to convince yourself that you are not lovable. We are all fractured in different ways, looking to fill the space. While it should be ourselves filling in those fractures, it often is not.

I have adopted the poem “After A While” by Veronica A. Shoffstall as a sort of credo. That being said, it’s harder to really LIVE the truth of the words, but perhaps it just takes practice. A particular part of it resonates with me especially, as it’s what I struggle with most: “…and you begin to accept your defeats, with your head up and your eyes ahead, with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.” The grace of a woman, not the grief of a child… and maybe it’s because there’s a grieving child within me that I have yet to embody that grace. It is something I continually strive for, maybe I will for the rest of my life.

I am not some perpetually destroyed ground flower that requires pity and a savior; I have thorns of my own. In as much as I’ve been hurt, I’ve also been the one to inflict hurt. In that unfortunate role, I have discovered that through our transgressions we experience transcendence. It is so easy to skulk off wounded, build walls and spit at the ones that dare to come near. Either we cast off the offenders in a permanently dark light, as agents of the devil or brand ourselves as villains for our misdeeds and think, that is our true selves. Either side of the coin, we learn things about ourselves, but also about each other. If we are to embody grace, we are to embody forgiveness, so that we are not that grieving child. This truly is a challenge: A Daily Act. We defend ourselves with hate, punish ourselves with shame – but none of us are impervious to failure and so if we can strive to view our experience (and others) through a scope of compassion, it may make things easier to overcome. We are not the figure of Christ, and therefore we are imperfect – but to make this effort is what separates the eternally grieving child from The One Full of Grace.

Now, who am I?