I don't know, I guess it's the way I was made... a blessing or a curse, that when I love someone, anyone, friends...family...ex lovers... I have never been able to let people go. Even of people who left my life almost three decades ago. Which is a very awfully long time.
It sure makes for good songwriting, but it means that certain smells, driving past certain neighborhoods, and hearing songs transport me so vividly back in time. A blessing and a curse... to hae such clear memories, but most people I speak to don't remember so far back and don't have such strong emotional connections to their memories.
I honestly don't know how to change that about myself, or even if I can, but I do know that there are memories and connections that are very negative and have weighed me down my whole life.
I don't know if it's built into my DNA or if it's a mental health disorder that I can add to an already very, very long list.
I guess that's why I started blogging. Aside from music, writing blogs and letters allows me to express myself and work through trauma in a way that I feel safe. I have been in therapy for CPTSD, depression, and anxiety, and I have found exposure therapy very helpful, but also very painful.
Perhaps I hold onto these memories so tightly, good ones and bad ones because of my oerwhelming fear of abandonment and in a way, I'm afraid that if I let go, I will lose parts of myself...even if they are parts that I would rather forget.
I do suffer from dissociation as well. It's a very effective coping mechanism when living through trauma, but it's also extremely unhealthy. Alo, dissociation is not selective. You can't control it. There are massive chunks of my childhood and adult life that are just completely blanked out, but they certainly aren't all the things I would rather forget. Some of them are positive memories that my friends speak of, or photographs that I've seen that I have absolutely no memory of.
Perhaps that's another reason I cling to the memories I have. Even if they are of people who let me go a long, long time ago.
I do know that some of these connections and memories hurt me so deeply that I am almost pushed into a zombie-like trance by them. And that is not healthy.
And that is why I have started writing a series of "Dear John" letters, in an effort to let go and move forward ... and say goodbye.
They are damn difficult to write, though. Just like with exposure therapy, it takes me days, if not weeks, to recover after spending time working on them, and my mind and my physical body take on enormous amounts of pain and exhaustion after... digging through the trash of my mind.
I cannot be emotionaly 100% psesent for my family while still holding on to the past, and I am certainly not doing myself any favours.
Whether or not I decide to send these letters, will depend on how brave I am, weighing up whether it would do more harm than good or that certain stories need to be told and heard. People hurt me. Deeply. They abandoned and abused me and left me bleeding on the sidewalk of life.
Of course, I always managed to get up, dust myself off, and carry on, but the wounds they created never really healed. I need to lance these wounds and get rid of the rot before they can truly heal over, and I can find peace.
I am incredibly lucky to have such a present and emotionally intelligent partner to work through these with me, and support me when I am overwhelmed, but it is not his responsibility to heal me. It is mine. It is my life, and I want my life back - or more accurately - I want to wipe the slate as clean as I can and live life for myself instead of chasing ghosts.
