In my haste to get over things, to stop hurting or feeling bad or to stop being self-absorbed and feeling sorry for myself, I learn a lot of things. I bend more successfully than I think I ever will. In a first world kind of way, my issues can be devastating in the sense that I could go from homed to homeless relatively quickly. I have recovery options in that I have family but if I didn’t have a grip on managing with depression baggage that could be a different issue. It’s not, though, and I’m grateful.
By the same token, so much energy has gone into keeping myself from falling apart while moving forward that I haven’t or didn’t (sometimes willfully didn’t) learn some things that would be useful to me right now. I have no clue and haven’t for quite some time, about how to take care of this house properly. In some cases the things that it needs are a result of general wear and tear. But other things are because I don’t know what to do or how to do or I’m so scared to do that I just don’t do them. I ruminate and ruminate; then things just don’t get done.
There are so many things I don’t know how to get help for but I need help. Some of it is not about wanting someone to do it for me (some of it is, like I would love not to clean) but wanting to know how to and being better at doing for myself.
All of this is because a friend is going to come help me with my yard; help with some specific tasks. And I feel really good about it in that I want to be like her. When she offered and said she would help me, I felt shame and embarrassment to need help with something I feel is so basic; like if I’m so smart, why can’t I handle this? Why haven’t I done this better? I also felt tremendous relief.
To my point that I started with, so much of my energy goes into self-recovery-basic eat-sleep-fighting despair and pessimism kind of holding my shit together- that there’s some stuff I don’t do. It was so satisfying mowing the yard, (not beautiful work by any means but good enough for now work) that i felt good about myself. I haven’t felt good about myself or satisfied with anything I do for a long long time. I want to feel more of that.
She does her yard work; I’ve seen her do it. She sets aside time to do it. She’s someone who can help me learn what to do and I trust that she can because these are some things she does herself and things she gets help for when she needs or wants it. I want to learn how to do it like that instead of how I’ve been doing it.
It’s just help and yard work. for Pete’s sake, this is what I mean about the self-absorbtion.