Power & Control

After quite a few tears and contemplating running away entirely (do you know they call it pseudo suicide when people run away with intentions of never being found?), I have come to a pretty basic conclusion. I can’t control other people or how they see me. I’d like this to be the part where I say, ‘but, I can control how I see me.’ Unfortunately, it is a bit trickier than that. As much as I would like to see myself positively, I can’t just flip a switch. I can’t just turn on the positive self-talk and automatically be fixed. One thing that has held me back so much from accepting and loving myself is that I feel like if I believed certain things, I would be lying to myself. I have enough people lie to me already; I don’t need to hurt myself that way, too. I refuse to build myself up with lies and when something happens to fall down so hard and not even have myself that I can trust to pick me back up. I rather build myself up with true things. I rather accept the negative things for what they are, and if it is a negative that I can fix, I will do everything I can to change that part of me.

I have deleted everyone from Facebook, but I am not ready to delete my entire account quite yet. Who knows, maybe in a month or longer, I will re-activate it. I need to distance myself from certain things right now. I wanted to delete everything about my life last night. I begged Heavenly Father to help me, though I wasn’t sure he was listening, cared, or even existed. I made a list of things I want, kind of like how a former friend had me do. Except I was brutally honest in this list and I only wrote the most important things. Then I took a look at the list and asked, “Well, what here is in my control?”. Now, I realize some things I’ve determined to be in my control are dependent upon my health and if I do end up having cancer or major Lupus issues going on…. But for now, they are entirely in my control. I want to lose weight and be physically strong. I can do that. I have the ability to exercise and maintain a proper diet. So, I’ll do it. I will push myself as hard as I can in this area of my life.

One of the other things is finishing my degree. Now, I know I said in my last post that I do not have a desire to do that anymore. And honestly, I still kind of don’t… the idea of school and trying so hard for something and no one to share the success with is depressing. Still, I know I want this; beyond the depression and the pain, I know there’s a part of me that still wants to get my BA & Masters. I have control over this too. I need to put in the effort to pass my classes and succeed. I also want to be a published author. Now, I have no control of whether an established publisher picks up my manuscript or if I’ll reach a large audience. However, I do have the ability to finish writing my manuscript and hiring editors and such to polish it up. Even if I can’t find an indie publisher, I can still self-publish. It’s still very possible. Other things about my appearance that I want to change, such as my hair and my teeth… those things require money and time, but I am also capable of working and earning money.

The other two things on my list are things I am not 100% sure I want, because let’s face it, right now I am pretty lost and I just want to be alone. Oh, I don’t really want to be alone, but I’m afraid of letting anyone in. I also have no idea quite what I believe anymore. The first is to go through the temple. Now, becoming temple worthy is totally in my control. However, with my beliefs shaken, I believe I need to take time to read my scriptures again and pray on the matter. Once I’ve established my beliefs and my testimony, I can proceed from there. The last thing is to have friends and stable relationships. I mean no offense to anyone in my life, but the friends I have are either of the unsupportive variety, or they live far away, or they have lives of their own and are too busy. I have very little hope that I will ever have a really close, good friend again. I don’t think I’ll let anyone get that close to me, even if they wanted to. As for a relationship, I feel like that is such an impossibility. I feel like I am not meant to have a person to share my life with. I want to say that I’m OK with that, but I’m really not. People are so quick to say, “Oh, you’ll find someone!”. Statistically speaking, not everyone finds someone. From my understanding, even the church teaches that you might not find someone here. The thing is, I feel like I won’t find anyone anywhere ever. It hurts. Oh, I know I could “settle”, if I really felt the urge to be unhappy but less lonely. But that’s too fake, too wrong, and it is not me.

I know this year is going to be hard, and hopefully everything is OK with my health so I can work on achieving these things… I have control over most of them. But I do not have control over other people and how they see me. I do, however, have control over how much I reveal to others. I have control over how much power I give them. And no one will ever be given enough power to break me in such an awful way ever gain.