Sometimes You Just Have To Get From Today To Tomorrow And That’s Okay

Just hang on and be proud you made it through another day.

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” — Theodore Roosevelt

For the last two days, I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, engulfed in a fog of anxiety.

Now and again, I get bogged down in a combination of fear, sadness, and low-level depression — the residual side effects of my early life.

It just happens, and I’ve come to accept it.

But I know I’m not alone. Many people struggle with some form of this.

It’s not simple self-sabotage, it’s deeper than that. It’s a real form of convoluted subconscious logic that’s trying to protect you from something. For me, it’s from feeling too good. Because feeling too good used to always get me knocked off my pedestal.

Isn’t it crazy how we become engrained with the patterns we learned as children?

We’re so programmed to assimilate that we internalize patterns modeled and implanted in us in those early years.

We sustain them by carrying out behaviors in our heads even when we’re not in the situation anymore.

This is why no matter how hard I try, my childhood still lives inside the deepest part of me.

The patterns of disfunction are constantly swirling just below the surface, no matter how hard I work. No matter how much I heal, the part of me that’s damaged will never be completely fixed, it will only be managed more effectively.

Even though I understand and accept this, it doesn’t make it any easier when I’m in the thick of it.

I get into long stretches of feeling great, powerful, happy, and in control, and I forget it’s there. And then, something happens, and I become overwhelmed with all of the primal emotions of my childhood. The adult me disappears, and the broken child surfaces gasping for air.

I become enveloped in the sadness and desperation that stole my innocence and ravaged my youth. I remember every moment like it was yesterday, there’s no escape and no relief. It takes every bit of strength. I have to remind myself that isn’t the life I’m living now.

So three days later and I’ve climbed back out of that hole. I’ve stuck my head out, and I’m once again in the present.

It took every ounce of energy I had to try to keep up the facade that I’m fine.

I must remember to go through the motions as though everything’s okay. To keep smiling, make small talk, keep my life chugging along as usual while fighting this battle in the back of my head.

Living two different lives, one inside and one out is exhausting and confusing even for two days.

Separating the present from the residual is not a task for the faint of heart. It takes courage and determination to stand in the center with both arms outstretched, keeping worlds from colliding. Fighting the feeling that if you allow them to intermingle, one will consume the other.

I think we all live like this to one extent or another.

No one goes through life unscathed, but some of us have a bit more luggage in our baggage compartments and now and again it gets heavy.

You wake up one morning particularly down, and you don’t know why.

You see something on tv, and suddenly you’re weeping. You talk to an old friend or a family member, and suddenly you are unreasonably afraid or angry. We all have those times.

The thought of mental illness scares us so much because most of us have a little psychic ghost in a box in the attic of our minds.

Learning to breathe through the pain and hang on when it surfaces is something to try to remember to do. Especially right now when the world is one giant trigger for most of us.

So my thought to you today is to hang on, no matter how bad you feel things are. Just hang on. Get from today to tomorrow, somehow.

Just commit to waking up tomorrow and living one more day. Because that’s half the battle.

Sometimes just making it through the long dark night is enough.

Waking up to open the curtains and let the sunshine down on your face is accomplishment enough. If you can do that, once you can do it as many times as you need to get to the place where you finally wake up, the sun on your face and smile.

Because as long as you make it to tomorrow, there is the possibility of a new beginning.

“Fall 7 times, stand up 8.” — Japanese Proverb

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