Time has brought us toward the end of another month. March contains in its days a milestone of sorts for me; it will be six months of attending Alanon and ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional families) meetings regularly and working the steps. i actually started ACA back in the late fall of 2021 but only went to a few meetings, purchased their literature, got the steps workbook, and did not return until six months ago.

i should have been happy back then. i had the degree, big house in a nice neighborhood, beautiful children, a good husband, a good career….. i had The Dream. Instead i experienced panic attacks, anxiety, and depression. i was in a freeze state and was constantly dissociating (although i did not even know that word or what it meant then).

i experienced triggers beyond my capacity to manage and wanted escape from the onslaught of fear and pain. It was all too much to control. My mask, my carefully curated self could not cope.

Inside i felt so lonely. i felt isolated, confused, scared, and profoundly alone. i truly did not want to exist. i was no where near courageous enough to attend meetings regularly, read the materials, and practice applying the principals and tools to my daily life. i was broken, fractured, and was not even aware of my fractured self. i lived a waking nightmare.

Before ACA and Alanon, back in 2021, i was able to commit to ten weeks of outpatient therapy with a framework called DBT, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Keep in mind i had lived decades dissociating and living inauthentically. i had no idea what i was doing. i historically bent myself around others to be accepted and given attention…..i chased dreams and definitions of success that were not mine all while acting like i thought others wanted or expected me to act. i wanted to matter, to be accepted, safe…. i remember my oldest child’s father describing me as a “puppet” and at the time i was sure it was an insult but did not even understand what he meant. i was surviving using whatever strategies my brain could manifest without true knowledge or support. I now know them to be really standard coping tools and behaviors found in others with similar histories.

DBT essentially helped me feel safer to experience my own feelings. Before DBT i cut myself to release emotional pains. i would pop big rubber bands around my wrists until visible welts surfaced just to feel something. i would feel pain physically to let out cries that would lessen the tangled pressures i felt emotionally. i would pull my own hair and punch parts of my own body and face to get emotional release. It was not ok. i was not ok before DBT. i felt so unsafe in the world and wanted out.

Now…well, now I have this coin. It represents to me time and consistency in showing up for myself and of paying attention (learning to pay attention anyway-its a practice for me at this point). Within these last six months I have gained awareness and with it, I have been able to admit and accept reality….my reality and through accepting my truth I have found so much.

My coin has an Angel on one side, she is holding a chain with upward facing palms, her fingers are closed around the chain, and there is a small banner that reads: Grateful to be Alive. The angel is in front of the sun shining rays of light down and all around. She is beautiful, strong, confident, stoic looking. She seems courageous there holding the chain instead of entangled in it.

The other side of my coin reads, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” -quote from the Serenity Prayer

I am not religious; I was at one time quite religious but that was decades ago. I now seek conscious awareness in each moment I am able. I use a variety of tools to help me with this since it is a practice at this point and I need guard rails, so to speak.

I accept I was born and abandoned. I accept I was exposed to violence, exposed to drugs, and exposed to sexual things all before five years of age. I accept that I witnessed extreme violence against my mother, subjected to live in a home with drug addicts and alcoholic parental figures who were neglectful, verbally abusive, verbally aggressive, threatening, the list goes on.

I can now forgive the abusers and abuse. I can have compassion for them; that is within my control to do. Forgiveness and compassion have not cleared away my grief but have lessened my anger to give way to love. I could have become them……no, i had become them to a degree. i did not know what i was doing and reasoned it was likely they didn’t know what they were doing either.

I accept these happenings as a part of my life experience. I can not change those things. I can only change my perception, my perspective, my mindset, my thoughts, my actions, and my behaviors. I can change even if it seems impossible.

Traveling roads within The Nothing was very dark but familiar so i stayed until i could not any longer. i had to choose between death and the unknown.

Now I have a coin and some clarity on what I can change. I am gaining wisdom, a growing perspective using the safe spaces I have surrounded myself with, those guard rails.

I can live with that. I am grateful to live with that. I am grateful to be alive.