OB,

The wolves are still pacing just outside the firelight, waiting. Every school of thought I've read about that considers the things that I worry about basically says 'Find something else to fill your time' which I read as 'Put on a blindfold so you don't have to see the firing squad'

There are some things we cannot help. Whatever those big things that existentially worry you are, they may be permanently unresolvable and/or mechanisms of life and unavoidable. Personally, I have a set of feelings about certain situations that, no matter how much therapy I have been to, does not lift. I could talk for years and years about these feelings. I know what contributed to these feelings. I know that I may naturally also just be inclined towards these feelings, despite all the factors in childhood and adolescence that pushed me towards them. I cannot help it if my mind works in a certain way. I have never been able to stop caring about certain things and factors in my life and prioritizing them over others and even sometimes my health. Sometimes caring about these things destroys my happiness. I have talked to therapists about them for years, and years, and years, and by the end the last therapist was super impressed that I could analytically pin-point and understand all these many, many causes and factors that rolled up into the joyful bundle of "Why I Am This Way."

I'm not in therapy right now. I'm not in therapy right now because I felt like I hit a point where it couldn't do much more for me. I had stopped all the problematic behaviors.

This began to bother me a year or so ago when I felt the feelings raise their heads again. I was determined not to give in to the feelings. I didn't. But I still felt them.

In a kind of beaten desperation I asked a very dear friend who I have known for a very long time and who I tell almost everything (and who is very smart besides), "Is this how it's going to be? Is the solution not 'cure the problem' but 'have healthy coping mechanisms for when it happens'?"

And he said, "Yeah, ref...Basically, yeah."

It is not encouraging. It makes my therapeutic 'victories' seem hollow in a way. But it is the only thing that I can hold on to in order to make sure that I am living well, or healthily.

The only thing different between me and the girl with the bad condition at the therapist's every week who you can just tell something is wrong with, varying degrees of wrong, is that I have done work to learn healthy coping mechanisms. I have done work to not embrace my illness, which was a big battle for me because I felt without my illness I would surely become what I was afraid of. I would descend into failure. I felt that self-loathing saved me from becoming what I was afraid of and would truly hate; what I couldn't stand to be. I have realized that even though this is my body, and even though part of me feels, very strongly, "This is my body and it is my right to do as I wish with it and it is no one's right to moderate that or step in," that's not the way society works. I have basically acknowledged that some things I think I should be able to do without scrutiny or gawking I cannot because society mandates certain norms and the violation of those norms means the revocation of privileges, and I value those privileges more than the right to do what I want with my body.

The wolves may never go away. They may fade; they may disappear for years or months; they may come back stronger than ever, or not, only in small feeble groupings.

I hope this doesn't disappoint you or fill you with despair. But sometimes, the wolves don't go away, and all you can do is fight to keep them out of the firelight when they show up. kb will probably reassure us that each time, generally, it gets easier. Sometimes it doesn't though, and that's what I guess I prepare for with my defensive pessimism: I know trauma happens, the death of a loved one, loss of a job, break-up, divorce, buying a house, kids. So I keep the wolves back, and I hold my guard, and watch out for signs that things may get really bad.

If you are grappling with wolves that have been there your entire life, they may not go away. If they have popped up in the past 3 years, maybe they will. You have the best insight into how much they impact you and how much you can control them.

Don't expect them to go away. But never invite them in.

________________

And if that makes you ask, "Well what's the point?"

I would rather fight my demons than let them ride me. I would rather beat them down as much as I can so that I succeed in what I love. For you, working in the medical field. For me, writing poetry. You must be healthy to do good in this world and to keep doing good.

It is not that I would rather fade away than burn out - it is that I believe there is still so much to learn before I could even be considered a flame that could do either.

__

And I'm sorry if I am reading too much into your situation and injecting myself in it. It's just - much of what you say and seem to feel feels very, very familiar.

__

And to think, I was going to be quiet on Hubski this week. Haaaaa.