Family time is always a bit of a hit or miss for me, sometimes it goes really well and I leave feeling recharged and refreshed, other times can be difficult and draining. Like every family I guess. Lately though, things have been a bit different and I’ve more often than not been left with quite a bit of introspective food for thought. You see alot of the chat has been around the past. Childhood, parents, siblings, that kind of angle and to be honest most of it has been pretty positive but what it has left me pondering is the idea of permission. Let me backtrack a bit and explain.

There’s been a few instances lately when I’ve seen or smelled something that has jogged a memory from when I was a kid, like a sense or a feeling and if I’m really honest not necessarily positive remembrances either. I’ve seen oversized stuffed toys that jogged memories of “toy fights” that would always get completely out of hand. Or I’ve smelled something as simple as a really zesty lemon scent remarkably like a well known cleaner my sister had used to clean up my blood one particular evening. I began to question why I was getting these reminders so often and why these triggers seemed to be everywhere.

Now I’m by no means blinkered.

I absolutely understand that until we learn a certain lesson or understand an experience we are destined to repeat the same thing over and over until we do learn or until we do understand. What I couldn’t understand was what the hell I still had to learn from those events. So I spoke to my sister and discovered that she was going through some similar things and dealing with her own struggles. We began to speak about specific instances from our childhood and all of sudden I became engulfed in utter fear, a feeling I hadn’t experienced since I was about 12 years old.

And i began to cry.

In that instant I tried to collect myself and shrug it off, I think I muttered something about feeling stupid and immediately I was scolded for not allowing myself to feel emotion let alone display it in my sister and brother-in-law’s home. I was allowed to authenticate my own grief, my own sadness there and then and not feel stupid or melodramatic. The conversation went on and my sister explained that she was fed up feeling the way she had for all of these years and wouldn’t allow herself to wallow a moment longer. She refused to be a prisoner of her past or her pain and suddenly I became aware of two things.

Firstly I became aware that throughout the preceding 25-30 years I had been so caught up in my own misery I wasn’t aware of how tortured my sister was. The the same couldn’t be said of her. She was completely cognisant of what I had had to deal with and how things had been for me. In all truth this made me feel so self centred, so blind and blinkered to anyone but me I felt utter shame. Shamed to be so self absorbed that I didn’t see my sister needed me more than I could recognise.

I realise that at that time, in those instances I was protecting myself as best I could and probably doing whatever I had to to preserve some part of myself and to do this I absolutely see that I had no choice but to go inward. Understanding that doesn’t make me feel any better though, I still feel like I failed my sister. Understanding just makes my own behaviour a bit easier to square off and file.

The second revelation I had was around the language being used. I became really aware of how often words like ‘allow’ or ‘permit’ were being spoken, and with positive connotations. I’ve already explained how I had been able to recognise how my negative behaviours were resultant of my childhood and I had on some level given permission to my younger self to behave in this way but I suddenly realised that no one had ever actually given me permission to be okay, not me, not anyone. This got me thinking about when exactly the shift began, when did okay begin to happen.

Whenever I speak with people about my past one of the main things people comment (other than sorry, read that post here) is often how well adjusted and ‘put together’ I seem and more often than not I get asked what the secret is. The thing is, there isn’t one. No secret whatsoever. Nor am I ‘put together’, believe me I’m absolutely hanging on by the skin of my teeth! What changed For me was a realisation that I was descending into asshole-dom and becoming someone that I absolutely detested and I realised I had to make a commitment to myself. A commitment to pull myself out of this and save myself from me because no one else was going to. Just me, myself and I.

Let me get one thing straight, I’ve had counselling. Nothing overly extensive or particularly invasive but counselling nonetheless. I absolutely agree it’s not for everyone and it took me to my mid 20’s to feel open enough to the idea to try it but when I did I found the process absolutely startling. Having someone completely impartial telling you that your thought process is correct, your way of dealing with things is correct was a complete revelation. Until that point I genuinely thought I was just winging it and sheer luck was coasting me through. I knew it was working for me, I just didn’t know I was doing things the right way.

Now, I wouldn’t advocate counselling for everyone, this is absolutely my own personal experiences and not a ‘How To’ guide but I would say if anyone is giving it a thought; try. Try, try, try. It may not work, it may even be something you come back to Later in life  but if the time is right it might just make a difference. Besides, what do you have to lose?

It’s absolutey not for everyone and for me it wasn’t the epiphanous, pivotal moment other people often describe. It gave me a bit of confirmation I was on the right track. It gave me affirmation I wasn’t stupid or self-absorbed. Counselling gave me hope that maybe, just maybe I would turn out okay, become worthy of something. What I didn’t realise then was that it gave me the permission to begin to walk the path I had started to build for myself.

All these years later I’ve only just realised that the foundation I have hung my recovery on has been permission to change, I just hadn’t realised it! I allow myself to move out of the darkness, to move away from my own bitterness. It will sometimes find me and that’s okay, I don’t live within the dark and nor it within me; I allow myself to move forward, to not become stagnant or entrenched; I permit myself to be whomever I choose to be but most importantly I permit myself to grieve. For what was, for wnat wasn’t and for what should have been, I have to embrace it all. Unless I see the dark I cannot appreciate the light.

It’s okay to be okay.