I'm someone who always has a plan. Those plans may change, but I can always see what's ahead of me. I can always imagine where I'll be in 5 or 10 years. If you asked me at the beginning of May, where I saw myself in 5 years, I would tell you that it would likely be one of two things: 1. Working on my Ph.D. in history and married to my then boyfriend, or 2. Still living in Cape, probably still teaching at the university, and married to my then boyfriend. It was what I wanted, and it was what he supposedly wanted, and it's what a lot of his friends thought he wanted too.
At the end of May, the Duggar scandal broke. Like many ex-ATIers with PTSD, I wound up triggered. ATI was everywhere, and I couldn't get away from it. It was in the papers, on the radio, on TV, on magazine covers, all over the internet- I even heard people talking about it at the gas station. I would have had to seclude myself in a cabin somewhere to get away from all the talk about the "Duggar's cult." The month of June was very difficult for me, as I tried to deal with what was going on in my head regarding all of that. I can't explain it, but at that point, I knew I didn't want to pursue a Ph.D. in history. I didn't know what I wanted to do anymore, and that bothered me. The one thing I was absolutely sure of though, was that I wanted to marry my boyfriend, who kept assuring me he wanted the same thing. I had no reason to think otherwise. I knew that we could figure things out together, and that was great.
Then everything got very suddenly, and painfully, turned upside down. Again, trying not to go into too much detail, he said he needed time to think, to figure things out. That was awful, but I truly thought we would be able to work things out. As did a lot of other people. But while I was waiting, I realized I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to get a degree in counseling and work with people with PTSD and dealing with cult recovery. It was a good plan, and I started working out the details. After a month of waiting, he told me he was moving on. I didn't understand- I honestly still have trouble understanding- but I tried to keep going. Things were awful, but I started taking prerequisites to get into the MA in counseling program. I could still see what was ahead, though it was vastly different than I had imagined just a couple months before.
I was getting a lot better by the middle of September, when the shit hit the fan. Something else absolutely heart wrenching happened, and I made the decision to move to Denver. As I have said in previous posts, I needed to start over. To build a new life in a place where I could truly become more myself. But unfortunately, bad things kept happening, and in such quick succession that it was impossible to really deal with anything well. The best I could do was to wake up, keep doing my job, and stay alive. But I kept slipping. By the first few days in November, I no longer knew what I wanted. I got lost. The faint light at the end of my very dark and very long tunnel went out. While the initial desperation I experienced with that has faded to a general melancholy, the light has yet to appear again. I know who I am, but I no longer have any clue as to what I want. And I have no idea how to handle that. I'm still planning on moving to Denver in four weeks, but even that...I don't know. I don't have a job yet, and the friend who was supposed to help me move may not be able to get the time off of work anymore.
But do I want to move to Denver? I don't know. Do I want to live somewhere else? I don't know. I know I don't want to live in Cincinnati or Cape. If I had a job lined up in Denver, maybe that would help me out. But right now, I look even 6 months in the future, and I see nothing. Five years? absolutely nothing.
So what do you do when the light goes out and you have no idea when it's going back on? Well, I guess you just put one foot in front of the other. You keep on keeping on. You trust that at some point, that light is going to go back on. That instead of falling off a ledge into a deep bottomless abyss, you're going to get to where you can see the light again. So that's what I'm doing. I'm putting one foot in front of the other. I'm hoping that at some point, there will be a light. I have no idea what that will look like. Absolutely no clue. But when that light goes out, you move to the side of the tunnel, put your hand on the walls, and put one foot in front of the other.
At the end of May, the Duggar scandal broke. Like many ex-ATIers with PTSD, I wound up triggered. ATI was everywhere, and I couldn't get away from it. It was in the papers, on the radio, on TV, on magazine covers, all over the internet- I even heard people talking about it at the gas station. I would have had to seclude myself in a cabin somewhere to get away from all the talk about the "Duggar's cult." The month of June was very difficult for me, as I tried to deal with what was going on in my head regarding all of that. I can't explain it, but at that point, I knew I didn't want to pursue a Ph.D. in history. I didn't know what I wanted to do anymore, and that bothered me. The one thing I was absolutely sure of though, was that I wanted to marry my boyfriend, who kept assuring me he wanted the same thing. I had no reason to think otherwise. I knew that we could figure things out together, and that was great.
Then everything got very suddenly, and painfully, turned upside down. Again, trying not to go into too much detail, he said he needed time to think, to figure things out. That was awful, but I truly thought we would be able to work things out. As did a lot of other people. But while I was waiting, I realized I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to get a degree in counseling and work with people with PTSD and dealing with cult recovery. It was a good plan, and I started working out the details. After a month of waiting, he told me he was moving on. I didn't understand- I honestly still have trouble understanding- but I tried to keep going. Things were awful, but I started taking prerequisites to get into the MA in counseling program. I could still see what was ahead, though it was vastly different than I had imagined just a couple months before.
I was getting a lot better by the middle of September, when the shit hit the fan. Something else absolutely heart wrenching happened, and I made the decision to move to Denver. As I have said in previous posts, I needed to start over. To build a new life in a place where I could truly become more myself. But unfortunately, bad things kept happening, and in such quick succession that it was impossible to really deal with anything well. The best I could do was to wake up, keep doing my job, and stay alive. But I kept slipping. By the first few days in November, I no longer knew what I wanted. I got lost. The faint light at the end of my very dark and very long tunnel went out. While the initial desperation I experienced with that has faded to a general melancholy, the light has yet to appear again. I know who I am, but I no longer have any clue as to what I want. And I have no idea how to handle that. I'm still planning on moving to Denver in four weeks, but even that...I don't know. I don't have a job yet, and the friend who was supposed to help me move may not be able to get the time off of work anymore.
But do I want to move to Denver? I don't know. Do I want to live somewhere else? I don't know. I know I don't want to live in Cincinnati or Cape. If I had a job lined up in Denver, maybe that would help me out. But right now, I look even 6 months in the future, and I see nothing. Five years? absolutely nothing.
So what do you do when the light goes out and you have no idea when it's going back on? Well, I guess you just put one foot in front of the other. You keep on keeping on. You trust that at some point, that light is going to go back on. That instead of falling off a ledge into a deep bottomless abyss, you're going to get to where you can see the light again. So that's what I'm doing. I'm putting one foot in front of the other. I'm hoping that at some point, there will be a light. I have no idea what that will look like. Absolutely no clue. But when that light goes out, you move to the side of the tunnel, put your hand on the walls, and put one foot in front of the other.
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