resilience

Well I've been back at work a few weeks now, and with a week's extension, I managed to get both my essays for Uni in. I'm back dealing with things at work, and I'm 2 visits down out of 6 with my new friend, Melissa the Psychologist. She's a busy woman and it's hard to get appointments, and I guess that says so much about what's going on with society. Perhaps it's a response to therapists being covered by Medicare now (thank goodness), so people don't have to worry if they can afford to get help.

It has been an interesting experience so far. It makes you aware of words you use and the thought processes you have. It's funny, I was connecting things together before my first appointment. But understanding something intellectually is not the same with processing it emotionally. So that's what I'm hoping to get from the visits. It's been good so far, as I've talked about what I went through with the break up, and it was nice to hear someone independent say that the Ex's behaviour was unreasonable, threatening and hurtful. Somehow just hearing that made me feel...um...better. That's really the only word for it. She said it was a shame that during that ordeal, I didn't have a nice safe haven like her office to come to. I've always thought that if I let the walls down during that time, I just would have collapsed in a heap. I was chatting with Peter about this and he said something that pinged around inside my head for a while. He said that perhaps I was too resilient.

I have to admit that I had a little teary at this. In chatting to Melissa I have realised that I don't like feeling weak, I don't like not being able to sort things out or deal with things. It's part of the reason I felt like a failure having to get a lawyer to help me deal with the Ex. It's also part of the reason that faced with crap, I just dig deep and keep pushing. But I guess there can be times when you've dug too deep and found yourself in a hole. Hence, my eventual and inevitable chats to Melissa.

Resilience is a blessing. It's a great skill to have. There has been much talk in the papers theorising that the current crop of helicopter parents aren't teaching their kids to cope with the ups and downs of life. You can't be protected from everything. Peter is reading a book at the moment called 'The Happiness Trap', written by one of the people off Making Australia Happy (a fabulous tv show I've written about previously). Life is never one endless conga-line of joy, excitement and fun. You have to learn to deal with the roller-coaster, appreciate the highs and cope with the lows. Simple, huh?

I guess that I've been slowly prizing open the walls I put up around myself to deal with the hardship and battering from the Ex. And in doing so I am letting go of the pain I felt. I can't be trapped with those feelings inside the walls around me. I don't want for him to still be hurting me, long after all this has finished. I need to work through it and let it go, and not give him any more power to hurt me. I also need to stop being terrified of ever seeing him again.

Work is still a week by week proposition. There's a chance I'm going to get some experience with another team, but we'll see what happens after I get to meet people tomorrow to discuss this project. Fingers crossed it leads somewhere interesting. One thing I know for sure is that life can take a sudden weird turn in a great direction. If you have the guts to go somewhere new.

So that's where I'm at this week. Steps in the right direction and quite a bit of normality returning. The pressure I once felt is subsiding, and that means I can cope with things a little better. I don't know that I'll ever be good at confrontation, but maybe I won't be so hurt by it. Even when my walls are down. Maybe that is the healthy way to be resilient.

Comments

Anonymous said…
You are resilient and wonderfully clever. Choose your direction and make your dreams happen. You have so much to offer. Kat
Andy said…
Thanks Kat. That's quite lovely to say, and means a lot, coming from you. Thanks always for your support. Andy xoxo