The most dominant image I have is me sitting on my couch staring
at the ceiling. But really I was luckier than that – it was a beautiful fall,
and I spent a lot of time lying in the grass soaking in the sun. In the park
down the street… on the field across from the gym… on the hill by my office…
resting my concussed
brain, trying to cope.
I was coping not only with the concussion, but also with the
effect of the concussion on my basic emotion regulation abilities. It was like
there’d been a buffer zone around my feelings that had dissolved, dissipated. Hard
feelings turned to panic much more easily, with a dangerous intensity. And
panicking could only make things worse: spiking my heart rate, sending me down
a steep dark spiral, and only aggravating
the injury further.
So I had to ground myself. I had to. Feeling the grass
underneath each limb, waves of guilt and shame and fear threatening to flood my
system for uninterrupted hours in which I was supposed to be recuperating so I
could get back to the very
limited amount of work time my brain could take. Fear, shame, guilt. Fear,
shame, guilt. Regret.
I have done everything
right up to this point.
That’s how I would anchor myself.
I am alive, loved, and
enrolled (as in, enrolled in grad
school, even if I didn’t know when or how I would be able to finish).
I have done everything right up to this
point.
I would focus on those words, repeating them over and over
and over again, for weeks and weeks.
---
Of course, it wasn’t true. I mean, it was true that I was
alive, loved, and enrolled. But it wasn’t true that I’d done everything right.
How could it be? That’s not a thing.
I said it to myself so much that it became a habit – telling
myself I’d done everything right because at least I’d gotten to that point, still
in the game, with people in my corner. But those good things can be true even
if I haven’t done everything right. And I haven’t. I didn’t do everything right
in concussion
recovery; I didn’t do everything right in grad
school (shh don’t tell!); and I certainly haven’t done everything right by
the people who have so valiantly loved
me.
---
I want to hold these truths. I need a way to be here and to
feel them and then to do the repair I can do in/for myself, in/for my relationships,
and in/for my communities. Can I tolerate the reality that I have not done
everything right, without getting stuck in spirals of regret or shame or
self-flagellation?
The first step is feeling the feelings. And then comes speaking
back, but not to negate or deny what I’m upset about having done. Not to claim
rightness or say it’s okay when it’s not. What can I say instead to speak
directly to/with those feelings? I’m gonna play with some ideas here, and I’d
love to hear feedback and reflections from you, too!
To regret, I could say: This is how
things have happened. I did what I could at the time. This is the only way it’s
happened, and this is what I get to live with now.
To shame, I could say: I care about my
impact. I want to understand and address the impact I’ve had. Having a negative
impact doesn’t negate everything about me. Everything else is still true, too,
and I can be complicated.
To self-flagellation, I could say:
Actually what I need is the opposite. What I need is self-care. To do better in
the world, I need to do better for myself. The more okay I am, more aware of my
own feelings and holding more of my own stuff, the more responsibly I’ll behave
towards other people and the more I’ll be able to do for/with other people.
Perhaps these thoughts can help me ground myself in the present
and future,
and engage with the pain and complexity of the past. By paying
attention instead of turning away, maybe I will find an opportunity to do
repair work, and maybe I can expand my capacity to do differently next time.
---
I am alive, loved, and employed. I’ve done a lot right up to
this point. But not everything. I’ve messed up in some significant ways.
I did the best I could. I care about my impact. The more I
take care of myself, the more I’ll be able to address what I can of what I’ve
done, and to do better moving forward.
I hope?
