I did not expect this…

I’ll be honest. I’ve been hesitant in wanting to write another blog this week. Not because I don’t WANT to share where I am at, but because I am aware the last couple of posts have been very heavy and sad and I wanted the next post to be one of happiness and joy.

My reality though hasn’t completely been that when it comes to my current struggles. I’d love to write and let you know that after a couple of sessions I am on a great track and heading towards full recovery in no time. That just isn’t the truth and that’s because I have barely touched the surface.

I’ve had to wait three weeks for an available appointment with my therapist and I have felt every bit of that waiting period. It was incredibly hard to be so dependent on someone for help and not be able to have access to them. I had things I wanted to talk about, questions I wanted to ask and emotions I needed to share and I was left to sit with them. I’m not angry at my therapist or the clinic. There just wasn’t anything available. However, being made to sit with those questions and emotions was very tough and in fact, most of the emotions I felt were a surprise and not ones I expected.

To fill you in on the last few weeks I have been extremely angry….at…. pretty much everything!! As my therapist reminded me, anger is a secondary emotion fueled by a primary one. So where was my anger being fueled from? Sadness, frustration, grief, fear? I think it was a constant combination of them all. All I felt though was anger and rage.

Anger for my life! Before I share with you why I was angry I wanted to share with you some thoughts I’ve been having. Only once in these three weeks did I share any of this with anyone and that was my husband for about 5 mins. Why? Because of fear. I simply didn’t want anyone to invalidate the fact that I was feeling this way about these things. I didn’t want to feel guilty for feeling this way. I wanted to be able to be angry and grieve for these things so I can be at peace with them. Something that I have been learning the last couple of years is that you can AN D it is okay to feel two different ways about something at the same time.

It really is okay to feel incredibly blessed to have children but yet, yearn to have more. It is okay to feel grateful to be a stay at home mum and crave time away to achieve other things. It is okay to be grateful for your body and the work it has done to carry you around, grow humans, feed humans and mourn the old body or younger body at the same time. Feeling one of these things does not cancel out the other. It is okay to hold space for both of these things and constantly shift between them. In fact, I think it’s healthy to do so.

So, yes I am incredibly grateful to have a functioning body, I am so grateful to have all my senses working and I am so grateful to be alive but I have been angry. I have been angry that my body type is one that gains fat easily and has a slow metabolism, I have been angry that my body shape is a pear shape, angry that the first places I gain weight are my hips and chin, angry that I have freckles, angry to be so pale, angry that I have an eyebrow that grows hair upwards in the corner and will never have ‘on fleek’ brows (not that I actually care but it would be nice to have the option), angry that my genetics give me stretch marks for simply breathing deeply (obviously an exaggeration but you get the idea). Angry that I don’t have a sister to help me through this, angry that I can’t take ‘sick days’ to feel down, angry that I can’t get on top of this eating disorder.

Mostly though, what I am REALLY angry about is that a lot of my issues are from the trauma that happened to me when I was in my childhood, I did not cause it, but I sure am left to pick up the pieces of it. I understand it is my responsibility to fix these things but it would be really nice not to have these issues in the first place.

And so, I have sat in that anger for weeks now. I have felt rage pass through my body and you know why? Because I’m scared. I’m scared this is going to be hard. I’m scared to constantly juggle finding happiness in the moment and still need to improve to provide myself with the best chance of long-term happiness. Sadness for the fact that every morning I wake up I don’t look like a lot of the world wants and even if I choose to learn to not care that I will feel and be pressured by this every day of my life. Grief for the years I haven’t enjoyed because of my limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging loop in my mind. Frustration because I can’t change this overnight.

Do you know what though? Every day I have felt guilty for feeling like this because I recognise and appreciate that I have SO MUCH to be grateful for. In some ways, I am incredibly blessed. However, for my healing and where I am at, I know that this has been important for me to feel. How can you truly make peace with something if you just sweep it under the rug and try to just walk over it and call it peace? I want to be able to be angry and feel these ungrateful emotions so when I say I am grateful for things I can completely mean it and not have this little list tucked away.

I dare say that from time to time, hopefully, a longer period between them this anger will crop back up again and I will let it have its moment, run its course naturally and then put my big girl panties back on and keep fighting to feel whole.

So, I’m sorry that I’m not at a stage where I can write a happy and fulfilled post. Right now, I am in the thick of it and I need to have my time there. I know that by allowing myself to be here right now I am allowing myself the opportunity to get ready for that post. I don’t know when it will come and there are definitely still many moments of happiness and joy in my life but if you are angry about something, let it out. Give that emotion the space and time it needs, so you can one day let go of it and move forward for good.

I am feeling much better since being angry and even though I can feel my heartache throughout the day it won’t ache forever and that is what I am looking forward to, knowing I would have completely earnt it and you can too!

Love, Sarah Kay xx