Heart of Destruction

2014 is here, and wow, is it a cold start to the year!  The city of Chicago is now being called ChiBeria, but I'm guessing it could give Siberia a run for its frigid cash. 

Today, with the start of a new year, I'd like to give voice to something that's really been on my mind the past several months.  If you're looking for a positive and upbeat post, you might want to skip this one and grab some hot chocolate and a stack of Parks and Rec DVDs instead.  (I love that show!)  However, if you're up for it and can handle an emotionally raw and long post, please read on.


I'm the kind of person who craves to be in control.  I'm highly self-motivated and am pretty much unstoppable when I want something.  Not necessarily in a dominant, all-consuming way, but rather in a "This is MY life and I'M the one in charge of it" way.  While I can handle change, it can sometimes be difficult when it seems like things are changing fast and leaving me in the dust.  It also can be difficult when it seems like I don't know all that is going on. 

That's a big reason why being stalked was so highly traumatic for me.  I didn't know when the man who was stalking me was going to send a letter or a gift or leave a constant stream of voicemails or do...I didn't know what.  However, I didn't want to seek help for its effects.  I spent a whole hellish summer refusing to go for therapy because I wanted to be "strong" and handle my problem on its own.  My parents tried to persuade me to no avail.  "I can handle this," I kept insisting.  "If others can do it, so can I."

When I returned to school in the fall, enough was enough.  Just because I could have problems did not mean I had to have them.  I made an appointment with the counseling clinic and heard a truth I had been trying to ignore.  The trauma I had gone through had led me to develop a generalized anxiety disorder.  Basically, my therapist told me, because of what I had sustained, my mind was trying to find all the traps and not be surprised by anything of that extent again.  It was therefore working in overdrive and excessively focusing on everything negative in its attempts to find problems before they started.  Sounds scientific, but not particularly emotionally healthy.  I wound up seeing five different therapists to treat the anxiety during my last three years of college.  Five!!  I knew exactly the phrase that comes to mind when you hear five different therapists:"What is WRONG with her?"  But I was focused on getting emotionally healthy, and I desperately wanted to be healthy.

Flash forward to 2012.  The man who stalked me tried to re-assert his way back into my life.  Then, in 2013, he did so again.  This man disgusts me, but more than that, he scares me.  I don't know what he would do, and I am taking the appropriate steps to be safe.  You'll note that my full name is not on this blog, and I have never been on Facebook.  While I do maintain a twitter feed, I use a nickname, a cartoon of me as my picture, and "Anywhere I wish to be" as my location so as to keep a low profile.  The main public information about me is related to my job and my academic pursuits.

This new development sent my mind back to where it was several years ago.  "Why is he going after me again?  What is it about me that makes him do that?" I kept thinking.  "I wish I knew what it was--I'd get rid of it or market it."  My wonderful cousin Bryce (same one in the previous post) said I "handled the situation bravely."  But I don't now and did not ever feel brave in this situation. 

It's clear that I've been hurt and have worked to heal from it.  Unfortunately, when we've been hurt, we also tend to internalize that, and it becomes a part of us.  Sometimes, when we've felt powerless, we find it hard to leave that in the past and instead want to never be surprised by a situation like that again.  So...we take that control back.

I have to always be in control of my feelings.  Normally I'm pretty damned confident, but the downside is that I have a VERY hard time being vulnerable in public.  Maybe in private or with my therapist, but I have a hard time letting anyone see me cry.  (The last times I cried in public were at the Grand Canyon and at the end of "The Normal Heart."  Both totally acceptable times.)  And when I find that things seem to be slipping out of the way I wanted or expected them, I will usually either try to bring them back or take my emotions inward.  When I didn't get a grant, I spent the whole day thinking, "Well, if that funder didn't like what I have to offer, why should anyone?" and actually MADE A LIST of all that people could potentially dislike about me.  (The very next day, I learned that the funder had more requests than money to give out...so, not any fault of mine.)  When I met the new friends of a formerly-close friend and didn't exactly gel with them, I feared that this friend would no longer have much of a use for me in their life.  After all, why would they want to be around me when their new friends didn't like me?  I turned incredibly mean and disrespectful towards them as opposed to saying what I felt and working through it like a mature adult.  When I met a cool new girl friend and we wound up hitting it off immediately, rather than being excited about this like I should have been, I totally panicked!  I thought, "She's so smart and cosmopolitan and gregarious--what on earth is she doing having me over for dinner and staying up late talking with me?  What could I possibly add to her life?!"  And....I actually asked her that.  In an email the next day.  Needless to say, I didn't get a response back.

I decided what control looked like and went after it.  And wound up trampling on others along the way.  I put limits on the kind of help I could allow myself to receive, and I wanted that control over everything.  The EXACT SAME thing that was used against me by my stalker.  Control.

It is no secret that we have all been hurt.  It is no secret that we all have hurt others.  It's also no secret that taking out that hurt on others is completely unacceptable, anxiety or disorders or not.  Stewing in our own pain and taking it out on others is completely wrong.  Yes, we've all heard the phrase "hurting people hurt people," but when does it stop?  Really?

I wanted it to stop.

I'm not claiming to be perfect, nor am I claiming to have done a 180/Damascus Road experience.  No one is perfect, and you won't be getting an overdone redemption story out of me cause there isn't one.  But I did want it to stop, and I knew I could relay my famous drive into starting the process.  So I decided to see a new therapist (I won't say how many I've seen by now) and switch up the form of therapy I'm in for my anxiety issues.  I discovered that I'm responding very well to a certain type.  I joined a mindfulness support group, as being mindful of your actions and circumstances helps to counteract the need to be in control.  And I needed to relay that anxiety and need for control into more acceptable behaviors.

My therapist told me something important.  "We can't control how others act, but how we respond to them is a choice."

So much power in those words.  It's a choice.  I like choices.  We all make choices.  At that point, my mind flashed to a song I heard playing in the background at the aforementioned girl friend's condo:

I won't have a heart of destruction
I won't be a part of the pain, I won't play
I quit, I won't be the obstruction
That gets in my way, just gets in my way...

Wow.  (And I'm not talking about the fabulous rhyme scheme of "destruction" with "obstruction" though Ms. Foisy sure can make magic with her rhymes.)  What an important thing to remember.  I can't be the obstruction to my own progress.  I can't have a heart of destruction, for myself or for others.  While I unfortunately can't control what happened to me, I can handle how I act around others.  The heart and mind can be powerful agents of love and kindness, but they can also be harsh and brutal towards those we love and who love us.  Somehow I went from practicing empathy to letting my anxiety and anger get in my own way. 

Revealing my own...dare I say it? 

My own heart of destruction.

Well, I don't want that.  While I may be the same person who entertained that heart of destruction and need for power, I also see that I don't have to make the same choices.  I know that I've put up walls between myself and other people, and that others have put up walls after my own actions.  I am not going to tell anyone how to act, as that isn't my place, but I can definitely decide how I will react and respond to them.

While a lot of people don't really like New Year's Resolutions or keep them, I've actually been pretty good at keeping most of mine and always savor a good challenge.  With a new year comes the chance to pick up the pieces and choose to rebuild.  I'm not asking anyone to believe or accept the change, and I don't know what to expect of it.  I do know that it's hard work, almost as hard as being in therapy, but I'm determined to do all that I can.  If nothing else, it is my choice and I'm making it.

I won't have a heart of destruction.