Sense of Then

I do worry about negative repercussions after I post here. I’m aware this is a public platform, and I don’t limit the audience. I’ve also refrained from too much identifying information — though I know that’s still not enough, if someone really wanted to identify themselves in my posts.

The fascinating thing is: even though I’m posting about my own memories, how it feels to be me, and how I’m trying to metabolize old trauma, I have decades of being told my perception of reality is wrong. Or that I can’t say something. Or that it’s up to me to fix my feelings — that no one can make anyone feel a way they don’t want to feel.

That last one is fascinating to sit with now, because my therapist explained it differently: feelings are natural. You can’t control how you feel. You can only control what you do with that feeling.

Being told my feelings were wrong, that I needed to not feel them, that I should be able to control how I felt — that was very confusing over the years. It forced me to hide my feelings. To question why I felt a certain way. It kept me situated in a conflicting paradigm of who I am, and why I am wrong, all the time.

But I am not wrong. Being myself is not wrong.

Projecting shame and blame onto me was wrong. Yet I still feel punished for other people’s choices.