Radical Acceptance

This will be my most deliberate post. I will carefully consider each word, each phrase, each tone, each thought and emotion. This is a radical acceptance of my reality. It is a reality far from my approval, but that's what makes the acceptance so radical. This post might seem like I'm talking to myself, which I partially am, and which the reader might find partially boring. However, at very least it will be honest. This post will take some time. I might need to step away, to relax, to smoke, or to just breath. But I know I can do this. I have been writing my entire life. I have expressed my deepest pains, composed pages of complex philosophy, and even doodled a time when I had no words to describe it. I know I can do this.

I am in pain. I am in pain, but I'm learning not to suffer. I have been in pain before and the suffering came as a result of nonacceptance or judgment of it in my mind. Suffering, the conflict and obsession over the pain, prolongs itself. I learned this dysfunction early in my life, and I lived through it, just as I do so now. My parents, my family, my childhood, was an environment in which I was treated without respect, without understanding, and without support. I was the only boy. I was the adventurous one, the trouble-maker, the risk taker, the rebellious one, the inappropriate one, and the one who did not belong. I have so many memories of events reinforcing these hurts that I have blocked them from my memory, with the only way to retrieve them being a partial hypnosis therapy. I was surrounded by a family of girls and was trained to be emotionally sensitive and vulnerable. The transaction between my family's invalidation and my emotional vulnerability made for a disastrous self-esteem. It left scars. It left me hungering for validation, attention, respect, and love.

Some people would not have reacted this way. Most people would probably have reacted differently. But they are not me. I reacted this way, and in this way I grew up. I grew up with strong passions, emotionally adventurous and vulnerable, looking for love. I grew up strong willed, forcing myself to live up to the highest standards, looking for validation. I grew up smart, thinking, reading, writing, listening, and talking my way towards respect. I grew up with silliness and humor, blissful in attention. I grew up with scars. These scars made me who I was, my baseline personality. At times, they are both my strengths and weaknesses.

The circumstances I faced going to war played heavily on both my strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, most of my experiences hit me hardest where I was most vulnerable. Treated without respect, without understanding, and without support. For this I felt ashamed, a flawed and failed soldier, and one who did not belong, like I was taught to feel. It left scars. I have many memories of events reinforcing these hurts that I have blocked from my memory, only coming to me in flashbacks and nightmares. Because of this, and like before, I need help. I need the help I learned to pursue through friends when family could not provide it. I need the help I secretly pursued on my own through professional therapy, because I was ashamed. I need the help of an emotionally challenging adventure and success. For this, to grow up once again, I need both my strengths and weaknesses.

It has been six months since my return from war and I have made little progress save for the past month or so. Group therapy, four different therapists, three days in a psych ward, and hours of my own research. Two medications to help me sleep, one to disarm my nightmares, one to partially sedate me during the day, and another to alter my depressed mood. After going through more types of medication than I can remember, I have somewhat settled on the right combo. After experimenting with various types of therapy and therapists, I have somewhat settled on what works for me. With a cocktail of powerful medication and a therapy mix of dialectic philosophy and Buddhist meditation, I am coming to rediscovering my baseline. I learned my unique strengths from my unique weaknesses. Some people would not have reacted this way. Most people probably would have reacted differently. But they are not me.