naamahdarling:

cumaeansibyl:

naamahdarling:

notjustbitchy:

naamahdarling:

“Acceptance” as a part of emotional healing means “acceptance that this is where you are, and all positive progress will stem from this point in time, you cannot move forward from some imaginary point in the past or future, you can only begin from where you actually are.”

It does not mean “you need to learn to regard the shit situation you were/are in as acceptable.”

That shit that happened/is happening to you?  That is merely the reality of what has happened/is happening.  Your goal is not to say “it’s okay”, to forgive, to say “this situation is fine”.  You NEVER have to say those things if you don’t want to, and you SHOULDN’T say those things if they are not true, it will not make things go any faster.

Your goal is to be able to say “WELP, here’s where we are, in Bullshit City.  I guess we start from here.”

Acceptance is a realistic assessment of where you are and a willingness to begin from there.  It is a recognition that old patterns, whether positive or negative, cannot or do not have to continue.

And it’s not a 100% all-or-nothing thing.  Some days you will be a lot more level than others.  Some days you will be really angry or sad about what happened/what you lost/what is happening.  That’s okay.  But on many and eventually most days you will be a lot more focused on the future, and what you can do.  And believe me, that is SUCH a huge relief.

Soooo, if someone is encouraging you to think of “acceptance” solely as “contentment” or “totally at peace”, they are approaching it wrong, in a very not-helpful way.

If you are struggling, maybe it will help you to see that this important recovery stage is not an insultingly tall hurdle you have to jump with a smile on your face and perfect gracefulness.  

It is merely an end to foundering because you have found your new solid ground.  It will be a quiet, messy thing, and it may sneak up on you, but it will come.  And from there, you can go in many different directions.  New ones.  Ones you never imagined.

If you aren’t there yet, keep going.  Fight and scream and cry if you have to. All that shit is necessary shit!  Do what you gotta do!  Just keep slogging, and try to hold on to the fact that eventually, even if you don’t feel like it, you’ll get there.

The bad stuff will never be “okay”.  But YOU can be.  YOU can be okay.  You WILL be.

I can’t even explain how much I love this post. The idea that healing means saying unforgivable harm is “okay” is bullshit, totally unhelpful, and needs to be stomped out. 

I love  “WELP, here’s where we are, in Bullshit City.  I guess we start from here.” because that’s actually doable. Admitting shit sucks is incredibly important, I really don’t think you can heal if you’re stuck in denial about how things really are. As a bit of an aside, that’s why all that “all positivity all the time! kick negative emotions out of your life!” shit irritates me so badly. Sure, wallowing isn’t super helpful, but pretending things are okay when they’re not isn’t healthy, it’s denial. Fear, anger, and sadness only get worse when you try to suppress them.

“Soooo, if someone is encouraging you to think of “acceptance” solely as “contentment” or “totally at peace”, they are approaching it wrong, in a very not-helpful way.”

So much this! I mean, contentment is great and all and you’re not bad or wrong or refusing to let go if you’re still super fucking pissed about what happened to your sometimes. My personal goal is less contentment than it is “that shitty thing happened a long time ago, I’ve dealt with it, and I’m fucking bored of thinking about it.”

“The bad stuff will never be “okay”.  But YOU can be.  YOU can be okay.  You WILL be.“

People, man.  I love ‘em, but people can be so frustrating.

Because, like, someone says “Stop feeling negative feelings and everything will work out!” and that’s not cool.

It COULD mean that they are genuinely trying to shut you up because they are uncomfortable or don’t want to deal with it or whatever.  Assholes.

But like.

Also.

It could just be that people are shit at cause and effect.

Like, take anger as an example.

• Person A goes through a hellish experience, comes out on the other side with very little anger and frustration, representing a total success of the healing process.  Great for them!
• Person A, now that they feel a lot better, notices they don’t have a lot of anger.  Maybe they have even (gasp) forgiven.  (Not a necessary or inevitable result of no longer being angry, btw.)
• Person A decides anger was the cause of the problem, instead of the result of the problem.
• Person A tells Person B that anger is holding them back.
• Person B feels horrible and invalidated and feels even angrier.

I honestly think that there are people who are just self-aware enough to be aware that there was A Healing Process and there were Major Feelings Involved, but they are not self-aware enough to really put it all together in order.  So they muddle it.

Which is how you get people who are all smiles and sunshine about horrible shit, and who in all goodwill tell you to “move on.”  Those people are really perplexing because, like, you know they went through some shit.  How can they not know how this works?  

But that’s just it.  They think they do know how it works.

They think that they have found the shortcut to not feeling terrible and they want to Share It With You.  It will save you a lot of work, they thing.  This “problem solving” can look like “FIND JESUS” or it can look like “just stop being angry.”

That, or they are fuming rage-beasts on the inside, and just suppressing that terrifyingly well.

I am a HUGE fan of feeling necessary anger.  It is what allowed me to survive.  My anger remained, even when all the other parts of me had been ground to dust.  My anger was still functional.  It couldn’t be expressed, it was eating me alive, but it was also the only genuine thing I had that could not be taken from me.

I still very much relate to my anger.  I need it.  It’s powerful and protective.

Acceptance is a realistic assessment of where you are and a willingness to begin from there.

This is so important. You can’t effectively address any situation unless you first understand it to the best of your ability.

Anger can get in your way, when you’re so pissed off you can’t think straight and you can’t even begin to get a hold on the situation. Grief and fear can work this way too. There’s nothing wrong with that; it’s just part of being human, that sometimes your emotions are so intense they crowd out everything else. Fortunately, acceptance works here as well: you accept that you’re in a difficult place, and you wait for it to pass. Don’t try to force it. The emotions won’t go away, but eventually they’ll ease up enough for you to see things more clearly and start working on a plan.

I sometimes feel like people are thrown by it when I don’t express a desire to “feel better”, and instead just say “no, I need to be sad for a while,” or “no, I’m angry, and that’s how it needs to be right now.”  Especially since I am bipolar, I’m mentally ill.  Shouldn’t I WANT to not feel those things?

But all of my negative emotions are not the product of me being bipolar.  Many, and at this point most, of them are natural and healthy products of being human.  Me being angry or sad doesn’t necessarily mean I am having a downswing or anything.  I can differentiate, and need to be ALLOWED to differentiate, between pain I am feeling due to Life Things and pain I am feeling because Bipolar Things.

I don’t know.  I’m just a huge fan in general of Having Feelings.  Feelings Are Okay.

Like, sure, emotions can stick around longer than they ought to and can wreak some serious havoc, but mostly that’s not the case.  Mostly when you feel very deep things , there is a reason for it, and trying to boot yourself out of that state in the mistaken belief that if you can just MAKE YOURSELF STOP FEELING THAT WAY things will improve sooner is actually harmful because it means the emotion cannot do its work because you’re fighting it, and ultimately it will take LONGER to smooth out.

Being able to stop and say “Hey, you know what? It’s okay for me to be sad/angry right now!” is a really healthy thing to be able to do.  That allows you to say “I AM angry/sad/hurting right now.  Now how do I deal with that in a way that does not hurt me or other sentient beings?”