Active Resistance
I wonder if I do enough. The movies make everything look so easy, but when you’re down, feeling like you’re “enough” to even try to do enough is the hardest part. It sends me down the rabbit hole of thoughts about would haves, should haves, could haves, etc.
When I think about the fears that I have about taking action, I tend to focus on eliminating scenarios that I don’t want happening. For example, I don’t want this situation to get worse, so I shouldn’t eat all my roommates food, or hog the use of the living room all day long. These are some pretty basic examples, but you get the idea. So, when I think of action, why do I think of what not to do first?
Because coming up with something TO do is hard. You have to feel confident enough to come up with actions that you’ll enjoy, or that you can’t shoot down with your wicked depression six-shooter. You dread the cycle of abuse you put yourself through, propping up ideas and then tearing them down. “Stupid, stupid. *hits head with hand and anxiously tousles hair.*”
But what’s worse in the long run? What actually produces action or takes you out of the funk of “not enough”?
I think what’s best for me is to motivate myself out of inaction by seeing what actually produces more pain or discomfort. I’ll make a list. I’ll compare the risks of taking action to the risks of not taking action, and see which one is actually worse. I’ll keep in mind not just immediate risks and concrete risks, but long term and abstract ones.
If I just sit here, will I risk never reaching my potential? Will I risk my health?Will I risk losing even more of the things I own? Will I risk losing the opportunity to work at a job I might actually enjoy? Will I risk my safety and stability in the long term? Will I risk becoming someone who does not take any risks? Will I risk becoming someone that isn’t fulfilled and happy? Will I risk becoming lazy and fearful of any changes? Will I risk never leaving this situation? Will I risk repeating history over and over because I am too afraid to move forward into the future? Will I risk never experiencing anything new?
If I go out there and take action, will I risk being hurt and/or rejected by others? Will I risk failure? Will I risk being told I am not enough? Will I risk being told I don’t have the skills? Will I risk being told I am a bad person? Will I risk being told I don’t belong here? Will I risk being told I can’t do what I love for a living? Will I risk running into someone I don’t want to talk to? Will I risk being abused, jerked around, punished, bullied, simply for existing or being near? Will I risk someone trying to control my body? Will I risk being hurt? Will I risk being unloved or told I am unloveable? Will I risk saying something others will think is stupid?
When I look at both lists, I can see, now that it’s all written out, that one is about feeling safe and secure and tucked away, and that the other is about what others think of me or how what others think of me will make me feel about myself.
Wow. I am afraid of others and how hurtful they can be. My parents played a big part in this, mostly because my bio dad was also too depressed to move beyond these risks as well. These fears related to taking action have mostly to do with all the things I know one time or another came out of his mouth. I remember it always being cloaked in “I’m just trying to help you be realistic” kind of dialogue, or even, “I know what your chances are, and it’s not worth the time or money.” In reality, I know many times it was his own fear, and his own lack mentality that prevented him from being able to encourage me in mine.
He probably didn’t believe he had the money(even though he always had plenty for his own hobbies and interests) or the time(even though he always had plenty for his own hobbies and interests) or the motivation(even though he - you get the idea...) to encourage me in the same fears I had, but had managed to overcome enough to ask him for help. I had overcome even the fear of confronting his negativity each time I came to ask for money, or a ride to an event, or to use some materials we already had in the house, or to even just help me come up with ideas of how to overcome any difficulties associated with my interests. I had overcome the fear that he would say the things he would eventually say, the fear that he would think less of me or think I was wrong or stupid, the fear that he was going to punish me for thinking it was okay to want what I wanted. I would overcome that fear, and ask, and then he would make his, “executive decision.” And that’s where these fears come from.
Except he’s not here any more to tell me no. He can’t say, “No, sorry, I just don’t think that’s a good idea,” or, “We just don’t have the extra money,” or, “I don’t think you’re ready for that kind of responsibility,” or, “I can’t willingly support that with my money.”
So it’s no longer relevant. It’s no longer a fear substantiated in truth. It may have been in the past, when he could control everything I did or said. But not now.
Now it’s my life. And my time. And my motivation. And my responsibility. And my ideas. And my materials and money. And MY fears. They’re mine. Mine to do with what I want. I own them.
So I get to make that decision now, the decision to empower myself and push through the risks that I know will be worth it in the long term, in the abstract, in the concrete, in the here and now.
No more inaction.
No more sitting.