Since I've started this blog I've gotten a few comments about people wishing they could be as open as I am about, well, I guess everything. Let me let you in on a secret. Being open and honest with yourself is a lot harder than being open and honest with other people. At least that's been my experience. Once I tell myself the truth and accept it, it's a lot easier to let others in.
Another thing I should tell you, is that being as candid as I have been about some things is not easy. It's actually really fucking hard. It leaves you raw. It makes you uncomfortable. It makes you confront things that make you feel shame. It makes you think about things you try not to on a regular basis. But it's also wonderful. You find others relate to your stories and that helps with feeling isolated. You find people love you for who you are, flaws and all. You confront those painful, uncomfortable things and you can see how they've made you who you are today, for better or for worse. And you confront your shame and when people know your secrets and still love you and accept you, what do you have to feel ashamed of?
I went a very long keeping everything inside. I put on my face for the world and kept almost all but the most insignificant parts of me buried. Every few years everything that I had been pushing down would come bursting out of me all at once. These are the times I said all the things that I thought I shouldn't. I stopped caring who I hurt because keeping it all bottled up was hurting me. For a brief time I would just lay it all out and I would cry and I would yell and I would cut people out of my life, sometimes for good. These times were/are stressful and the only way I know to stop being like that is to let it out, on my own terms, in more of a trickle or light stream instead of in the flash floods and tsunamis that used to overwhelm me.
With that being said, there are some things that even I won't share publicly. Things that are full of too much pain for me to process them on my own. Things that only a handful of my closest people know because they cause me intense, unjustified shame. Things that I am not willing to confront because there is no resolution. There is no way that I can think about it and see it as a learning experience, that just will never happen. These are the things that cause me to break down. These are the things I can't let go. Maybe one day I will, and then I can talk about it, but I'm not there yet.
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