Two Lives

Recently, I've been feeling more and more like I'm living two separate lives. In one life, I am highly successful. I am good at what I do. I enjoy what I do. I'm happy with my work and school life. I love it, even. In this life, I can embrace my struggle with self-injury. This life includes my blogs and opportunities to help others in similar situations. It also includes my faith.

In my other life, I have several good friends, but the relationships that are most important to me are in bad shape. I have not yet told many people who actually know me about my self-injury struggle, and so I have to wear long sleeves and be careful not to expose recent injuries or obvious scars. I have not told many people who I know in real life about the troubles in my marriage, and so I have to carefully tiptoe around those issues. It is a stressful, difficult life.

If it's so hard to live two lives, why do it? For me, it's a combination of not wanting to burden others, particularly my family, with my issues and being ashamed that I have these issues to begin with. However, I am always available to family and friends when they have issues, and I do not offer judgment or shaming to them, no matter what the problem. Strange, even hypocritical, right?

Something I'm learning, and that I think it's important that you learn with me if you haven't yet, is that our problems matter, too. I think many of us who suffer from depression and self-injury also suffer from codependency  We get so lost in taking care of others (which we often do in negative ways, whether we realize it or not, such as manipulation), that we lose track of ourselves. So, I'm telling you now, your problems matter, your pains matter, your struggles matter, and everyone has struggles. They are nothing to be ashamed of. While I'm not advocating a social media shout out of all your issues, do not apologize for needing to let people into your struggle or for seeking advice or for having struggles at all. These are things I have frequently apologized for in the past out of shame. No more.

Thank you for sticking with me through this long post. If you're interested in learning more about codependency, check out a book called Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. I'm not an advocate of self-help - I honestly believe most of it is bullshit. This book, at least as far as I am into it, is not. This is written by someone who has been there and figured most of this out for herself through experience. It's worth your time. I promise. Now, go take care of yourselves, y'all!