I Am the Calvary | The Reality

I Want Real Change.

It’s not that I don’t want to be this person anymore, not exactly. In fact, I think I’d like to be even more this person. I’m starting to really love and accept her, you know?

But I am sick of living in these patterns. I’m fed up with the cycles, the warring parts and mixed messages… I’m tired of hearing sadness become impatience and disappointment in the voices of the sisters I turn to for support and reassurance. (Or is that the reflection of my own impatience and disappointment as I label myself a failure and a frustration once again?)

The calvary is not coming…

Nobody is coming to save me… And as much as this capitalist patriarchal system is not my friend (and as easy as it is to blame for many of my major struggles), blaming the system and resenting societal norms and swinging between wholly ignoring it when I’m doing well and then crying about how unfair it is when I’m down is not good for me… It doesn’t do anything to dismantle, reform, or rebuild the world around me. It just tears me down further and reinforces a state of chaos, desperation, and victimhood that I’ve experienced most of my life.

So… If the system tends to work against me and the calvary is not coming, but I don’t want to keep living in this cycle… what needs to happen? What can I do?

I found my way to the chronic illness side of Reddit the other day and I saw a quote in the comments that really struck me —

“Sometimes you can do things you think you can’t. Sometimes you have to.”

And while we can talk all day about how unhealthy and unfair it is to push beyond your physical and mental limits or to gaslight yourself into doing things your body physically shouldn’t due to illness… holding that supposedly-perfect ethical space of how it should be is not helping me with the messy, imperfect, unfair reality. In fact, it’s adding to the exhaustion and contributing to the cycle of build-up and tear-down I want to stop. I will never be perfect and life will never be fair. If I need to compartmentalize or feed some ideas that don’t ring totally true with me, at least temporarily, in order to create the life that allows me to live outside of this chaotic, desperate, destructive cycle… I think I’m ready to do that. Not without shame or resistance or grief… but I don’t want to keep doing life the way I have been and I’m finally ready to try doing it a little less ethically. My inner Ned Stark will sob the whole way… but maybe this is what it takes. Maybe this is why so many of us are so very sad and sorry to our daughters as we bring them into the world… because the reality isn’t what we want it to be, and we haven’t found ways to live that allow us to fully be the change we want to see, as lovely of an idea and as compelling of a perspective as that is.

Maybe all of this will shift… The thoughts are raw and the concepts and quotes and ideas and ideals are all coming together in a soupy mess in my mind. I’m doing my best to sort it all out and be conscious of the path I am walking, but there’s no comfort of black-and-white on this road.

Therapy Progress and Mental Health Discussion

I’m twenty-eight years old now, and I have been in a cycle of extreme highs and lows for as long as I can remember. A couple years ago, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and cPTSD. The diagnosis sort of made sense, but not fully… and in the past year of therapy, we’ve found that it’s likely not bipolar disorder, but rather the unhealed trauma creating these behaviors and patterns. This year has been the most difficult and also the most rewarding therapy of my life, with issues finally resolving and old wounded parts of myself being integrated in healed and helpful ways. I don’t feel like I’m just regurjitating the story anymore; it’s finally healing, changing, and many parts of the story no longer carry the weight or significance they once did. Many lost memories are coming back, and working through those is waking me up to the reality of the ways I’ve been looking at myself and others… where I’ve placed blame or ignored mistreatment, ways I’ve contributed to my sabotage and pain, and so on.

It’s amazing and terrifying feeling my mind change in real-time…

The way I think and the things I notice have shifted so much in the past year, I don’t think I’d recognize the mind of the woman I was then if I were to step back into it now. And yet, I’ve never felt more connected with (or less afraid of) myself in all of her versions, moods, and states of being. I have this immense love for my younger selves now that I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. I hug myself and it doesn’t feel silly (usually, and when it does, that’s kind of a special little bonding moment too, because I appreciate the vulnerability it takes to be silly with someone and I am so happy that I can finally be silly with myself. That wasn’t always true).

I’ve always talked so much about being gentle and having grace in my writing.

I’ve also been incredibly hard on myself along the way.

And yet… I don’t think I’ve ever been a particularly disciplined person. Brave? Maybe. Crazy? Probably a little. Stubborn and determined? Definitely. But disciplined? I don’t know… Not financially or with work, that’s for sure.

A Pattern of Financial Struggle

Since my divorce in 2020, I’ve struggled to maintain my income and housing/basic needs. I’ve had really high highs, like when my online business brought in over $20,000 in 90 days… and I’ve had really low lows, like in 2023 when I had an allergic reaction to a medication while in a toxic relationship and I spent almost an entire year in a dark room making no income whatsoever and truly suffering physically and mentally 24/7.

The constant during those years (was it really only 3? It feels like so much longer) was wishing for a break — for a breather — for capitalism and bills and needs to just please STOP for one second. For a break to not cost me more, for my car insurance not to lapse while I’m in the hospital, for my rent to not be due while I’m trying to heal the cycles of trauma and missed developmental opportunities in my brain so I can function… It has reeked of poor-me, and I’ve known to a point, but have never seen it as clearly as I feel like I am right now.

When I reflect on that year, I notice that I made the bills wait for a whole year. I took that break… and I was sick and I didn’t get much of a break from that, but having a roof over my head and food in my belly for an entire year, even with questionable abusive behaviors, is more than a lot of mentally and chronically ill people ever get… So when I reflected and recognized that, it hit me: a break isn’t the answer. Hand outs can help, but they won’t save me. This is not going to end…

Reflecting on a Dose of Tough Love

This morning, I shared with my best friend the beginning of an old pattern — feeling sick and knowing the work I’ve been doing is taking a massive toll on my body… and I also shared that familiar feeling of panic happening — the one where I realize how expensive (in dollars) it is going to be to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly and tend to my dog’s needs in this world and how unreliable my health is and how scary that all feels — how impossible…

And the message I got wasn’t comfort or a nudge to honor my body. It was a different kind of love… The really tough kind. She told me she was tired and hurting seeing me go through this cycle over and over, that it has been years and she wants to know when I’m not going to be desperately struggling with housing and transportation. She told me every time I push myself to try something and then I give up when it gets hard or inconvenient, I’m making it that much harder to try again. I’m making it more impossible for myself.

I see so much I can’t stand in that message… in the values that are highlighted, in having to push and work in such a way… And yet… I have seen this friend show the deepest of love and empathy again and again, and I’ve also seen her push to incredible limits in order to achieve really amazing and beautiful things that most people only dream of. This is a woman who knows what hard is and who has done it time and time again… probably in ways that make it hard to relate to many other people.

She told me this system sucks and it isn’t fair, but that there are ways to do it that feel less awful — and she pointed out that many of those ways require years (or even a lifetime) of work and dedication to get to. If you want that rare thing, you have to do the rare thing and you have to mean it and not give up the whole way there. And the more “rest breaks” you take, the longer it’s going to take. Yes, rest. You’re human, be human. But if you give up, you’re never going to get there and you’re going to be more tired every single time you give up and start again. At some point, you’re not just exploring your options or getting to know yourself — at some point, you’re just not committing to it at all. So make a decision… and stay aligned with that.

It was really uncomfortable to hear… and I felt waves of shame as I assumed it echos behind every bit of encouragement and support I’ve received from anyone along this path… and I cringe at the thought of how much of that victim voice is scattered through all of my writings shared up until now — and unnoticed by me yet in this post, too. That’s so embarrassing. But… it’s the reality. Growth is messy. We don’t know what we don’t know… And when you write from the heart, sometimes it looks different in hindsight. I don’t know what’s next, but I’m trying to stick to the plan this time and doing my best to get into a stable and healthy chapter in my life. I don’t want to continue living like this, and if I have to be a little messy and a little less pristine…

Well, I’m ready to try it that way.