One day you think you’re doing alright and then the next minute you’re at LENS going wow I can’t believe I let all of that build up. I knew I had a mountain of procrastination that I just put behind me like you do your laundry on a chair, it’s starts out as a couple things and overtime it just builds and builds until you can’t see the chair anymore.
Neglecting yourself turns you into this person that’s not really you. You become that, then you lash out or your tone, or your body language…because you don’t know how to properly deal with something and you tell people that’s just me, just deal with it, because you don’t need change and everyone else should just suck it up too.
There’s this toxicity that if you’re a man you just need to hold it all in. You don’t need therapy. Suck it up and move on. All I heard was this stereotype so I thought many of my problems didn’t need to be heard and that it’s not that bad compared to what other people have gone through.
In the back of your head you kind of realize “Hey, maybe I just need to breathe.” So you do the ten seconds of breathing because why go and talk to someone because again you’re a man and you should suck it up.
That turns into doing other “manly things” like drowning it with alcohol. Thinking I’ll just drink on the weekends because it’s a great way to suck up all of the week and start fresh Monday. Repeating this cycle with my rose colored glasses.
I was at my lowest, just sucking it up and moving on. It turned me into a horrible bitter person. All the negative experiences I had when I was younger molded me to think I hated my childhood, such as coming from a low income household and going to school with kids who were very well off and not knowing how to handle that situation, or wanting to do things with friends but you can’t explain to them that “hey my parents don’t have the money for that” because you don’t want to be embarrassed to my father being sick almost all the way through high school.
Not having the support I deserved from others made me think just sucking it up and moving on was truly what people did. Then I worked in health care, I saw things normal people don’t see and I experienced things normal people don’t experience, strangers loved ones dying weather they were old or young, weather they had gotten some incurable disease or they had gotten shot or stabbed. I thought that definitely had no impact on the person I was.
I tried talking therapy, I tried hanging with friends who I worked with who could related to what I was going through, I tried all these other mental health avenues that just didn’t fit me. I was able to talk but I still didn’t feel heard or any sense of relief after a session.
Then last year I finally went to Cassie, gods gift to use for blessing us with Lens. She gave me an empty chair to sit in to start cleaning off my chair that had not grown into a mountain of Grief, trauma, and pent up emotion. Week by week we started clearing that chair. That mountain has turned into a hill. BUT, I am beginning to be able to see my chair again. Cassie held me accountable for my actions while at the same time offering support, the kind of support I’ve always wanted and clearly needed.
While I still do drink occasionally I don’t ned to have a drink to have a good time or take the edge off after a hard week. The negative experiences I had as a child aren’t so negative. The experiences I had at the hospital were heard and not just joked about and brushed off.
Instead of having this pent up rage monster inside of me always ready to lash out at the site of any distress, I can now stop and think a little bit clearer with my brain and not have my body feel so tense in any situation that makes me uncomfortable.
So to anyone reading this, You don’t have to “suck it up and move on” because you deserve to be heard and to be listened too. Even though Cassie is not a talk therapist she still lends an ear and some great advice for you to have. You deserve to forgive yourself for others who have differentiated your life. You never know how much impact an issue no matter how little it may seem, can have on you.
Thank you again Cassie.
-Bryan Fleming