Well, friend, it's been too long. I'd love to be able to visit you more often but life sure gets in the way quite a bit.

This year is going to be a long journey for me. I've decided to take my brain on, head to head. I have a therapist. And I love her! It's amazing some of the self-thought revelations I have every week. I'm noticing that I deal with situations slightly different than I use to. I am CERTAINLY no closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. But I think of Bob in "What About Bob"...baby steps. The mind is so habitual. Bad habits quickly become the norm. I'm learning to try a different habit when my brain wants to defer to the norm. A boring and debilitating norm. It's okay to cry. It's okay to be mad. Basically? It's okay to just FEEL. I'm so use to pushing all my feelings away and covering them with laughter and façades that I was losing who I really was. Defense mechanisms can really be the best and worst things for you. I hide the pain of every day life with jokes so I don't have to be forced to deal with the pain in that moment. Well, in my journey, I've discovered that when you do that your whole life, it all comes back up as something else...at some point in time. For me, it's anger and depression.

I'm trying to learn how to deal with those emotions. I'm learning how to communicate in general. I grew up not knowing how to do that for myself. I never communicated any feelings to anybody about any thing in my life. Not even in high school. I started having to deal with things more in college. I formed life-long friendships there and we all went through things together for the most part. I quickly learned how to constantly keep up a front. Pretend I'm happy. Pretend that nothing bothers me. That's also the time I spent the most, in the dark. I was so depressed at times that I really just didn't want to go on. I was actually ready to just die and not have to deal with things. My emotions were at such a heighten state that I also started having flashbacks of my childhood.

My brain was obviously trying to protect me from the past. I didn't know if they were dreams I'd had. I didn't know if they were moments I was just making up. But it was exactly the same thing, every time. I knew it was real. Real devastating, for me. I too, like others in the world, have experienced abuse. I now know why I do what I do to my body, with food. I am protecting myself from being seen as attractive so I won't be hurt by anybody. With therapy, I'll sort things out. Life is hard and not knowing how to deal with life and it's curve balls, only makes it harder.

But I feel good about life now. I'm making progress to a better me on the inside. That's more important than a better me on the outside, right now.

I think the journey just became more interesting for all parties.

Later, my friend.