Agency. Self. Identity. Autonomy. My own. Trust. 2/22/18
I’m trying to reconnect with who I am today. I have been through the most drastic changes of my adult life in the past two years, and the person I was beforehand is VERY different to the person I am today. So, I am coming to a place of acceptance and slowly, learning to trust my strength and body again. Honestly, it’s been really fucking difficult to break out of the crippling fear of pushing myself too hard, in a mode of self-preservation, my anxiety has taken a hold of even my restrained joyful moments.
But how do I find myself without the negative influences and destructively codependent people in my life? I mean, those who used to be encroaching on my life at every turn? I’ve been breaking away from them; but struggling to find myself in the breakup.
According to Merriam Webster, personal autonomy is “self-directing freedom and especially moral independence”. Freedom sounds nice, but also scary as hell. Freedom from my solely understood identity of a patient? It’s not that simple. Denial doesn’t work so well for me anymore, these days.
I will always have ‘patient’ part of my identity, but what if I allowed myself more?
In order to do that, I need to trust myself. “…the ability to depend on OURSELVES is based on our experience of others as trustworthy”. No wonder it’s so difficult to find trust in myself, my mother and brother in their own ways, have taught me from day one that trust is broken. Alongside the trust I’ve placed in doctors, who have also repeatedly let me down. Allowing me to stay in suffering for so long.
Which leads to “another damaging effect of abuse or molestation is the destruction of a sense of ownership over the victim’s soul” (Boundaries). Sidenote- The word victim holds too much baggage, so I don’t want to elaborate on the meaning it holds for me, but I do know that a sense of ownership is what I desperately want to regain. My body and soul are mine. Doctors have taken all ownership of my body, so many times over that I’ve learned to leave and have zero ownership nor connection to myself.
To be independent is to be “not subject to control by others”. “A person of independent means ‘showing a desire for freedom’.
A moral is “relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior”.
So to be morally independent in my judgment is to understand what is right or wrong on your own grounds, being an independent being.
But how do I transition from a war against my body (opposite of independence) to a peaceful reunion and therefore a trusting relationship with my mind and body to know what are the right actions I need to take to continue on my journey of healing? I’m working on it. Mainly reducing the wrath of the colitis to start.