Why I'm Fucked Up

On this road of healing on a wholistic level- not just mentally and emotionally, but physically too- one of the things I've done is change my diet; I cut out gluten and refined sugar. I've visibly and physically noticed a lot of Ppositive changes; pain in my joints has gone away, I'm loosing weight, having more energy, etc. But an unforeseen byproduct of cutting those things out of my diet (in attempts to heal my body to be able to absorb vitamins and nutrients that help fight against anxiety and depression) is that it's resulted in having a very sensitive stomach. Now when I ingest gluten or refined sugar, it wreaks havoc on my body. It's not that it wasn't wreaking havoc on my body before, it was just tolerated and the toxicity was far less obvious and therefore the damage was much deeper. I have this app that reminds me of social media posts that I've posted on that day years ago. Right now a lot of what's been coming up have been posts reminding me of how hard I tried to make it work in YWAM. Posts like, "I love my YWAM family"... "Dreaming with the staff"... "Excited for what God's doing at YWAMSA" ... "Listening to Brazilian music and writing newsletters to supporters."... But it wasn't working. What those posts don't say is that every single night I struggled to not chug a bottle of port I kept handy. What those posts don't say is how I cried constantly. What those posts don't say is how angry I was from not being heard by God or by my leaders- how powerless and voiceless I felt. Those posts don't update followers on how I punched a wall so hard I nearly broke my hand. Those posts aren't letting people know that I completely lost hearing in one of my ears due to severe stress. Those status updates said what I wanted to be true, not what was my reality. Like having something in your diet that's doing harm to you; after awhile your body stops sending the immediate danger signals and your body adapts, but it adapts in ways that cause significant damage. I kept swallowing and pushing through all the red flags trying to make it work, taking the blame, blaming myself, punishing myself, trying harder, making excuses for everyone doing me harm; hell I even tried to learn about Brazilian culture and Portuguese so that maybe they would accept me and treat me better and I wouldn't feel so God damn alone. I kept doing all these things and eventually my body stopped sending the clear warning signs, the warnings were buried and its roots stretched deep and wide and grew into trauma- trauma that caused severe pain. And it wasn't until the pain became too much to bear that I was willing to cut that ingredient out of my life. This is why I'm fucked up. This is why I'm on medication. This is what gave me PTSD. This is why I have panic attacks and depression that besiege without mercy. This is why I'm in counseling and seeing a psychiatrist. There are as many reasons and influences as to why I felt the need to try so hard to make it work in YWAM as there are leaves on a tree. It was bad teaching, it was bad leadership, it was false obligations, it was a dysfunctional view of God and self, it was lack of self worth and self care... it was a hundred different toxic, depreciating, unhealthy, stunting beliefs. The pain I feel at present are the lingering consequences of daily choices made years and years ago. Take away the consequential PTSD and I have a beautiful life. Take away the panic attacks and the depression and I LOVE my life. We all have to live with the choices we made in the past, but the ones that I find hardest to live with are the choices we made that were influenced by people who maybe didn't know any better and were made because we ourselves didn't know any better. Because now that the main ingredients are gone, I'm so much more sensitive to the immediate warning signs... but oh the damage they did when they were swallowed a hundred fold. Take care friends. Trust yourselves.