Old Hurts Feel The Same

Some painful events stay fresh in your brain. You don't think about them for a while then, WHAM! A painful memory comes back with all the freshness of the time it originally happened and the same feelings return along with it.I try to tell myself that those are memories from the past. Things aren't like that anymore. Well, maybe times are not the same but that does not make reliving that time any easier.
A triggering event might color my perceptions for days. There is no way that I can seclude myself so as not to ever deal with the memory that sets me off. Being a mother, a student and a wife gives me no way to hide unless I want to ignore all the things that I am or have ever been. Sure, my family has to come first yet, I second guess myself all of the time. Am I doing all the right things? Am I acting out? Is this just the way I am?What's up with me? Why can't I rid myself of the dark clouds that surround me?

I don't want to whine about my lot in life. Truly I wish I could understand happiness. I wish I could understand joy. I run into people that are so positive...yet, I don't think I've felt that emotion without forcing it.

I know, 'everyone is different' but just for a bit of time...I wish I could feel as if everything I am is simply o.k. to be.Sure, I know my personal happiness doesn't hinge on someone else. In my head...my mind...I know this!
How then do I assimilate that into what I feel in reality.

How do I stop feeling ugly? Insecure? How do I stop second guessing myself and confidently live day to day? I don't know. Although many of my memories aren't bad ones, the ones that come to mind are the ones that haunt me.

  Why is it that some people can put the worst behind them and keep going? 

I remember times like that when I was young. I'd give myself pep-talks. I was idealistic and fresh. Yet...there it always was-that specter of dysfunction. For as long as I remember I have carried it. It is my personality, the part of me that is so embedded that I must accept it and somehow learn to embrace it. 

Maybe changing isn't what I should do. Maybe it is letting myself be that must happen. Maybe the talks, the counsel, the medications to re-route the chemicals in my brain are always going to be a part of my life. Maybe the reason there are so few good memories is because there were so many more bad.... That may very well be my reality.

I could accept that idea if I could make sure that the things I think, the words I say and those deeply buried fears could be controlled and kept out of the way of those I love. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees.