Years of self-pity
There were years when I really could have drowned in self-pity – and often did. Those were the years when I didn’t know who I really was. When I didn’t understand why I had become the person I am. Why I had been suffering from depression for 20 years and from panic attacks at bedtime for ten.
Those were the years when, after my divorce from my ex-husband, I desperately searched for love once more. The years when I clung to people who weren’t good for me at all and practically drained the last of my strength. The years when I hoped over and over again to finally be loved.
Escaping into distraction
During those years I spent a lot of time on social media to distract myself. I laughed a lot, but I also browsed a lot through sarcastic, self-pitying forums and posts. Back then, self-pity was a big part of my life. I was unhappy with my existence, with my story and with not being able to make a relationship work – and I made up for a lot of it with dark humor, sarcasm and, well, a great deal of self-pity.
Until last year, when the first memories came back.
The turning point
Something changed then. For the first time I really saw this little inner child and took her in my arms. Protectively and lovingly. Not out of self-pity, but out of compassion for this little child. This little girl of maybe two to five years old, and later again up to about eight, had to endure so much sorrow, suffering, fear and fear for her own survival that today I feel: I may look at this child with sadness and compassion. And I may take her in my arms.
That was a hard step for me: realizing that this child needs my compassion – and that today I no longer have to drown in self-pity.
Feeling for the little girl
But my compassion isn’t only for the little girl, the toddler and the schoolgirl. I may also have it for the growing girl, for the teenager and for the young woman. For the girl who never really went through puberty because she had regressed emotionally.
For the girl who, at seven, started drinking from a baby bottle again every morning to calm herself.
For the girl who, at eight, already had such trouble sleeping that she lay awake deep into the night, night after night, and could hardly keep up at school.
And for the teenager who never really found where she belonged. Who lagged behind, had hardly any friends, only ever a few contacts and no one she could truly trust. Who was always searching for who she really was.
The young woman
I may have compassion for the young woman who had her first time at 19 and afterward had to hear from her mother how disgusting she was, that her brain was only between her legs and that she was repulsed by her. For the young woman who, for years afterward, found it hard to be at ease with men. Who tried so hard to break out of all this that in her early twenties she went out partying four times a week for two years and met many men who all wanted only one thing. And to many of them I gave it.
I also have compassion for the young woman who, between 20 and 25, was still living at home, doing her vocational training, dreaming of moving out and letting opportunities pass by because her parents were against it.
Young mother, single mother
I have compassion for the young mother, for the 30-year-old who had just had her first child and, out of sheer fear and panic, could hardly leave her bed or the house. Who was glad her child slept so much, and for whom even a single walk around the block with the stroller took enormous effort. Who hardly dared to leave her child alone even for a moment – not even to take a shower. Who didn’t know why she was suddenly so afraid after her child was born, had to take antidepressants and finally ended up in the psychiatric emergency room.
I also have compassion for the mother who is raising two children largely on her own, and who, in her relationship back then, felt more and more that she had to carry a large part of the responsibility alone.
From a position of strength
Yes, I feel compassion for all these inner children in me and also for the woman who has long since grown up. Today it’s no longer self-pity. Today I can look at them from a stronger position. From the position of the mother and the woman who has endured a lot, can give a lot and gives others something to hold on to – even though she herself sometimes nearly fell apart.
And yet the phase of self-pity in my life was probably important. Rolling around on the floor, figuratively speaking, for months or years was perhaps part of it, so that at some point I would reach a point where things couldn’t go on like this. Where I could let in the triggers that told me my story, piece by piece. And where at some point I had the strength to get back up – with the courage and the will not to fall that far ever again.
Today I sometimes have to smile at the way I thought back then, and maybe also lived.
But today I can say: I am largely free of that self-pity.
Sometimes I’m melancholy, sometimes a little sad, sometimes full of compassion for the little girl, the teenager and the grown woman in me. But much of that is behind me. And since the first flashbacks, despite everything, I’ve been looking toward the future with real hope.
Even if it’s sometimes hard and exhausting. Even if it costs me strength and there would surely be plenty of opportunities to sink back into self-pity. But no. I don’t want that again. I have left this phase of my life behind me – and I am so incredibly grateful for that.
Gratitude
On my exhausting path full of sorrow, self-pity, depression and many other troubles, I am glad that I found my way to God. That I found love and something to hold on to there – and the trust that somehow life always goes on, and that there can be a way even when I can’t see it yet.
And the beautiful thing is: I have already experienced for myself that all the sorrow and all the pain I have gone through can, at some point, fade into the background. Because I believe there are still bigger and more beautiful plans for me.