Do I not feel I deserve love?

We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

Seneca

It's coming up on the new year and this is to be a time of renewal and new starts. While I want to change, I also wants to say "Fuck off! I'm not going to change just because someone says it's time to." Living in my mind is a complicated. Does anyone else feel this way?

I have been a bit disappointed on the amount of writing I have done here. I'm sure this is for most people trying to put their words out into the world. The commitment required, is a bit more than what you would think. I have never been one to keep a journal. It is something I would like to focus on more moving forward as I have been able to reflect on what I have written. I do want to make an effort to do this at least once a week.

The day before my therapy session on December 14th, I read this page from Ryan Holiday's The Daily Stoic.

As I have explained I have really been struggling with my current physical health and the remaining days I have left. This seemed to hit me pretty hard to the core. I have read this before, but it didn't have the same impact it did on that day. To put it simply, its not how much time we have left but what we do with it.

In the day of my meeting with my therapist I was explaining that I am really struggling with taking action when it comes to my health. One of the things I mentioned was that I could not seem to take action when it came to that part of my life. I even tried to come up with a "shitty" plan, cause that is better than nothing at all. Trying to write anything down on paper, I just froze, nothing came out. I know what I am supposed to do, but it doesn't seem like I can take any action. It is an extremely weird spot to be.

After the conversation went on for a bit I went on to say that I typically never have a problem when it comes to helping others. If one of my daughters was in a situation and I needed to give them a kidney, you can bet your ass I would take every action needed to make that happen. So why is it any different when I need to do it for me I CAN'T take action? She simply stated, "why do you feel you don't deserve to love yourself?" I was thrown completely off kilter, speechless. I didn't know how to respond or if there was anything to respond with.

This one simple question has me questioning everything. Do I feel this way? I don't think I feel this way or do I? I think there is some validity since it seemed to punch me in the gut. My thought process then started to go down the path of thinking about my childhood. All of problems start there, right? It's all of our parents fault, ha ha.

Trying to talk through it, I brought up both my dad and my mom. After I was about 6, my father wasn't really present. He became a truck driver and I saw him like one week every three months or a few days here and there. Usually during that time he wasn't really "present". Working through his own shit or exhausted I suppose.

My mom on the other hand brought up some more robust feelings. I wasn't sure why I was going down the path explaining this to my therapist, but I couldn't stop myself. With my mom, she did the best she could with what she was given. As I have time to reflect lately, I was a pretty independent kid, an 80's latch key kid. While my dad was gone, my mom always worked. From the time I went to school to 7-8 o'clock at night. Usually cooking myself dinner and eating alone in front of the TV.

While my parents marriage continued to deteriorate, my mom confided in me to share their struggles. Instead of having me be a kid, she wanted me to be her friend and have her feel supported. The responsibility on my physical well being as well as my moms emotional relationship all felt like it was on my shoulders. I needed to be happy, so she was happy. Raising my own kids, I'm trying to be aware of this and not do the same thing. Kids need to just be kids.

We weren't able to come to a conclusion during our session, but it still has me asking questions. To try to deep dive into what may have been causing it, I decided to give my mom a call to see if she had any insight to something that happened when I was kid that may have contributed to something I'm not aware of. That conversation went how they normally do. Mom, how are you doing? What's new? The normal small talk. I let her in that I had a therapy session that afternoon and the question my therapist asked me about not being able to love myself. I asked her if there is anything that happened when i was younger that I wasn't aware of. I proceeded to mentioned that it seems like I'm always willing to put everyone else first before myself....

My mom breaks down crying explaining how SHE is the exact same. That she put everyone else in front of her own happiness, including me. While her feelings are 100% valid and she deserves to feel that way, it was the same old situation. My mom dumping her feelings on me. Trying to be supportive I allowed her to finish the conversation, then asked again. "Mom, is there anything you are aware of that may have happened when I was kid that jumps out to you?". She got quite for a minute, then mentioned "I was always worried about you as a child. When something would come up and we knew you were clearly upset, I'd ask if you were okay. Your answer was always the same", "I'm fine."

The story she went on to talk about in more detail was when I was around five. My dad brought home 2 puppies, Candy and Bull. It's what he would normally do when he was being a dick and making my mom unhappy, the solution was always to bring a dog home. After a few weeks and the dogs crapping or peeing on the carpet, he found them a new home. I really don't remember much about it but I do remember having the dogs, then them not being around anymore.

A bit distraught by the therapy session and the conversation, I confided in my wife the struggle I was having. I continued to discuss that it has me questioning everything. I felt like I had some much progress and this felt like 2 steps back. I referenced the thing I wrote in my very first blog "So where does all of this lead, back to the original quote I suppose. Maybe all my problems come back to this… I can’t commit, so my undecided heart is always looking for escape. Escape through food. Escape with alcohol. Escape from reality."

In her wisdom, she said "Do you really think you are trying to escape and not feel anything? From my point, it's not that you are trying not to feel, but actually FEEL something." .... She was fucking right. It never occurred to me. I used to get hammered so I can watch a movie, just so I could have a good cry.

It's just a reminder that you can have a belief or an idea of something and have that thought be completely off base. It has me thinking about the Seneca quote a bit these last few days. How much are these thing fabricated in my mind? In reality, I have always had enough food, had a place to live. All of my physical necessities have been met. Emotional or mental ones are up for debate, but am I making this more than what it needs to be?

I have more questions now than answers but it seems like progress. I need to find me and love myself...