Proud. The one word that when I think about it, brings up so much sadness and anger. I have never felt proud of myself, but I poured my pride into other people and made sure those around me knew that they were enough, doing all the right things and creating a great life. Meanwhile I stood there telling myself that I didn’t deserve happiness, that my trauma wasn’t real, that I don’t get to be sad because I have too much going for me. Well, you know what, sometimes the people that seem to have it all together just don’t. When I pictured my life, I didn’t see a broken woman fighting a war against her brain…the anxiety, depression, ptsd, and addiction. I saw someone who was living the life of her dreams, but present Sara doesn’t measure up to what I wanted my life to look like, so now I work to become her. I can’t continue to gaslight myself into thinking that my experiences aren’t valid, that the feelings I feel towards them are too much…that I don’t have the right to be sad and take resources away from someone more deserving than myself. I tell myself every day that I am worth it, that I am loved and that I am not too much but it hasn’t stuck…I don’t believe those things. I feel the opposite so deeply and I can’t shake it off. How the fuck did I get here, to this place where I can’t even believe that I’m worth fighting for…sure I’m getting help for my problems, but in doing that I don’t feel proud for reaching out, I feel shame for not being able to process my own damn emotions by myself. I am tired, I am sad and I don’t know when I will be myself again, but despite it all I’m still trying. Maybe one day I will believe that I am enough and worth it but until then I will remind myself daily with the new habits, I’m creating by giving myself 10 uninterrupted moments each morning and evening to write my thoughts and feelings. Processing my emotions will take time, and learning to trust that my experiences and reactions to them are valid may seem impossible right now, but one day, everything will be okay.
Learning to Manage the Unmanagable 
A poem for you:
The Journey
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
–Mary Oliver
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Another one:
When I Am Among the Trees,
by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
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