reality TV lesson #3

there's something that i just realized in watching "celebrity rehab": i'm much stronger than i usually give myself credit for.

i think of myself as being an independent person, but not necessarily an *emotionally* independent person, because i've always needed and relied on the emotional support or approval of someone else.

i've learned in the last few years that i *can* rely on myself. in fact, sometimes it's the only option. i have finally realized that if i experience something (good or bad), i don't have to share it with someone else for it to seem real to me. i used to feel like that: that my reality didn't matter unless someone else knew about it, too.

i don't think about my positive traits as much, or as often, as my negative ones, but after watching this show, i see that there are so, so many people who are in pain...who are tortured by their past, their shortcomings, their childhoods...and many of these people refuse to deal with it, or self medicate, or shove it down, and then sprinkle it over their kids like toxic fairy dust.

despite fear and anxiety and depression, i have rarely, if ever, been afraid to deal with my issues. i have pushed them to the back of my mind until i was in a better place to handle them without completely falling apart. i have waited to pursue a long line of internal query until i had adequate skills with which to recover, but i don't hide.

i think part of the reason i didn't drink or use drugs as a means of escape was because i knew that there was a lot under the surface, in my psyche, and to go there while i was in an altered state would have been much more damaging than the little gerbils spinning their wheels in my brain could ever be. or maybe i just never had it in me to feel out of control and exposed.

i don't even think i'm really afraid of working through, and unloading, my baggage. i *want* to get better, and i want to be as emotionally healthy as possible. i'm not afraid...of hard work or of unearthing negative, scary, or difficult information.

the truth always comes out (and i don't use the word "always" lightly). if you're burying your past, you're lying in a way, and that pain will eventually carry over into every part of your life, like an echoing scream.

i'm not afraid of work, but i am afraid of appearing weak. my downfall was my inability to admit that i needed help. i know that i'm a strong person, but sometimes there isn't enough strength to fix it by yourself.

lots of problems are more complex than any tool we've been given.