How I Got To Where I Am Now

The post being shared with this blog (which is at the bottom of this page) is about romance, however I feel it can be applied to other close relationships as well.

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Someone recently asked me what I did to be where I am in my recovery.

I replied:

“I shifted my mindset. I stopped looking at my diagnosis of bipolar disorder as the result of brain chemistry and started looking at what was going on in my life leading up to those experiences and episodes. I no longer view my addictions (which have extended far beyond drug and alcohol use) as an illness or disease, I see them as a way to cope when I didn’t know how else to.

I was emotionally undeveloped and I still am. I’d never been taught how to feel, regulate, and communicate my emotional experiences in a healthy way.”

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I used to believe in the ‘unconditional love’ mentioned below. That I should, and others should, be able to act however we want without consequence because if someone really loved us—truly loved us—then they should accept us for who we are. This led me to enduring, and causing, a great deal of harm.

As I’ve learned to stop fawning and people pleasing, which is not: “I matter more”, it’s “I matter too”, I’ve come to see that this mindset of ‘unconditional love’ is rooted in childhood wounds; that healthy adult relationships have conditions.

A huge part of my healing journey has been in taking accountability of my harmful behaviours: The ways I learned to survive growing up that are no longer serving me in adult life. This is to no fault of my parents. They, too, were never given these skills.

Emotional intelligence, which is also known as EQ, is not a character trait, it’s a part of our development. Nobody is born with it, we learn it as we age, generally from our primary caregivers. It’s shown in behaviours such self-awareness, emotional regulation, personal accountability, and flexibility. It helps us hold space for opposing beliefs and nuance. It can aid us in handling stress, adversity, and criticism as it uses these challenges as an opportunity for learning and growth. It’s compassion and empathy—being able to understand the emotional experiences of others even if we can’t truly empathize with them.

When someone is still developing emotionally they may exhibit behaviours such as entitlement, a lack of accountability, poor impulse control, or difficulty in expressing and naming one’s feelings. They may experience emotional outbursts, whether that’s outwardly screaming or imploding. Underdeveloped emotional skills are often evident during conflict, they can be witnessed in behaviours such as escalation, shifting the responsibility, name calling, or emotionally withdrawing (ghosting is a big one in our society right now).

Our emotional awareness and capacity impacts all of our close relationships because we’re a communal species. It’s the daily interactions we have with other people that are amongst the most stressful and rewarding parts of our lives.

I saw a post recently where a man (paraphrased) said:

“I hate that women are so emotional. Does your estrogen blind you to facts?”

Fortunately, many people stepped in to let this man know that hate (anger) is also an emotion.

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I’m not an expert but I couldn’t keep living the way the medical system was treating me. I had to find a different path. Fortunately, one doesn’t need to take formal swimming lessons to learn how to swim. One can even become a pro-swimmer simply by getting in the water. This is how I’ve learned to swim and surf through emotional hurricanes. And, I’m still learning. I’m still growing. It’s not a point I reach and am done—it’s a way of being. The harder part has been in realizing that it takes two (or more). That we are a communal species, which means we need to live, work, play, and heal in community.

Healing relational trauma requires repeated exposure to experiences that are different—experiences of safety. This is how we recalibrate the nervous system. It’s very hard to feel safe and to heal around people and communities that are emotionally reactive (be that outward explosions or implosions). It’s like trying to heal while constantly navigating an active minefield. I can see now how much easier it was to people please and fawn. And, I also acknowledge that those behaviours were my reactivity—they’re how I learned to survive, which is what started the war inside of me. My people pleasing and fawning became resentments that came out in other ways (such as self harm, passive aggression, and gossip). They hurt me and many others.

Fortunately, I am growing healthier connections now that are rooted in shared recovery and growth instead of in shared pain, anger, and struggle. And, I have to do my part: Owning my harmful behaviours, being open to feedback, and continuously working on my own emotional regulation and awareness. The more I do that, surrounding myself with others who are also doing this work, the more able I am to step back into the minefield trusting I have the tools I need to safely navigate this space.

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This mindset shift has been instrumental in helping me get to where I am today.

~Amy Frank

Memes/Post by @psychologycortex (instagram)