Friday, March 1, 2013

Acceptance

I think it was Oprah that once said, forgiveness is letting go of the notion that the past can be anything other than what it is. It is not necessarily being happy or content with what happened or with what another person - or you yourself - did or said, but rather simply accepting the fact that there's nothing you can do to change the past. It is what it is.

I have experienced so many mixed emotions in recovery from depression, anxiety, and alcohol addiction: the joy of rediscovering LIFE and reconnecting with my {real} self, as well as fear of the unknown...and the feeling of loss...of being cheated...of missing out on days, months, and years.

I awoke this morning struggling with the latter - trying to accept that dysthymia, anxiety, and alcoholism are diseases of the brain and not character flaws - trying to forgive myself, the genetic cards I was dealt, and the people and circumstances that converged in my head last September in the perfect mental storm that landed me in the hospital.

But, I know...today is a new day. Today I will do my best to forgive and to accept...somehow.


1 comment:

pink.hi-tops said...

From my baby brother:

"I don't like the term character flaws, that insinuates that something in someone's character is perhaps flawed. We are all different in unique ways... in 7 billion different cool ways. but flawed is in the eye of the beholder. i have known you for 40 years and i don't find you flawed. You may like awful Kagagoogoo tunes but i put that aside and I find you honorable and perfect. You are you and that is perfectly true. There is none alive that is youer than you! And no brother alive that is prouder than me. Keep bloggin sis...

Sincerely,

Flawed brother"