On May 7th I was back at Stone Mountain feeling flighty, antsy and anxious. My grounding hadn’t been working as well. When I leaned in to figure out why, I realized I was thinking about others and feeling guilty that I have access to good mental health care that others don’t. Since many of my identities are stigmatized in society, and by mental health providers, I know that it can be hard to find good affirmative care and how lucky I am to have it.
Behind my guilt I realize there is a feeling of unworthiness: I don’t believe that I deserve this access over others because I think others are more deserving, and I don’t feel it is enough for me to practice self love and focus on myself. Behind my feeling of unworthiness is self-hatred.
I don’t deserve access over others, but I don’t like that often I relate to that truth through guilt, unworthiness and self-hatred. Guilt is separate from anger, which I feel too. Behind my anger is love, caring, and my value system (e.g., justice). There is power in relating to the truth that I don’t deserve access over others through anger, love, caring, and my values. I want to be in the world in a way that is motivated by love, joy and power, rather than self-hate. I will therefore try to embrace that loving myself is powerful and necessary.
addressingtrauma 
I’m not sure I understand all that you covered here, but I think that practicing self-love activities and reaffirming your worthiness for treatment and care is important and something you may want to create as part of your schedule. Being able to introspect and understand yourself and what motivations are behind what feelings is a great tool though, that will be key in you moving forwards through treatment.
I think if you’d like to help others in the world, you’d have to start with yourself first, and through taking care of yourself and practicing self-love, you’ll be able to make a greater impact on those you want to help and influence.
So keep on trekking, my friend. You’ll get there. ❤
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Thanks for commenting! When I wrote this post I had been brooding over the fact that it is unfair that I have access to appropriate mental health care and others don’t. I had just realized that I have two emotions connected to this: one is anger at unfairness, and the other is guilt.
These last few weeks some of my feelings of fear and shame had come up again (after something really good happened). In response to this I neglected my blog and did more self-examination. 😉 I’m realizing that sometimes I do help myself by thinking about others, and that sometimes I think about others as a way to distract myself from my hurt.
Now when I go back to my feelings of anger and guilt it’s much easier for me to see that my anger is productive whereas my guilt is not. Somehow that helps me shift things. I’ve also been reading a book about being raised by narcissistic parents who are abusive, and that is helping me understand my feelings of guilt too. I think I am beginning to realize the control that I have now in my life that I did not have as a child.
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Any time! 😀
Wow, that is some incredible work of introspection and learning to understand yourself. Good job! I’m glad you’ve managed to uncover some problem areas and some good areas, ones that need work and ones that are okay as is. That is really amazing. I’m glad that book is helping, too! You’re on a rollercoaster journey with some bright lights flashing in success 🙂
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