A Writing Adventure

INTRO

Like many people out there I struggle with adversity. I need the constant reminders and inspiration, the knowing that there is always a bigger picture and purpose, it’s just so easy to forget when you’re battling away in the trenches.

But as someone who struggles with adversity, honestly who on earth am I to write about it?

Well, truth be told, the last 20 years of my life have sucked balls (despite having the odd win or two). Man it’s been a hell’va journey. I have crumbled yet grown. I have been tested in ways you could not even begin to imagine. I know emotional pain and longing intimately. Much of my life has been stolen by a devastating illness, blah, blah, galah. Sob stories aside though, adversity is what I mostly think about and write about, my life has been consumed by this war. But in writing about it, this is my way of trying to understand the events of my life. Kinda life a personal de-brief.

Now without going into too much back story, suffering the adversities that I have was never part of my grand plan. In fact, when I became sick in my early twenty’s the whole plan was to get better and just get on with life. Only I wasn’t so lucky. The universe obviously had a completely different agenda.

What followed was fifteen or so years of keeping my head above water, then blmey a few with my eyeballs semi-submerged. Sheesh the last few years have been hard. And it’s these latter years that I want to focus on from the outset. You see, once I reached this point of undeniable Struggle Town I haven’t been able to break the cycle, or if I have only for short periods of time. And far out I am desperate for a panacea. Just to smile on a semi-regular basis would be amazing.

I hope I have the strength to follow through.

Anyhow, for these past few drowning years, I’m starting to understand a lot more about what’s behind them. It’s failure, shame and self-hatred. The failure in that I never got better (and I’m now unable to live a life with normal freedoms), shame in that I’m unable to care for myself or use what was once a perfectly good body, but the most interesting of all is this self-hatred component. Definitely something that’s only emerged over the past few years. Whoa, this is one depressing start but I think it’s very important to detail reality to set the scene. I promise to get to some big time positivity later.

So, self-hatred, boy o’ boy this has manifested in many different ways. From the aforementioned depression to self-sabotage, it’s been a mixed bag, and one full of negativity. Only quite possibly the worst thing that’s emerged from this self-hatred, no joke I haven’t been able to help myself. It’s like there’s been this massive mental block or even a wall built between me and prosperity. This is keeping me in the cycle of destruction. This is driving me nuts. I’m just sitting here copping the punches and taking all of them. It’s no fun. In fact, I’m merely surviving, even in some ways just waiting to die.

This cycle of destruction though, well the reasoning behind writing this and what will follow, I’m determined to unshackle my chains. I want to blow this pop stand. Only what will it take? What is the process? Is there a quick-fix guide? This is what I want to explore and work through here, something I’ve wanted to tackle for years but haven’t quite been brave enough to do so. However, I can avoid this no longer, my day of reckoning has come.

You see, in real time as I write this I’m at one of my lower points in life. I am wholeheartedly down on my knees begging Charlie Brown (God) for mercy and healing. Praying to see that light at the end of the tunnel. I have no choice as the only other option seems to be death, a path I’m not ready to take. Still, right here and now I’m not going to detail this current predicament, more so I’ll let its details come out naturally in the rants that follow. What I will say though is that I’m on my 45^th day of being stuck in bed and I’m damn well sick of it. Serenity now. Crazy life.

Also, being where I’m at, I am desperate for solutions. And some peace. Actually, I just started seeing a counsellor to try to gain some clarity around all this stuff, and in doing so hopefully this will help in forming some practical evolution. Even help in forming a pathway out of this hell. Because you know this really does feel like make or break time, that one last crack or opportunity to save myself. Whoa, that’s a bit dramatic but no kidding this is how I feel. And another feeling, I feel like I owe it to myself, even to those who can’t help themselves. I must try.

But honestly I don’t want to make this all about me, as in sure I’ll use my life and personal predicaments as examples, but my primary focus here is a theoretical exploration of adversity. This is the panacea. I want to create an adversity system. And sure I’m trying to break my cycle, errk this stupid cycle of destruction, yet I think unpacking what I’m about to this is way bigger than just yours truly. Hopefully my ramblings can help somebody else as well. Plus, with all my flaws and raw emotions, the path I’ve chosen to take with all this is one of complete and utter honesty. I’ve found that this is one of the only things that keeps me sane.

So… once again I’m going to use writing as my friend, even as a tool to move forward. It’s just a process that I love and that I tend to get a lot from. This is my organic circus.

And just like that – boom! Here goes another writing adventure…

Which, at this point my idea and structure looks a little bit like this: all I know is that I want to write about adversity from a primarily theoretical perspective (to help drive myself out of Struggle Town). And what I’ve done, I’ve got a large list of topic sentences all relating to adversity or paths out of it, and literally what I’m going to do is unpack one topic at a time – hopefully each being a step out of my own pain. Yep to repeat myself, one step at a time and at my own pace. I believe this is the best way to confront ourselves, it’s like building a house.

Now how exactly is this unpacking process going to go? Well, truthfully I’m big-time into organic adventures so I want this to come from my heart day-by-day and see what spills out. Then any take-aways, inspiration or understanding that people might gain, well to me that’s a substantial bonus. This has always been my process. Brain dump, or as in this case to heart dump. However, one thing I do know is that I want to define each topic and outline why it’s import to progress, but honestly for the rest of it I’ll be flying by the seat of my pants. Fun.

So, all I have is an outline and what I’ll be doing is following the path I’ve created, the steps. Then working through options and perspectives… which is not exactly difficult or rocket science. But you know, I’ve always found that the simplest things work the best. Again, one step at a time.

But no matter how difficult or even how straight-forward this might seem, I think it’ll be worth my time and investment. I believe my dreams are worth it. I believe I am worth it. That’s right, I still have all these dreams to fulfil and this ‘unpacking’ of theoretical concepts is one of the initial integral steps toward achieving them. No loneliness will hinder me anymore, nor sack of supports, nor support networks. I have faith in myself and my own processes, this is where my strength lies. And I also have faith that this will work.

To become the Cairns Ulysses butterfly.

I will not give up.

Only this plan and adventure isn’t completely foolproof, I definitely do know that I am fallible. My life is a rollercoaster, I’m not perfect, and my mental health can be dubious at times. Well, I live in a pretty impossible circumstance. Also, I know that I’ll never find ‘perfection’ and because of a lot of uncontrollable aspects in my life I will always have a certain amount of unhappiness. But I’n finally realising this is okay. Uniqueness is okay. The journey is the prize. So rather than perfectionism being the goal what I’m doing is trying to see is the silver linings, the positives. Which honestly, this is still a work-in-progress.

Heck damn I’ve got a lot I’m working on. Breaking bad habits, to continue on with good habits, to get serious about life, to do what I can within limitations, then to create and help people. Make meaning too.

Then to challenge to myself, to save my life, and to create a blueprint and guide to overcome adversity.

Hullaballoo… Yahweh… Jagermeister…

Let’s do this!