Really Real Mental Health Post

Sometimes I see a meme and it just resonates with me.

I used to share most of the memes that resonated with me, and even now I go through periods of time where I share a lot of them because the meme seems to say it better than I could.  There’s also the fact that if it spoke to me, maybe it can help someone else.  There’s this fine line between sharing something that speaks to me and jumping on the train that has me sharing a dozen memes in the same day.  I feel like the more I write and express myself this way, the less I need to express myself through sharing other people’s words.

However, some of them still make me think.

There are a lot of them floating around that deal with why people from abusive pasts deal with things the way they do.

The one that grabbed me today was about how being abused can cause difficulty with distinguishing between people who are “not obviously pleased” and people who are “obviously displeased” because of the quickly changing moods of their abusers, with no discernible reason.

Holy shit, that feels too real.

I need very clear cut indicators that everything is okay, or I think everything is not okay.  And if everything is even a little not okay, then everything must be REALLY not okay.

A good example of this is in text form.  It took me a good 6 months to feel confident that Wonder Woman sending a Kissy-Face emoji, instead of the words, was honestly her way of saying “I Love You” quickly, and not her being short with me because she was upset.  I still, a year later, have to remind myself sometimes.  It isn’t because of anything she’s done to make me think that, it’s because, in absence of proof that everything is 100% okay, I feel like things are definitely not okay.

My anxiety is my problem though, and I try not to ask for reassurance very often.  Part of this is also that I have seen over and over again that when there is a problem, Wonder Woman lets me know and we talk about it.  I try to surround myself with people who are also upfront and honest about problems so that we can talk them out.

On the flip side of that, I’ve started being more honest with myself and therefore, with people around me about problems because it’s way easier not to be that unpredictable angry person when I discuss things as soon as they are upsetting me.

All of these thoughts came from a ‘not so silly’ little meme on Facebook.  Some little text based thing that resonated with me.  Something that in the past I would have just shared.