Who said answers don't fall into your lap?

I've been struggling with some demons lately, and the forefront of my stress is that I am utterly terrified of falling back into old "habits". At rehearsal I, quite literally, had a sign fall into my lap. It was something I wrote about a year ago:

"To tell you the truth, I don't know when it all started. The restlessness, the unhappiness. One day I woke up and found that my life was no longer enough to hold my interests. That's a bad sign. when you yourself cannot convince yourself that you are interesting or worthwhile. I never wanted pity or to drag someone else down with me into my own personal private hell-- so I internalized. There is a reason one shouldn't internalize. It comes back-- nothing will stop something from coming out if it wants nothing but to be seen or heard.

So I took to writing, to funnel a jarred and twisted, albeit innocent, childhood, a frustrated and rocky adolescence, and an awkward adulthood into imaginary people. To take my shortcomings, rises and falls, and memories and give them to someone else. It helped immensely. Its amazing and I love it, the freedom that comes with anonymity. I could be anyone, do anything, and no one would judge me or call me ridiculous because it was fiction. A work of my mind and my heart. With my writing I could take the bad moments and feed it into a poor soul, and then lead them to a world of wonders where the would face their demons and win. Conquering the world, and living happily ever after. But it has become my undoing, I am envious of people that don't exist, of people that I created. I found refuge from my darker days but created a new realm of evil and self directed rage.

Pretending that I am fine-- pretending I was as normal as everyone else, as normal as everyone else wanted me to be-- was easy for a time, but all good things come to an end. It began to irk me that I couldn't embrace myself-- it's not to say that I didn't show others my true self, it was that I couldn't personally reconcile who I have become with who I was. I can't draw a line differentiating the two, nor can I see how it is so easy for others. People are generally harder on themselves, and I am no different. But I cannot seem to forgive myself for things I had no control over.

It's the victim mentality that most battered children fall into, and the remaining problms that arise differ person to person. I myself have a martyr complex, and a self destructive streak. I tend to sabotage myself, and overload myself-- pretty much to punish myself, to ensure that even in happiness I'm setting myself up to fail sooner or later. That's one of my problems. I'm punishing myself for something I had nor will I ever have control over. I can't change the past, and I can't make myself forget. Though I desperately wish I could. That's what we all wish, to not own these memories anymore; to be able to take back our innocense. To be able to be free.

And now I'm scarred from it. I can't have normal, functioning relationships, even the idea of letting someone in seems dangerous. No matter how happy we are, how flawless we are, I can't shake the feeling that something bad is about to happen. Trust is given too freely, too willingly from me, because I want to be proven wrong-- that there ARE people who won't hurt me. But therein lies my paradox, in my efforts to be proven wrong, I'm all too often proven correct. That makes for even bigger complexes to arise.

As a survivor, I seek love and acceptance because it's an affirmation that what's happened doesn't define me. I want to know that I define me. I need to know that my past won't mark me, ruin me, or keep me from being me."

This shows me that I've grown from this; that I'm going to keep growing. Nothing in life is easy, and when have I ever had it easy? I'm a boss bitch, and I'm no longer the poor girl who tried to find the answers in other people. I'm in this for me, and mines. You're on my team, or you need to get out of the way.