Half way through 2024 .. what the heck has happened? 👀😅

The truth is, if I'd known how the first half of 2024 was about to transpire, I might have chosen to opt out. But there are certain things that give you NO choice - particularly if you want to get serious about sorting your shit out. 

My outlook on life has completely changed in the last few months. This is even more of a 'question everything' time than Covid was for me, in some ways. One of Neale Donald Walsch's books is called 'When Everything Changes, Change Everything'. So much has changed in my life .. 

In the space of five months, I've gone from:
Having a job to having no job. 
Living in Manchester to moving back to Poole.
Having an online relationship that I'd invested some hope and even money in (which was crumbling by early February) to being completely single again and really wondering if my last hope of a romantic relationship was completely gone now. 
Thinking I was going to go into some sort of spiritual business to having to completely rebuild career wise.
Being mentally reasonably stable to going completely off the rails for a little while. 
Thinking things were going to work out to having all my issues intensified. 
Being part of a large community in Manchester to losing that community and building new and existing connections down south.
Identifying as 'spiritual' to identifying as 'I'm not sure what my beliefs are'.
Having a completely different perspective of what 'inner work' is. 

As you may know by now, I don't do fake positivity or pretend I am super grateful when I'm not. 2024 has been a brutal, traumatic and pretty catastrophic year for me, and I know that many people have been struggling. Something has surely been in the air. For a little while, I had completely lost hope; all my issues were magnified and it was totally overwhelming. God had abandoned me, so it seemed. Some of the thoughts that came into my head were straight from the depths of horror. 

RESTORATION OF SOME HOPE
What has been made very, very clear to me is that unresolved trauma, particularly from childhood, has been essentially running the show for most if not all of my almost 50 years on earth, along with some of my neurodivergent brain functions. And also, just how serious this stuff was for me. There was not going to be any quick fix; no regression or hypnotherapy or Reiki or deliverance from demons was going to provide a magic cure. There was some big, big work to be done. 
Fortunately, I have maintained a strong interest in personal growth, mental health topics, some aspects of psychology, and how life's challenges can affect us. If there's something that can help me, I want to learn as much as I can about it that is useful. 
Two YouTube channels, Crappy Childhood Fairy and Tim Fletcher have been particularly helpful for me and given me some insight as to why I am the way I am and how complex trauma has played out in my life. At the moment I am listening to Tim's videos which are very insightful and contain years worth of knowledge and research and experience. I highly recommend both channels for people who are struggling with trauma and PTSD. 

LOOKING AT THE REST OF 2024 - WHAT NEXT?
The obvious answer is that I don't know what will happen during the next few months; there are times when life is completely out of our control and things happen whether we like it or not. However, I don't feel it's going to be quite so intense as the first half for me. I don't expect to be completely better by the end of the year, but I am taking small steps to helping myself. 

Charmouth in West Dorset, courtesy of Flickr

I always expected to move back near a coastline someday, but I wasn't really planning on moving back down south (although I had been thinking a bit that it could be time to be a bit closer to my family). It is good to be back near a coastline; I don't intend to stay in Poole forever but I do intend to stay near the coast and not too far from my family as things stand - and whilst I have to put a disclaimer in because I am fairly prone to changing my mind on things, as things stand I don't feel like I'll be moving back up north anytime soon. 

This year is partly about finding myself; looking back I can see that I wasn't being my true self in some ways. My connection to God and Spirit has changed - to be fair it's been bordering on non existent or completely non existent over the last few months, but I still expect to have some sort of connection going forward, whatever that may look like. 

Everything has changed for me; I am making a lot of inner and outer changes too. Life has taken me in a direction I wasn't expecting or even wanting, but I needed a big kick up the backside. 

Onwards and upwards. 

When your hopes and dreams are shattered and it feels like you've lost everything. Starting again from point zero. Recovery from complex trauma.

For years, I'd been focusing a lot on externals. Two in particular - relationships and career, which I've had big struggles with all throughout my life. I've always wanted to do something different away from the 'matrix' but wasn't really sure what, and I bumbled along in low paid jobs, all the while being very sensitive to pressurised work environments and stress. 

It finally seemed like things were starting to come together by the end of 2023. I'd connected with someone long distance - even though I said I wouldn't do long distance again (I certainly wouldn't now, not a chance). Love can blind you to important things. There were things (not even the long distance) which were either a clear deal breaker or would have required me to do things I did not want to do. I rationalised these things, thinking that God would heal me or something. 

I'd embarked on a course and was looking to set up a business aligned with my values. But after a few months, I still wasn't really sure exactly what I wanted. I clearly wasn't ready to become a life coach or do spiritual retreats and stuff like that, but was deluding myself because I was so desperate to escape the 9 to 5. 

These two things, combined with a difficult job, contributed to sending me into a tailspin - the 'black hole', as I call it, started in February. Relationships, even if they are long distance, can really bring out your shadows. 

I called off any chance of the long distance relationship becoming a physical thing, and quit the course. My desires for relationship and a change of vocation were absolutely shattered. My connection to God was gone, and I didn't know if it would ever come back. I moved back to my hometown; Dorset is beautiful, but it has connections to a lot of bad memories for me; a big part of the reason why I made a fresh start up north in 2007. I already had a few friends down here but essentially I lost most of my friendship connections. 

My life was finished. My life was over, my heart shattered into a million pieces. The bad side of me clear as day, like never before. I couldn't go on pretending to be a good, spiritual person. I was broken, selfish, angry with God and the world. Things were so far removed from what I wanted. 

Mental health is no respecter of persons
I've really had to come face to face with reality, with the fact that my inner state was a lot worse than I realised. I already knew my childhood had affected me greatly, but now it seems like it has done so in a far bigger way than I realised. I knew my issues were complex, but I didn't want to face the worst of them; again, I thought some kind of miraculous healing would take place. 

Unpacking my issues and the way I am is going to be the most difficult thing I have ever done. I was so traumatised for a couple of months or so that I could barely speak. Mental health issues are not something we choose; they are largely out of our control if they relate to childhood, they don't discriminate and they can affect anyone, even those who have been brought up in loving families. 

I always found it hard being a late developer, but now it really does seem like I'm at a point where I should have been when I was 18. Everything has to start again - whether it's relationships, career, spirituality, friendships .. everything I was working towards is now gone. 

Honesty - Highway Sign image

RECOVERY
I don't know what recovery is going to look like, and I imagine there'll be some tough times along the way. But it's time to be totally honest with myself - in terms of the way I have reacted when my buttons have been pushed, my narcissistic traits, the ways I don't like myself and struggle with people. There is no hiding place. It feels so raw to be facing decades worth of trauma head on. 

As J.K.Rowling said 'Rock bottom was the foundation from which I rebuilt my life'. I went through things that were so brutal that I wonder how on earth I survived. I ate little for one and a half months, my throat had become affected to the point where I wondered if I could choke if I ate a big meal; thankfully this didn't last too long and I did start eating properly once I got to my parents. 

DARK FORCES OR TRAUMA?
I've had some real battles with what seemed like malevolent entities. It had got to the point on occasion where they were trying to get me to believe that I was the devil itself. People may laugh these things off - but I do think there are some demons about that can take hold of someone. However, I also believe that religion and spirituality can make these things seem greater than they actually are. The fear of hell is very powerful, religious conditioning is very powerful. It would be great if I could have just 'let go of it', but it's not as easy as ABC. 
I still have some work to do on that, but right now I'm more focused on recovering from my complex mental health issues. 

I know this blog isn't overly cheerful, and probably won't be for some while. I want to keep it real about where I'm at, and who knows, it might even help someone. 

Peace.