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“On Growing Up”

Recently I cleaned out my closet. In that process I found some old journals. Some I had remembered, but one I had forgotten about it. It was from 2006-2007 and didn’t have a ton of entries, but enough to give me a good look inside my nineteen and twenty year old head. A head I’ve apparently lost touch with.

I have mythologized that period in my life to one where I “had it all together.” I was living alone at the time as my roommate had gotten married and moved out and Ace was off at college (and we were in rough patch in early ’06). I was very proud of myself at the time to have two jobs, being going to school, and have my own place with my own pets. I really did take on a lot pretty quick. I often look back on that time and wonder why I don’t have it so together now. Early in my marriage I would get upset with Ace and blame any and all disfunction on him. That was obviously the thing that had changed in my life.

Now that I’m reading this old journal its become clear to me that I struggled a lot in ’06 and ’07 as well. Its unfortunate to see how unnecessary some of that struggle was. I write a lot about my guilt around not praying enough and my “sin” which means making out with or fooling around with Ace.

My anger at the fact that I was indoctrinated to feel so horrible around that extremely normal, appropriate, safe, and consensual sexual behavior could be its own post.

My anger that my pastor emailed me to let me know he had a dream about me sinning and that he didn’t want me to turn away from God could also be its own post.

Today I’m going in another direction.

My therapist asked me the other day “What would 19 year old Allison think of 32 year old Allison?”

“Well she would be upset at the idea that I was going to hell.”

I was full on “fundie” at that point. I was about the deepest in it in 2006, right before bible college started opening me up to new ideas and theologies about God the next year.

I had a life plan that was totally different. Nineteen year old me was going to become ordained in the Assemblies of God. I was sure of it. I was going to grow our church’s Children’s Ministry and then eventually start a new church plant focused on family ministry.

I was going to get a big house in the suburbs and fill it with adopted children and have happy vanilla monogamous sex for the next several decades.

The last page in this journal is the one that rings most true to this day.

Frankly nineteen year old me would be utterly shocked at how much I’ve changed. Almost everything about my beliefs surrounding religion, politics, parenting, and health have drastically changed. I owe a lot of that to becoming more educated. It was a combination of what I learned in bible college and what Ace learned in bible college that helped me to start very slowly peeling away the layers of fundamentalism just shortly after this journal ended in mid 2007.

On top of that I’ve always loved learning and have continued to educate myself about any topic that seizes my interest. That habit has contributed significantly to my growth as an educated individual.

There are a few interesting things that stood out to me as similarities to my current self; my struggle at staying on task and building habits, struggling to stay organized and keep up with household tasks, being deeply emotional for no discernible reason, being deeply in love with Ace, being extremely passionate about what I view as my life’s mission, being confused about my relationships with friends, loving my parents but being frustrated with my relationship with them, and of course my tendency to process things via writing, both publicly and privately.

Deep under all the guilt and obsession that came with being a pentecostal fundamentalist evangelical Christian there is still me in there. I somehow survived my deep dive into what I would now classify as a cult mostly in tact.

Nineteen year old me wouldn’t think that though. She would think that who I am now has lost track of everything that really matters, that I had abandoned my God-given mission to share the gospel with the children of Illinois. She would be praying really hard for me. Or feeling guilty about not praying enough.

Luckily she’s not here anymore. I’m thirty-two now and still growing up. I’ll never be “grown up” becuase I’m never a static being. Who I am will constantly evolve and change based on what I experience and the way I interpret it . Who I am will change based on my physical location in the world and the people closest to me (both physically and relationally). You might even say that I’ve died and been resurrected as a more authentic version of myself.

I will never be “finished.” I will always be changing and I think thirty-two year old me will be happy with future me as long as I never stop growing up.

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All of the Feels

It always happens that right after I tell my therapist how great I’m doing I have a shit storm of a week. This time I felt so confident in how life was going I didn’t even schedule another appointment!

My life is a roller coaster and this week has been riding though loops. I feel both amazing and terrible all at once. I’m feeling joyous, excited, motivated, energized, while also feeling terrified, shameful, sad, hurt, and anxious. I have all my plans and all my doubts all wrapped up into one little me.

I know a big part of it was going on thyroid medication.

I’ve spent the last two years basically feeling like crap all the time. Very low energy, slow metabolism, anxiety, depression, nonspecific pain, and just feeling down for no apparent reason. A few months ago my new doctor finally helped me find an explanation, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, a not uncommon disease, and especially not surprising considering my family history of autoimmune disease. I knew someday one of them would catch me. My thyroid function isn’t actually all that terrible (according to the labs), but being the sensitive person I am, just it being a little off has affected me in big ways. So my doctor put me on a very low dose of synthetic thyroid hormone.

After a few weeks of being on my new daily pill I started feeling amazing! I was calm and comfortable in my own skin. I was motivated and energized. I felt like a new me! But a few weeks later, as the hormone built up in my body, it was too much. I started having anxiety again, but it felt different, it was more like hyper active anxiety instead of depressive anxiety. For several nights I did not sleep well and the days in between were the worst, tired but unable to rest and full of anxious energy. I emailed my doctor and after talking to me she decided to discontinue the meds. I’ve only been off a few days and it takes time for the hormone level to come down, so hopefully in a few more days I’ll start to feel more “normal” again. Whatever that means. Then we will be starting a small dose of “natural” pig thyroid to see how I do on that.

At the same time as all this I’m changing my diet. I’m totally gluten-free at this point and working toward grain free, for the month of January I’m going to attempt to follow the autoimmune protocol. If nothing else I know that will help my blood sugar, gut issues, and overall health. Eating more veggies and less sugar is never a bad thing!

I don’t know what it is about telling my therapist that life is great that always proceeds a rough week. Maybe thats the cycle of life, life is always going to have ups and downs so inevitably a period of a few good weeks will be followed by lower or more difficult period.

I do feel like I need to go in less often regardless. I’ve learned so many tools and I’ve used them well this week. I know the things that help me and ground me. I’ve been doing yoga, skateboarding, reading, writing, breathing, and it helps! Talking to Ace has been really important as well, sometimes I just need to get my thoughts and feelings out into the world and he’s been a fantastic listening ear this past week (not to mention all the great sex).

I don’t feel like I’m done with therapy, its been huge in my personal growth and I never want to stop growing, but its nice to look at my life and see that some of these things are becoming habits. I can see better when I’m anxious and what I need to do to help myself though it. I feel more confident in my own skin and like I’m more often doing the best I can with what I have. Looking at my life and seeing growth is an important step sometimes and right now I’m taking a little breather from therapy and focusing on my physical health.