Stop Being A Victim & Hiding Behind Being Misunderstood.
{Photo credit: Sharon Pruitt}
I was first introduced to the band Garbage in 2005 by a friend.
At the time, I was busy falling from anorexia into binge-eating and purging through exercise, running my ass off for college track, excelling in school, making new friends and working, while swimming in self-hatred.
She was doing her best at becoming anorexic. I was just getting over my denial of having an eating disorder and trying to find my way out, while she was actually embracing anorexia, introducing me to this and speaking highly of intelligent and famous women who had struggled with eating disorders.
Eating disorders and thin-talk was not the only thing we bonded on, but it was certainly part of it. She shared the song Bleed like me with me.
It is still one of my favorites.
But the meaning behind the song changed.
I changed.
At the time and for many years after, I screamed “C’mon baby, can you Bleed Like Me?” along with Shirley because…
… I wanted the world to bleed like me and to bleed with me: to understand my misery by being as miserable as I was. I wanted help. I wanted out. But I didn’t actually know what health, happiness, love and freedom were.
The only things I knew were suffering, sadness, self-hate, loneliness and shame. I wanted people around me to feel just as bad. I thought if they were also miserable they would understand me. They would love me. They would help me up.
I was wrong. Those who bleed like me were just doing that: bleeding like me. We were suffering together… or rather alongside each other. Those who were not bleeding didn’t understand me. They didn’t believe me about my behaviors and my sadness. They were sick of it.
I was an over-sharer. (I still am.) “You should see my scars.” I was sharing a lot: my scars, my wounds, my pains, the bad things that happened to me, how bad I felt about myself, the physical pain I was in. At the time it was always from the victim-mentality. A constant cry for help.
Complaining and stories about my misery. TMI. People got overwhelmed by my pain and wanted out. They didn’t know that despite over-sharing, I still had so much untold pain inside. Pain I wanted to tell or re-tell. Not to mention the shame behind all the pain.
Eating disorders. Depression. Trauma from abuse. Chronic hip pains. Feeling unloved. Self-harm. Chronic headaches. Low self-esteem. My struggle to survive. My hope to thrive. My wish to be alive and feel alive.
I felt misunderstood, not understood, not wanted, not loved and too much. I cried for help. I screamed. I wanted others to bleed. I wanted them to see my bleeding. To help me cover the wounds.
Eventually I understood that healing had to come from within. That I had to stop examining sadness to be happy. I had to actually look into what happiness, freedom and love were all about to experience it.
I became open to everything. I started to dig deep. I started to learn about and practice happiness, gratitude, forgiveness and love. I started healing. I healed from chronic headaches. The hip pains are the past. Forgave my father. A lot of sadness, depression and self-hate is in the past.
There is still a lot to uncover. There is still a lot to heal. It is a journey. But I am more prepared from a positive angle.
“Bleed Like Me” became “Heal Like Me”.
I understand you. I know how you feel. I am here to listen. I am here to love you. I am here to support you. You are not alone. We are in it together: to be happy, healthy, loving, loved and free — to be authentically and unapologetically who we are, living our truth from the heart.
“Try to comprehend that which you’ll never comprehend” was and still is my favorite line.
I used to hide behind this line: I will never understand this, you will never understand me, I am trying and trying and still not getting it. It was my excuse not to take responsibility, to remain a victim.
Then I realized that I didn’t have to comprehend it all. Suddenly it was more comprehensible than ever.
Slowly but surely I claimed responsibility; I started to learn happiness habit by habit, experience by experience and feeling by feeling. Now I am happily walking on my healing path.
Sometimes it is amazing, sometimes it is difficult, sometimes it is mediocre, sometimes it is fun, sometimes it is miserable, but I am looking to find the gift in each step and misstep along the way.
I am on the journey of happiness, health and freedom.
I am not alone.
You are not alone.
Let’s walk together.
Let’s heal together.
*****
Kat Gál is a Holistic Health & Happiness Coach, guiding women to feel empowered to get out of the roller-coaster of chronic emotional and physical pain, and enter into a world of confidence, self-love, energy, happiness, health and freedom. She also specializes in healing from child abuse, working with women who have survived the trauma of growing up in a dysfunctional family and the trauma of abuse experienced as a child or teen. She is the creator of the Your 21-Day Mind-Body-Soul Shake-Up! (w)holistic cleanse and an author of several ebooks, including 365 Days of Journaling. Kat invites you to join You are enough! You deserve to be happy, healthy & loved!, a safe sanctuary for women on healing, sharing and living. You can follow her via her website on holistic health and happiness, by signing up for her newsletter and following her on Facebook.
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