Growing up With Someone That's Difficult...

Good evening, so I am laying out a broad topic that means a lot to me and has been weighing on my heart, I am not completely sure how many of you out there will see this post or can relate to it on some level. But there comes a point in life when you will be faced with a crisis, maybe a few of them, usually they occur intermittently, but most of the time we are unprepared for them. Which doesn't lead us with a whole lot of control. I will continue to write as my way of venturing through these difficulties because as of right now this is the only thing helping me get through it.

I won't get into too much detail and I want to keep this anonymous for certain reasons but maybe some of you have someone in your family or a relative in your life that struggles with special needs. I don't even know if I can express enough, or in the right words, how hard it is to grow up watching them struggle, or to deal with the constant hardships that it brings. Some days you just wish things were different and that this person, whomever it is, that they did not have to have the impairments that they do. And we all know that we have no choice in if our relatives are disabled or not. And sadly, they didn't have a choice either for that matter, because I am very confident if they could chose for themselves they would want the best for themselves too. I do find myself struggling and pondering why certain people have to have these so-called "roadblocks" as I call it. I do not understand or will ever come to understand all the biological, psychological, and social factors that contribute to a child's development, sure we can come very close to understanding, but neuroscientists do not have all the facts on these disabilities. Neither do psychiatrists. I am not saying that they are not credible but still our understanding in this field is very lacking. I find myself as someone who likes to "dig deep" and "overanalyze," I guess this is my primitive nature at times.

I have learned enough about my own psychology to know that this tendency I have is not fixed and set in stone. Just like with the Nature vs. Nurture debate, neither nature alone, secluded from nurture is the answer; nor is nurture (Environmental factors) secluded alone from nature (Genetic components). What most people don't understand is that many genes are attributed to human behavior, not just one, and the environment can change the expression in genes when stressed. So just because someone is predisposed to having Generalized Anxiety Disorder, something that I have experience with, does not mean that they cannot change some of their behaviors and habits. It might feel like "Man, I am stuck like this forever" but the contrary is true because a lot of things are formed by habit, if you work hard like I have been in changing undesirable behaviors you are rewiring your brain. If you are consistent in replacing an undesirable behavior with something else, it is then that you create that neural pathway which grows neurons; that part of the brain will adapt and become stronger leading to more desirable behaviors.

With that being said, my own being has brought me places I never wanted to go to. But I had no choice, I did not get to chose my name so how is it that I can change what life throws my way or hands me? I simply cannot. I have struggled numerous times knowing that some things you can't do anything about and have little control over their turnout. I have never liked waiting things out and having to sit in "not knowing" with no solid ground beneath my feet. I would fight this every single time, it is only now, I think, that I am actually learning how to do this and building this network in my brain where I can shift out of flight or fight mode. But all this "digging" I do on my own sometimes leaves me battered, bruised and mentally exhausted, leaving me with little to no energy. In ways it is great, but in other ways it has made the trials of life much harder for me to deal with because I would keep taking on others' problems as my own and my energetic vibration, no matter how high it was, would dive down into their lower vibration. Right now in my life, I have started beginners yoga which consists of vinyasa poses and a series of poses called the "Sun Salutations", what I have noticed is when I struggle with a certain pose, or if I shake a lot, this shows how in my real life how I have always tried to gain control over external factors in my life that keep coming up. All I need to do is remain fixed on an object in the room and breathe. But all you need to do is tell yourself to hold the pose for one more breath. This brings me to a quote I read somewhere that said: "If we struggle with a pose, we are often struggling with a similar mental block in our lives."

That is not to say that you should not be worried about this person, you can, but you have to take care of yourself first. You cannot give when you are depleted yourself. When you can give to them, do give, when you cannot, then you cannot. It is SO important not to enmesh with what others are going through and try to fix the problem for them, I cannot stress that enough. I have tried so hard to not get so tangled up, and it is only now, with practice, that I am able to detach from the output of energy and emotions someone is dumping on me. I tell myself that "Yes, this person is struggling right now, and I don't know what they are going through. But it is not meant for me to try to understand, in time this will not be a problem anymore as all things in life are temporary." Then I remind myself that things change all the time, and that everything in life is always in a transient state into becoming something else. This is what helps me not stay fixed on something for too long. Changing your mindset, not entertaining the wrong kind of thoughts that are the same old repetitive ones, and taking proactive steps like, for instance, me writing on this blog for readers, doing yoga, being mindful, and learning to be a witness of my experience instead of believing that I am the experience. This has led me to where I am now, I don't know if I can even say that I would have been in the same mindset 6 months ago. But everything happens for a reason my dear friends, I was meant to travel in solitude to find myself, and grown spiritually, mentally and emotionally and it brought me here right now expressing my thoughts and experiences with you. I couldn't be more thankful!

I want to leave you guys with another quote, one that I hope you will take with you into your lives to manifest, and explore what it means for you, it can mean something completely different for everyone but it can serve you on your own sacred journey:

"In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty... in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe."

I am not saying to not be there for the relative you live with that struggles with a disability, I am saying to be there for them, support them, from a state of giving, when you feel you are able to give. Since you may not be able to draw boundaries with them, draw them within yourself by not taking responsibility for all that goes on with them. Sure, you can be worried and want to know what is going on. But in my own world, my codependent mindset and overly empathetic nature has sometimes driven me to my own misery leaving me fighting with life and not really allowing me to be happy and in a state of peace. So I say, do what you can, but be the detached witness even with this relative so that you don't deplete yourself even more. I am sure this person appreciates your efforts even if they don't say it.

Namaste,

Julia