Drastic Changes

There is fear in recovery.

It took me a long time to admit to myself how sick I actually was.  I tend to think that I can do anything I try to do, and that I will be the best ever (A+++!), so it took the endometriosis getting really bad for me to acknowledge that I couldn't.

Couldn't keep moving forward.
Couldn't support myself.
Couldn't heal myself.

I finally did acknowledge my need (thank you, E.R. trip of 2010), but it still took months of living with my parents and working for them - even borrowing their vehicles since I sold mine in 2010 - before I internally defined myself as dependent.

I'm glad it was hard for me to embrace dependency, because dependency can be dangerous.  Just as there are both healthy and unhealthy forms of independence, there are healthy and unhealthy forms of dependence.  Healthy dependence says, "I need other people.  I can't function autonomously.  I am just one piece of a much larger whole and I need to learn to work in conjunction with all the other pieces."  Unhealthy dependence says, "I'm going to let everyone else do all the work so I never have to face my fears or grow as a human being or contribute my share."

That second form is such a trap (and on a totally polarizing political note, is where welfare gets sticky for some people) because life is scary sometimes.  It's scary to be an adult and have to stand on your own.  It's scary to provide for yourself - to be the person in the job interview selling your skills and praying they're good enough for the employer.  No one can prove yourself but you.  Sink or swim, success or failure, no one can do it for you but you.  So when you've been sick and gotten used to others providing for you - to never having to really be good at anything because the real adults around you were gonna take care of it no matter what - then health...freedom...independence...is scary.

And it's rushing upon me 860 miles per hour.

When surgery is past and I am recovered I will have nothing but myself standing between me and thriving.  I am ready...like a woman is ready to give labor...like a soldier is ready to go into combat...like a virgin is ready to get married.