Don't drown Yourself

An article about staying afloat, battling emotional overwhelm, and what you can do when you can’t stop re-cycling old patterns.

I was talking to a friend while sitting in their living room looking out on the jacuzzi in the backyard. That’s when I got a vision, just lift your head above the water. You don’t need to drown yourself. I was talking to my friend about some serious stuff that I felt completely powerless too and also I made those emotions mean that I would be constantly disappointed in people for the rest of my life. Safe to say, it got really heavy for me to try to make sense of any of that.

And there was the jacuzzi. I realised that I have a tendency to dive deep underwater and get completely overwhelmed by current emotions, thinking that whatever is currently going on is bigger than me and I’m doomed. I have this tendency to just stay underwater, not come up for air and perhaps not even fully realise that I’m drowning.

It is difficult for me to write this article because I don’t want to support emotional avoidance through my words. I have no interest in promoting positive focus because I don’t practice that art of avoidance myself (note my passive aggression). Positive focus is great, when you have access to some level of hope in your life. But when everything that you’ve been through crushes you and immobilises your ability to make sense of your day-to-day life, positive focus absolutely sucks. Even the notion of it sound like an invalidation. At least has that been the case for me. Therefor I will not suggest positive focus as a tool for anything, in this article. Instead I would like to focus specifically on bringing the light of awareness upon the fact that you might currently be drowning yourself in a shallow pool. Have you seen the meme of the boy completely freaking out about the depths of the water without realising that it’s really super shallow and not dangerous at all where he’s at? here’s the link: https://imgur.com/gallery/7jIwyX9

The meme is sad and funny at the same time. But the boy is not being asked to focus positively… catch my drift? He might have been wrong about his perception of reality but that perception is still very very real to him.

The meme and my current situation might not be super similar, but I do find some comfort in the realness of the intensity of emotions that little boy is expressing. I wonder what I would have done in his place. I hope I would have realised that I’m able to just float and hold on to the rope, if I need to. I think the level of panic and the intensity of the emotions that I might exhibit in a similar scenario, would have to do with the deep fear I have for not been taken care of. I would panic so hard about not being able to accept reality because I wouldn’t be able to see a way out of my situation. And accepting reality, would to me, be the same as accepting defeat.

Defeat cannot be allowed. Defeat means death.

It is a very futile, powerless situation to find yourself in. I believe I’m perpetuating patterns of constantly being strong, and independent, not causing too much trouble, not being in the way, not risking that people get rid of me. It is self-defence against abandonment but without acknowledging that it’s really abandonment I am trying to avoid.

When you feel like you can’t allow for reality to be real, that’s when you starts fighting the waves and the sea will end up drowning you. Even the shallow pool will end up drowning you because it’s drawing force from your own resistance. You are, yourself, feeding the forces that overwhelm you.

Let me backtrack for a minute, and share some additional insight to my situation. Since the last article I posted I’ve been through a lot. I ended up spending several days in bed without even getting up to brew coffee. In a more poetic metaphor, that’s when I had gathered enough information about the world to know that I was lost at sea, battling the waves, drowning myself. So I simply gave in to the forces of the sea, I was so exhausted that I stopped swimming. I simply stopped. I wasn’t even hoping to float, I was too overwhelmed. I was perhaps simply allowing myself to drown.

Then, after three days in bed, the awareness of me drowning and that nothing would ease by tomorrow, hit. I saw no light at the end of the tunnel. I just saw perpetuate drowning, and no tools that I had helped to bring about even the tiniest motivation. Again, I even lost all interest in coffee. In a way that was my stubborn nature. I craved real healing, I wanted a life, a future. And I saw no way to bring that about. So I stopped trying. I gave up all ideas of trying something new. I reached my point of no return.

After the third day I just didn’t give a damn about my own rules anymore, I wanted people around, and I just didn’t care if they would abandon me or not. But, prior to every other scenario in my life, I refused to return back to the abuse of my relatives. It wouldn’t work. My relatives wouldn’t change their ways, and I didn’t want to continue hurting myself like that. The pain just never ever eased. So I called my friends parents and asked for their help. I gave in. I allowed myself to be broken. I decided that the sea might have its way with me, that I wasn’t going to fight it anymore, simply because I would never ever win the way I wanted to.

What followed was weeks of hell, cycles of guilt and shame and self hate. It all boiled down to me repeating to myself ” I have to survive this, no matter what. I have to survive this.”

I contacted my doctors, both for my eczema and just regular health, and I told them that I needed to speak with a therapist. Now almost a month has passed and still, the local health-care system has been of no help to me. Even worse, it has all felt like a let-down. Again mirroring my traumas regarding people picking my parents side instead of mine, even when I’m clearly the one that needs to be defended.

And that’s okey.

I don’t need to drown myself.

There is enough momentum being created by focusing on other paths that I don’t have to be drowning anymore, and at the same time I’m not avoiding the reality that I’m swimming in a sea. One foot in front of the other, and even when you fall back, that’s okey. You continue, one foot in front of the the other. Commit to the process of step by step, without measuring the movement. And things will occur in your path, things that are a blessing. And things that potentially might drown you if you allow them too. I am still not promoting positive focus!

I am trying to inspire inclusive awareness of reality. Meaning seeing all that currently is presented in front of you. And also seeing how drowning yourself is a choice.

I am still not at a good place, pointless to lie about that. I still don’t sleep well and I can’t be alone because I itch, scratch and dissociate/ have anxiety attacks. And that reality is not pretty. Not at all. But I am currently practicing to allow for it.

So everything isn’t turning out the way I would have wanted to. I am not feeling as if I’m healing, I don’t feel stronger at all, I don’t feel as if I have a control over the situation I am in. And I don’t know what the future will bring. But I do know that drowning is a choice, not an absolute giving the circumstances. I don’t have to drown myself.

There is power to be found in the realisation that the waves don’t have to drown you. Yet it is important, I think, to make a note of the fact that you need alternative outlets to focus on. In my opinion surrounding yourself with people, when you’re prone to self-isolation and self-hate, is a very considerable aspect. Nonetheless, avoidance is not an option. Therapy is needed in whatever form is most suitable to the individual going through an emotional overwhelm.

So what am I proposing if you can’t stop re-cycling old patterns? If you, almost per reflex, keep drowning yourself?

I read a quote, along the lines of ”here you are presented with a blank page, a new beginning, don’t use the same hand nor the same handwriting” and that stuck with me. It worked almost as the added fuel needed to go that last mile home, to safety. The quote propelled me into a state of active choice, and woke me from the depths of powerlessness and despair. What would happen if I radically just did things differently? What would be the butterfly affect on the implemented changes? Knowing that everything in this universe works on the law of cause and affect, change the action and you change the outcome. That was enough at this point in my journey to make me not give up. Maybe cheer willpower is driving me, maybe something within me finally shifted thanks to all internal shadow-work and parts work I’ve been doing.Whatever it is, I don’t want to go back, and I will make it. I will make it. I am a good swimmer, I trust my abilities and I don’t have to drown myself.

Much Love, Ecaterina, Apprentice of Silence

If you’re interested in self-development, theological support and guidance or intuitive energy-work, you’re welcome to book a session with me. I have over the years developed a strong intuition and broad knowledge in the human psyche+ emotional work, I focus on Inner Child work and Gaslight-recovery. Read more under Services. Energy work, psychic clearings, healings and tarot card-readings are available, and incorporated, as well.