Therein lies the rub

So God and I need to have a long talk.   The NFOO into which I was born is riddled with personality disorders and mental illness.  I married a man with p/a personality disorder – compared to my NFOO, he looked normal…  Well, he didn’t rage, anyway…  Little did I know...  Having come to terms with all of this nonsense, I find myself facing the abyss.  Who am I, really?  What are my dreams, my wishes, my desires?  I’m dealing with adolescent questions about my identity in the Third Age.  How do I do this?  I’m trying to slow down, to deal with the anxiety instead of blocking it, to take deep breaths and listen to the world around me.  The anxiety is mostly gone – but I’ve had 2 panic attacks in the last few days and I think now it’s more about the future than the past –progress, but still scary.  I want my life to be meaningful – but I now have to define that differently than I did before.  I want to experience joy, love, excitement, pleasure – but I also want to care and be cared for, to love and be loved back, to give and be given to – the second part of those phrases has been missing to a large degree and

I feel like I’m missing some piece that makes these things possible.  An essential piece, a piece that makes real relationships possible…  I refuse to believe that I was born without that piece, but I do believe that it was taken from me early on in my life and I know that I have to somehow find it if I’m to find peace.   How do I do this?  How do I stop presenting a self to the world that is giving, caring, and loving without expecting anything in return?  I’ve stopped automatically jumping into caregiver status.  I now think through whether or not I have the time and energy to do something for others, and if I don’t, I hold back.  And surprisingly, I don’t feel selfish when I decide that I can’t give something.  (This, I think, is marvelous progress!!!) 

But I still feel unworthy, somehow, of having people help me.   It’s not like I haven’t needed help, but I’m terrified of asking for it – and I find that most people don’t have the crazy radar that I have that alerts them to people’s needs.  And a lot of the time, I guess because of the unworthiness factor, I don’t even KNOW I need help until after the time has passed and I’ve struggled through on my own.  Goodness, I was well trained to live in the NFOO – but not to live in the real world with real people.   

I’m open to any and all ideas, y’all!