Lost

I recently engaged in a series of pm's with an old friend. Now when I say old, I don't mean age, although...  This person has been an important part of my life for just over twenty seven years.  And although there have been literally years between contact I still hold this individual close to my heart for all the crap they've endured.

Most recently a very messy split from their spouse and subsequent legal battle.  This is taking it's toll on my friend and during the pm's they indicated they felt lost, that they didn't know who they were any longer, that all this crap has hardened them and they feel disconnected to the real them.

I explained that this is a way of protecting one's self in the midst of crisis.  It's putting up shields and disconnecting so you can deal with the situation from outside yourself.  It's protection it's a natural defence mechanism that will inevitably make you "feel" like you're not yourself any longer.

I know this feeling well.  I experienced it when I had the fateful conversation with my ex when I told him I couldn't do this any longer with him.  There was no fear, no emotion, nothing, just words coming from a body I was only partially inhabiting at that moment.  It's an odd surreal feeling and if it's prolonged it will lead to feelings of being lost or a fraction of the person you were.

Once you're through the crisis, really done with it you will re-connect.  You will fall back into yourself and feel whole again.  It will happen as long as the issues you are dealing with are dealt with.  Your brain is protecting the vulnerable emotional side of you so you can get through this and if you don't, if you run and hide and try to avoid the issues you are needing to have closure on you will always be lost to your self.

For a first time experience of this it will feel permanent.  Like there is no way you will ever be the same again and rightfully so, you won't.  You will have learned very valuable lessons from this experience and you will have the opportunity to grow from it.  Don't look at it as a bad thing, this could end up being one of the most important transformational moments of your life, embrace it and own it, most of all learn from it.

That shield will fall away and you will be whole again, you will be a better stronger version of yourself and you will have the copping tools to withstand pretty much anything life throws your way.  This is just another version of yourself, one, up until now you had never met.  It's still you, just different for a little while.

Tammy.