Lifelong Struggles

A life full of people telling me I have so much potential,
Yet never actually having the stability and conditions I need to do that,

Through injury,
Environment issues,
Or mental health problems,
Where the mental health problems are a result of:

Genetics,
Injury,
Environment issues,
Lack of stability,
Lack of feeling fulfiled,

All the while with plenty of ideas for things which would be fulfilling,
But always with obstacles preventing me from doing them;

“You have so much potential,
Robin”,

Has been a sick joke!

So many things come intuitively to me,
And so many things I’ve worked hard at,
But these have mostly been restricted to hobbies,
Or were things that I could do before knee injuries,

😏;

Then, lastly,
I’ve lacked any kind of empathy or support that I needed,
To find a way through all of this mess,

I’ve so much lacked the feeling of being valuable,
As even when I did have jobs which I struggled to do,
I never had any encouragement then,
Only criticism,
As a result of constantly struggling,

And then the fear,
The fear of not being able to do those jobs,
And remain independent,
Well-and-truly caught between two rocks,
Just too many compromises,
For too long,
Despite being somebody intensely in-tune with themselves,
So much so that I didn’t even know that was something you could be;

I’ve never had an environment where I could relax and make progress,
With the time that I need to do it,
Unconditionally,
Whilst also having the support which I’ve needed,
Or even just encouragement;

An entire life spent on the back foot!
Always doing things wrong,
On-edge, waiting for the next criticism which inevitably comes,
And some of those criticisms are of side-effects from bad mental health from not being able to get that break;

All of this, never doing things right,
Not physically being able to do the things which I could do amazingly well,
With basic existence and good health being dependent on being able to do things well;

This is what became too exhausting two and a half years ago,
Since when I’ve been trying to reach that, at all costs,
With so many backward steps since,
And so many things working against me,
And so much lack of support;

Everything else has to be built upon feeling safe,
And when I think about having a place to my own,
Which is suitable for my physical limitations,
With stable income,
A chance to breathe,
And feel supported,
It’s a completely alien idea to me,
It’s a preposterously nice thing to consider!

So, nobody’s allowed to say:
“You have so much potential,
Robin”,

Whilst the basic conditions remain out of reach!
And with the amount of obstacles that I have.

I’ve come the closest I’ve ever come to that, this year,
—I gained the emotional support which I needed, here in this town,
—I’ve gained some rough outlines for fulfilling things which I could do in the future,
And that’s where I’m at.

The main part of that emotional and practical support is on shaky ground, though, because of the one day in April when I broke down from the stress of living in this house. The person running Green Health who has helped me so much, phoned me at 5am after I messaged her letting her know that I’d left the house after having that aggressive confrontation with a housemate’s partner, which sounds so absurd to write it. She’d phoned me at 5am because she doesn’t silence her phone, and simply wakes up when she receives messages in the night, which I of course didn’t know about.

She phoned me and I’d tried to explain to her the events, but there were misunderstandings, and it was most definitely not the best time for her to be trying to understand the complex emotional events which led to my situation. Once she had understood the basic events I tried to use the time for what I really needed right then— to hear a friendly voice and discuss ideas for what to do next. But she had become unnecessarily focused in on analysing the very first event in the sequence, which I couldn’t understand, and had ended up saying some insulting things to me, through not understanding my need to move on from that. And I can only put this down to the circumstances because she’s always been so understanding of me.

Every communication after that, the next day through text, was just more misunderstandings without having the opportunity to discuss the whole thing in person, in daylight, with our minds fresh. Too many misunderstandings occur too easily without the bandwidth of emotional communication which in-person communication gives.

It’s just so unfortunate that this misunderstanding occurred during this lockdown period, so that resolving it has been on pause indefinitely! I lack the certainty of knowing that her and her crucial support are still there. One of my ‘outline ideas’ was to eventually work with her there on the gardening project, not as a client.

Sorry it’s a long post, these are my essential worries at the moment and I couldn’t sleep so was a good time to write them down.

I’m going to show her this post and my other one I wrote just after the event, tomorrow 🙂.

🌪