by Julie Ferguson, Mackay
Why would sitting in a room full of women feel so difficult?
To sit in a room full of women and feel that I belong has not been an everyday experience for me. In fact, I’ve become increasingly aware of the discomfort and competitiveness that I’ve felt when I’ve been in the company of any woman. The constant comparison has created obstacles in the way I’ve conversed with them – as I distracted myself with feelings of envy or pity, depending on where I judged others to be in relation to me. Thankfully, this was not in force during Mackay’s Esoteric Developers Women’s Group (EDWG) and has since lessened enormously in my day-to-day living.
Sure, some things clashed with my outdated beliefs and self-judgements and prompted me to focus more on the person sharing than on what was being said. But as I allowed myself to get out of the way I opened up to the beauty that is within us all, including the beauty I could feel within myself.
As ‘hardness’ in women’s bodies was discussed, I wondered what exactly does that mean?
After all, aren’t we the epitome of softness?
What I’m discovering is that many of us have created a life for ourselves that is driven by what we can achieve, so that we can then feel good about what we have become. And as the weeks move into months since the EDWG, I am beginning to relate this hardness to a conditioning of myself to not ‘feel’ what’s really going on.
- If I don’t feel it I don’t have to face it
- If I’m not facing it I don’t have to be responsible for any of it.
As I continue to dig deeper and explore more of Who I Am, I’m discovering that the pain of facing me is lessening and I am sensing change deep within myself.
For many years I have toiled under the crushing weight of depression.
Keeping to myself the blackness that I’d feel creeping over me, feeling powerless to do anything other than sink into its seemingly bottomless and isolated depth.
Diagnosed with Depression at 15
I’d sought help at our family’s doctor at the age of 15. Diagnosed with depression, I was prescribed Ativan (which comes from the benzodiazepine family of drugs and is a mild tranquillizer). I dutifully took my medicine for a year and the feelings of hopelessness lessened enough so I could see that I would end up walking the same path of prescription dependency I’d witnessed in others if I didn’t make other choices.
So I stopped taking the medication. Within a few months I was back at the doctor’s with the same story of not being able to cope. I was overwhelmed by:
- deeper feelings of self-hatred
- anxiousness
- blackness
- wanting to check out of it all
However, I rejected the offer of more Ativan and decided if that was the only help being offered, I’d find my own way.
Drinking, Drugs and Self Abuse
I had already been drinking since the age of 14 and began illicit drug experimentation at 15 – both not to be used with Ativan, but hey, that’s the environment I grew up in – was there any other way?
What followed was years of abuse. It seemed wrong to me that it was ok to be dependent on a drug because a doctor had prescribed it and I felt so much more clever than others who took prescription drugs, as I wasn’t addicted to them. In my muddled head nor was I addicted to marijuana – I was cool, out there being a pioneer, doing it on my own. Yes, the depression was as heavy as it had always been, and when it would come I’d continue to sink with it, wallowing in the familiarity of its misery. But there was always the temporary relief that alcohol and marijuana would bring to help get me through this torturous existence… and so it continued this way for the next twenty years.
During this time I knew there was more, I just wasn’t sure what it was or how to get it.
I tried crystal healing, fortune telling, Tai Chi, Reiki, Church of Scientology, Christianity, kinesiology, Louise Hay workshops and lots more marijuana in my search for the ‘something’ that could bring me the self-love I was desperate to feel.
Then I became a mother.
I realised that it was sink or swim time for me. I could no longer hide in substance abuse and leave the raising of these amazing beings to chance. Somewhere inside me a realisation began to dawn that it was time for me to wake up and take responsibility for the mess that I was in. I started to feel that what I had been did not need to dictate who I was or who I would become.
During this time, a friend asked me what did I want? The word truth slipped through my lips before I even thought about it; while I felt that so many of my explorations had led me to elements of truth, they lacked the integrity of truth for all.
I began to look inwards for answers, instead of out, and I’m finding it becomes less of a blame game as I become more responsible for the choices I’ve made and continue to make in the life I’ve created for myself.
I am discovering the love – where it has been the whole way along; inside, waiting patiently for me to realise it’s there.