I am healed, but I still need patience

Read Time:4 Minute, 16 Second

By Kelly Slaney

I am many years free of abuse and toxic relationships. I am stronger mentally than I’ve been for a very long time. So many of the parts of me that had been dismantled and fractured have been put back together.

It took way, way longer than I ever would have expected. Years longer.

I’m here though, I am healed and I am strong.

I am healed, but I’m battle-scarred.

My scars

I’m healthy and I’m strong, but there are some very faded residual marks that I suspect will stick around a little while longer.

Like when stretchmarks, that were purple and raw and red and angry, fade to silvery faded lines. A memory of what a huge deal you have been through.

I still have a few remaining, faded mental scars. Like those silver stretch marks, they’re part of me, a record of a journey. Not that happy one of motherhood, but a journey nonetheless, and one I finished a free woman. I’m sure those mental scars will one day fade even further, possibly disappear completely, like so many of the other hangups and baggage toxic relationships left me with. I got rid of them eventually. I’m not angry or resentful of the remaining scars. They are me, now.

I need patience

The main one is a need for patience from people around me.

Super patience.

Patience in ultimate 4D.

Patience with a cherry on the top, tied with a bow.

You see, those parts of me that are healed yet fragile, they can all be fixed with patience.

I don’t have loads of friends or a massive really close family. I have a tiny inner circle of people, who I trust and care about, and who I am certain care about me.

My inner circle

That’s really all I need. The inner circle rocks, you know? Full of amazing humans! I think they get it, these people. They understand my need for patience, but I think it probably takes a while to get to grips with the nutty girl who behaves oddly sometimes!

I need patience, that sometimes I cancel plans because the horrid voice in my head is telling me I’m rubbish.

I need patience with my indecisiveness. It comes from a place where, when questions were asked, there was a right or wrong answer and it was essential to get it right – despite the fact you never would. Questions still sometimes transport me back to that mindset, and it’s as irritating for me as it is those around me.

I need patience at my – what must be bloody infuriating – absent-minded, head-in-the-clouds behaviour. It comes from a place where, once, I had to be hypervigilant every second of every day. I had to think 3, 7, 12 steps ahead of another person all the time, in order to second-guess how I should be behaving, to avoid a blow-up. It comes from having to be so aware of a tapping foot, or a certain type of sigh or a look, so I could attempt to diffuse a situation before it happened.

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Starting to relax

Now, I’ve always been naturally dozy, I confess, but I also worked out, with the help of my therapist, that actually, now, away from that situation, there’s no need for hypervigilance. I’m comfy and have gradually relaxed… I’ve relaxed… a lot, possibly too much!

I need patience when I overthink and am mentally already dealing with a situation that hasn’t even happened.

I need patience when my brain melts at emotional intimacy. That the L word is not in my vocab. That I’m getting better at hugs, but ON MY TERMS!

I need patience, constantly. I’ve been around people who’ve understood for a short while but then become frustrated and irritated, and then that’s me done really. Shut down. Closed for business. Emotional attachment done with. I know it’s irrational, but this is why the inner circle is so small, I guess.

I need consistency

It once took me knowing someone two years to go on a first date. Two years!!! I didn’t fully realise back then, but I absolutely needed that time of consistent words and actions. I needed to know this wasn’t someone who would change goalposts or be a different person from one day to the next. It must seem nuts to most, but it was necessary for me. Bloody hell, dating me, you have to work at Kelly pace, kind of like snail’s pace but a thousand times slower.

I’m healed, I’m strong, but I still need that element of patience in people I am close to.

I do so appreciate how my amazing family and lovely friends ARE patient with my flakey, indecisive tendencies, I really do! I’ve so much adoration for people who stayed the distance. Honestly, if I used the L word I’d declare it now, but small steps eh??

Reproduced with permission, originally posted on kellyandthekidsblog